Is this an American problem most of us are too European to understand
There are some incredibly prison looking schools in Vienna. Most of the prisons just look like random apartment or administrative buildings from the outside.
Imo schools look like prisons in China and Japan too
At least in Japan they have fresh cooked food and teach students how to eat healthy.
I think its because both need to house a large amount of individuals in as small a space as acceptable to the outside society. But also, both are ultimately mechanisms of authority that shirk their supposed goals of education on the one hand and restitution/rehabilitation on the other.
Related, perhaps unpopular opinion: It’s outright silly how we expect a good learning environment to come out of putting all of our socially unformed minds into one big facility, with little behavioral supervision (10-to-1, 15-to-1, or worse), and compel them to move from location to location by a bell, and to perform rote memorization in order to meet some metric of success. It’s sillier how we expect children to come out of this environment socially well-adjusted, having learned something of value, without psychological trauma, besides the experience of navigating a system of hierarchical authority. You know the wisdom passed down by my liberal (using liberal here in a very strict sense – NOT necessarily left leaning) Catholic father, who ostensibly would defend the value of educating the public (though, perhaps not the value of public education)?
“Find out what the teacher wants and give it to them.”
My public schools had teacher/student ratios up to 35-1. Good old Utah.
Because it’s a building that optimizes people in small rooms in a finite space. Built on a budget that asks for durable plain construction by the lowest bidder. In some cases the same construction firms might very well win contracts to build either.
Why doesn’t most office space look like prisons? Office space is general use and can be leased and it’s intended to be torn up and modernized every few years.
In EU prisons look like schools. Seriously most prisons here just look like student dormitories. And nothing like movie (aka american) prisons.
Today on “things that happen only in the US”…
Schools look pretty nice in NZ, I think.
Any building that has to maintain a high degree of physical security and be built at minimum cost can look like a prison.
They don’t everywhere even in the US. Anywhere with a decent public works budget or older building stock won’t have that aesthetic.
Can you be more specific on what reminds you of prisons with your schools? I don’t think any of my schools in Germany looked anything like a prison.
I have zero evidence to support this, but it could be government contractors saving money by reusing and slightly modifying building plans between actual prisons and schools? My high school building could definitely have been a prison with some adjustments. Total speculation though.
I have heard that the fims employed to design a school are often the same ones that do prisons, maybe because it has to deal with the same requirements. Lots of people, shower and toilet facilities, revocable access areas.
The last 10-15 years in Western Canada though they have empoyed some stylish modern designs. In some cases too modern. Some looked amazing, lots of light, high ceilings, natural elements, etc but the architects forgot teachers need to store a lot of materials and the classroom had zero storage areas, as did rest of school. They ended up using the theatre stage as a storage zone. Which had to be cleared out for plays.
