Oh wait!  There’s razor wire.  Must be a prison.  Sometimes the differences are barely perceptible.

This was the startling revelation I had when researching the Tennessee Prison for Women for an article I’m writing. 

I mean really!  Check it out and tell me if you don’t have flashbacks to your alma mater.  I could almost smell the mystery meat simmering in the cafeteria picture.  And I could recall the dread of entering into my former middle school building. 

Here are some more similarities:

Prison has a warden---Government schools have a principal.

Occupants of the buildings are required by law to be there.  (Unless school-aged children are educated elsewhere.  Thank God we can still do this.)

Operating budgets are bloated.

Its management is dictated by politically correct thinking.

Both institutions have a pre-lease program.  (In schools it’s called “graduation.”)

Okay, I know, I know. I could keep going on but I’ll restrain myself.  I am not a complete anarchist…I just have a problem with the socialism that drives education or the philosophy that can be summed up with a quote from that logical sage, Spock, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” (From “The Wrath of Kahn.”)

Children are not generic little people.  They are individuals with creativity and unique gifting.  And by stuffing them into a “one size fits no one” institution…we imprison their souls. 

And the oh-so-sad fact, those who fall through the cracks the most in the system get more than their souls imprisoned.

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