Schooling has become a tool which is
able to control the population. Deacon’s 'moral orthopedics' dimension
insinuates that a school system has qualities such as a prison. Disciplinary
action is taken, and authority is proven. Those who teach are controlling the
“inmates” (Deacon, 2006 p. 182), as he calls them. He believes that the learning
process cannot be detangled from the judicial process. Punishment may have
moved from the physical to the emotional but there is punishment for ill
behavior none the less.
Think about it, Deacon is correct. A
school dictates how its pupils should spend their time and manage recreation
accordingly according to sexuality and gender. Children were split up based on
age and capabilities, which excludes those who are unable to function as its
peers. Segregation would have been created by this separation and therefore
discipline is easily achieved by completely separating the child or making an
example of them in front of their peers. Discipline has evolved and so have the
schooling process. The methods of discipline in a school are those seen all
throughout the population. You are able to see it in “workhouses, poorhouses,
prisons, and guilds” (Deacon, 2006, p. 182). The way one teaches remains the
same but the repercussions have vastly changed in regards to education.
Take the Panopticon idea of structure as
a disciplinary resource. In high schools that are being built recently in
Halifax there are generally mezzanine area where authorities are able to look
down and observe their pupils. This method as we have learned is used in
prisons. They are used to control behavior. No one is willing to act out when
they believe their authority is watching. Sir John A. Macdonald High School for
example has a crescent shaped mezzanine which allows you to see the entire
entrance and stair case leading into the school. The students would be watched
while they were inside and out from this area of observation. Students just as
the inmates did would act accordingly. This form of observation was not present
in the older building which the high school used to occupy. Authority has taken
it as their job to observe the down time of the students in order to chastise
them for wrong doings in order to control their behavior. Just as Deacon said
the school system has become a prison for the students. They are told what
classes to go to, what times they are able to take a break, how they should
behave, what homework they have to do, when their homework is due, and a new
school rule has been passed that all students must partake in a physical
education program during one of the semesters they are in school.
The students have little control over
what they do in the school and disciplinary actions for schooling does not end
within the institution. Parents are now dictating what activities are deemed
appropriate for their children and how much time they must dedicate to their
schooling. “The apportionment of time, the management of sexuality, the
manipulation of bodies, the spread of lateral controls” (Deacon, 2006, p. 181),
are the ways the education system controls the students. It may not be the
barbaric tactics previously used like beating a child but the effects are
detrimental. It would emotionally shun particular children from the educational
system without even realizing. Discipline is a necessary for the means of
education, deacon sees that need, but that discipline should not control the
students overall personality. Deacons word choice of inmates creates a
disconnect between joy and education. Children are still children, and why
should the disciplinary actions of authority snub their imagination process and
freedom. Complete control is necessary for disciplinary actions which are not
related to schooling but when a child feels obligated to act in a certain way
all the system is doing is making it easy for rebellion.
The term moral orthopedics means a common
standard in justice, involving right and wrong. Why then with this encouraging
of goodness does the educational system implement a discipline system such as
the one where the fundamental human rights of a child are taken away. Their
lives are controlled and they are unable to stop it. Schooling does not teach
you right from wrong because it does not give you the chance to act in the
wrong, and if you do you are chastised to a point where you will never act out
in such a way again. Education is suppressing students to fit a mold of the
perfect student.
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