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Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

American schools resemble actual prisons in many ways. From the architecture of buildings to the freezing temperature (prisoners fight less when cold) they are shockingly similar. And they have to wake up unnaturrally early.

I think it all comes down to how students are seen by architects and the school system in general. I wonder if private schools are different.

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> American schools resemble actual prisons in many ways.

It's not just american schools. All schools resemble prisons because all school systems around the world essentially adopted the american model which borrowed heavily from the prussian model.

All schools were compulsory indoctrination centers which buttressed the burgeoning nation-states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system

Modern education system, along with national media, government, etc are pillars of the nation-state. You can't have a nation-state without one nowadays.

I've seen how schools are in other countries both in person and on video. In the US down to the doors and walls they are almost identical. Perhaps the US does it a bit too well?

I would hazard a guess that it has to do with a lot of American schools being made during the Cold War, and designed to double as emergency shelters.

That was the impression I always got from my 1984-built Elementary school building. It was all concrete block construction with odd roof angles taken low to the ground. Many fond memories of using the Macintosh LCs in a completely-windowless freezing-cold chamber in the center of the building.

Not just the cold war. My elementary school was originally from the early 20th century and it had the vestiges of the subsequent wars: bomb shelter signs, eerie hallways without windows, heavy metal doors to transition between sections of the building.

> My elementary school was originally from the early 20th century and it had the vestiges of the subsequent wars: bomb shelter signs, eerie hallways without windows, heavy metal doors to transition between sections of the building.

Some/all of that have less to do with war and more to do with general disaster preparedness.

* Bomb shelters provide shelter from...bombs, yeah

* Windowless hallways provide shelter from tornadoes (no glass to break/become shrapnel)

* The heavy metal doors are firewalls that automatically close when the alarm goes off (most are hollow, won't do shit against assault weapons and predate even Columbine)

You know, that might actually be a reasonable explanation.

The doors are part of the response to massive gun ownership in the US. To try to keep schools safer, many have airlock-style entrances, metal detectors, and other systems to try to prevent people with guns from getting inside.

Uh, no. They had the massive metal doors 40-50 years ago. Metal detectors are new, but the designs are older then 99% of people on this site.

Doesn't this vary widely? I don't see how the schools I went to were like prisons.

An example: most schools in northeastern US are built around windowless hallways; most schools in the southwest and California have classrooms that open directly into the outdoors, with mezzanines, walkways, and staircases exposed directly to the elements.

Which one is supposed to be prison-like? Both just seem like utilitarian architecture to me (and so are prisons I guess). You don't want students to have to walk out in the elements between rooms in the middle of winter in New York, and you'd want to maximise the number of windows that classrooms have (since that's where students spend the majority of their day), so where else would you put hallways?

I suppose you could put windows between the classrooms and hallways, but those have their own associated problems to overcome: increased noise, more windows for students to break, safety in emergency situations, etc.

As for non-connected classrooms, where you need to walk outside to go between rooms, I've always thought that was to solve the same problems. Cheaper to build/renovate/modify/expand, easier to clean, less noise and fewer students running into each other.

The east coast school hallway is more prison-like, by far. There's a reason it's a horror movie cliche. Windowless, clinical, institutional, often with tiles on the walls and floor to make cleaning easier.

My high school had windows you couldn’t see out of at all. They were made of plastic when built in the 70s and the material degraded within a few years and turned opaque. Class started at about 7:20, which meant I “woke up” at 6 (usually after staying up super late hacking on things on the late 90s Internet). Lunch was at like 10:45 and was barely food with no water, if I ate at all.

It definitely felt like we were trapped in there and held against our will.

I think Japanese schools are something to learn from. They usually have openable windows to let fresh air in, the "commons" area is usually outdoor and students cleanup and care for the school itself -- which teaches students to be responsible and it makes them feel like they are an essential part of the school, not brains to be herded. I don't care much for the uniforms though.

Now I am curious how schools in scandanavia are, given their famous prisons.

Uh, Japanese schools are way more prison like. There are some positive attributes (as you mention), but overall it is not a great system to model.

There's a lot to...not like, about Japanese schools, but the whole "students take care of cleaning" thing is something I do think would be nice to see in the US.

But that's the same part of me talking that wishes everyone was "forced" to work a retail or food service job for a year or two of their life. Probably impossible to actually do and enforce here, but would definitely make people overall be nicer and more considerate of others (and in the case of cleaning schools, more likely to clean up after themselves).

Come on, if you are referring to schools in the U.S this is a gross misrepresentation of reality. School lunches are mandated by federal law (milk and/or juice is to be provided). Its hardly 'no food at all'. The fact _you choose_ to stay up all night hacking on things does not matter in the hours of school operation. What about the people that go to bed at 8 and are morning people?

The fact _you choose_ to stay up all night hacking on things does not matter in the hours of school operation.

That's pretty frustrating to read. I was sleep deprived enough to sleep 15 hours a day on the weekends during high school, but actually going to bed before midnight still just resulted in staring at a dark ceiling for an hour.

Sleep hygiene is important, but at a certain point the circadian rhythm will put its foot down.

The unfortunate reality is that people have to meet up at some point and overlap for much of the day. This is as true for an adult as for a child. I say this as a night owl myself; the world hasn’t picked our way.

True enough, but starting at 9:00 AM instead of 7:30 AM still leaves plenty of time for that. It wouldn't have been enough for me, but an extra hour and half of sleep would have been way better than nothing.

I also suspect that starting at 11 AM-1 PM and going until 4-5 PM, despite being less overall time, would produce vastly better academic outcomes in high school just due to the average teenage circadian rhythm and the resulting zombification of current students. The noneducational duties of high school could be handled by letting students show up earlier as needed with breakfast/lunch provided- the structured classes would just start later.

Maybe give the early arrivers a place to take a nap while we're at it.

Starting at even 8:30 would have been life changing for me. I, like you, just couldn’t fall asleep before midnight (still don’t). Not that I think we should accommodate people like me that naturally are later, but the average 16 year old isn’t happily waking up at 6 am.

I totally agree that if we focused on getting kids a reasonable amount of sleep and a healthy meal or two (and hydrated!), we’d likely be able to have much better outcomes.

The CDC recommends schools start at 8:30. I have the same sleeping habit as you, regardless of my work schedule (including graveyard shift over the years), I naturally wake up later than 7-8am and I am most productive late noon or after 1am.

We need to fight for our rights. Build systems that will weed out the early risers. :D

I was taking prescribed sleeping pills because I couldn't fall asleep and had anxiety attacks late at night if I forced it. My school started at 6 am so I got up at 5 am. It got pretty bad at some point.

My dad and grandfather both have problem sleeping early but I am worse.

We had three lunches per day, mostly overlapping with other classes. As in, you were either on A, B, or C lunch while the other kids were in class. Often, A lunch wasn't prepared yet and C lunch didn't have enough by the end of it. This was a chronic condition in a few CA schools when I attended.

My SO was a teacher for a few years too. Despite Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL) being offered and encouraged, many kids' parents still could not be bothered to sign their kids up until late in the year. My SO kept food in the drawers of the desk for these kids. In addition, FRL did not cover the weekends, so many kids would come in on Monday having not eaten for that weekend. Though not common, it was again chronic with these kids.

Food scarcity in the US is still very much a 'thing', unfortunately.

I remember being very hungry most of the day. If I ate, it was usually because I had enough change to buy junk-food snacks from a vending machine. I didn't know until recently other people also had similar experiences.

You went to bed at 8 as a 16 year old? That seems... atypical for a teenager or even an adult. Even my father, who is definitely a morning person and wakes up at 4:30 or 5 every day, doesn’t go to bed at 8.

I was and am a vegetarian, and maybe in wealthy districts they have better lunch options, but certainly not in mine. The fact that we largely tie school funding to property taxes is a huge problem. Regardless, let’s not pretend that school lunch, at least in the 90s, was actually healthy or good or even at a reasonable time for lunch.

The CDC and other health orgs actually recommend starting schools a bit later [1]. Going through puberty plus some people naturally waking up later (sleeping early just means waking up most of the night) has serious health implications when waking up too early consistently.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6430a1.htm

Sure but isn’t this also largely a function of adults dropping off kids before work?

Probably, but interestingly in my local school district they have moved up the start time even though there is no bus service offered past elementary school…

My high school looks indistinguishable from a prison. When I have to drive by it now while visiting home I always kind of shudder. Giant mostly windowless buildings with a giant fence surrounding.

My sister's first college dorm was literally made by a prison architect. It showed.

Everything in the US is a prison. The 1980 Olympic village in Lake Placid was built to be a federal prison, briefly functioned as the Olympic village housing athletes, and has functioned as a federal prison ever since then.

Ref: https://www.lakeplacid.com/story/2016/02/olympic-prison-stor...

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