Out Prison School Quotes & Sayings

How do we redefine education so that 30-50 percent of inner-city children do not drop out of school, thus ensuring that millions will end up in prison? — Grace Lee Boggs

Because my graduate academic training at law school was not one that included most of the intellectual traditions I find useful for understanding the conditions and problems that most concern me - anti-colonial theories, Foucault, critical disability studies, prison studies and the like are rarely seen in standard US Law School curricula, where students are still fighting on many campuses to get a single class on race or poverty offered - I developed most of my thinking about these topics through activist reading groups and collaborative writing projects with other activist scholars. — Dean Spade

The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state.
... The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard. — Henry David Thoreau

As I have pointed out time and again, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to send little kids to school than it is to let them grow up into young thugs who have to be sent to prison, not to mention the savings in the wear and tear on the nerves, property, and safety of the rest of the citizenry. — Molly Ivins

I hated high school. It was a prison. — Alan Alda

That's me, by the way, arriving at "prison" - also known as Hills Village Middle School - in — James Patterson

From here I can say that I am Prisoner... where!?
Prisoner in school... with this new system you are prison... so my number is 2442 and what's yours? — Deyth Banger

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison. — William Glasser

He reads every book in his home but it is not enough. The country boy craves stories. He devours every poem and fable in his school and library. Still he hungers. For stories. — Jennifer Lanthier

Useless labor, that I feared would stay in my mind, extending into me, into everything. On the occasion of both funerals I made plans ahead of time to visit Pasquale. In those years I did that whenever I could. In prison he had studied a lot, had received his high school diploma, and, recently, a — Elena Ferrante

I grew up in the South Wales valleys, but I think my parents realised from quite an early age that if they hadn't sent me to boarding school I would have probably gone to prison. And it cost them absolutely everything. — Thighpaulsandra

I prayed to dispel my fear, until suddenly, and I do not know how the idea came to me, I began to pray for others. I prayed for everyone who came into my thoughts - - people with whom I had traveled, those who had been in prison with me, my school friends of years ago. I do not know how long I continued my prayer, but this I do know - - my fear was gone! Interceding for others had released me! — Corrie Ten Boom

Everyone who has ever been to school knows that school is prison, but almost nobody beyond school age says it is. It's not polite. We all tiptoe around the truth because admitting it would make us seem cruel and would point a finger at well-intentioned people doing what they believe to be essential. . . . A prison, according to the common, general definition, is any place of involuntary confinement and restriction of liberty. In school, as in adult prisons, the inmates are told exactly what they must do and are punished for failure to comply. Actually, students in school must spend more time doing exactly what they are told than is true of adults in penal institutions. Another difference, of course, is that we put adults in prison because they have committed a crime, while we put children in school because of their age. — Peter Gray

It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water. — Claude Monet

Whether I'm feeding the homeless, stopping by a high school to chat with teens, visiting a prison or local jail, I think that the greatest service you can give is yourself. To be able to help someone who is not in a position to help themselves or possibly ever repay you. — Raheem Devaughn

At the end of the elementary program, I then had to move onto high school. Simultaneously, my parents moved to Attica to a suburban area not far from the well-known Attica State Prison. Then I would take the school bus which was a very short distance away, where I was involved with a much larger community. — Paul Smith

Everything will be okay. Trust me. I don't know how many times he's said that to me, not just here in prison but my whole life. When I was scared for the first day of school, or stressed about a big test; when I fell off my bike in sixth grade and split my lip. When my mom got sick. I always believed him. He's my father, he wouldn't lie to me; he's a grown-up, he knows the truth. But now I see his promises for what they really are: hopeful prayers, a mantra he says as much to reassure himself as me. He can't fix this, not even close. — Abigail Haas

Most of his face had been hidden by long, greasy bangs, and he mumbled in a low voice that made him difficult to understand. From what little Kyosuke had been able to make out, Usami had killed one person, but he mostly spent his time at the podium reciting strange names that Kyousuke didn't recognize like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein... Maybe they're actors? — Mizuki Mizushiro

Nearly a quarter of American men were in the Armed forces [in 1968] . The rest were in school, in prison, or were George W. Bush. — Bill Bryson

You can't teach at our school if you don't live in the compound. It was like some kind of prison-work farm for our liberal, white, vegetarian do-gooders and conservative, white missionary saviors. — Sherman Alexie

The County Jail looked like a tall, forbidding elementary school. Seven stories of dirty brown brick, one hundred years old and now operating at 330 percent of capacity. — Richard Price

To-day, when the crisis calls you, will you go off and display your recitation and harp on, 'How cleverly I compose dialogues'? Nay, fellow man, make this your object, 'Look how I fail not to get what I will. Look how I escape what I will to avoid. Let death come and you shall know; bring me pains, prison, dishonour, condemnation.' This is the true field of display for a young man come from school. Leave those other trifles to other men; let no one ever hear you say a word on them, do not tolerate any compliments upon them; assume the air of being no one and of knowing nothing. Show that you know this only, how not to fail and how not to fall. — Epictetus

Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons? — Michel Foucault

I just might kill someone in my next job, and I'll be honest here, I couldn't do the time. Really. No way. I couldn't share a room with four other people, let alone poop in front of them. I hate sharing a room and a bathroom with my husband, and I even have eminent domain over him. Prison would never work out: I'd get picked last for all of the gangs, I'd never get included in the escape plans, it would be just like high school — Laurie Notaro

Danbury wasnt a prison, it was a crime school. I went in with a Bachelor of marijuana, came out with a Doctorate of cocaine. — George Jung

I wrestled and played football in high school and in my last year, I started as a wrestler and actually had a fairly good record. But I hated to lose. I always gave it everything I had which, unfortunately, was not as much as I'd hoped for. But keep in mind, I feel like I got the most out of my ability. One moment that was special above all the rest was winning my last bout at the Naval Academy to finish the entire summer undefeated. That was thrilling, but what's more, it helped me in prison because the first time I got knocked around by the Vietnamese, it did not come as a total shock. — John McCain

Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates, past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I've been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there's no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I'm bloated with language I can't afford to forget. — Warsan Shire

Benefits of Improv To the Editor: Re "Inmate Improv," by Anna Clark (Op-Ed, Dec. 31): It was not surprising to me that an improvisational theater workshop would help a prison inmate adjust to life after his release. Pretend play has been shown to improve the executive-function skills in preschool and school-age children. These skills include the ability to control emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exercise self-control and discipline. As poor executive-function skills are associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime, it would behoove all adults involved in child-rearing to encourage role-playing or "improv." STEVEN ROSENBERG Fairfield, Conn., Dec. 31, 2014 The writer is director of the Elementary Reading Program at the University of Bridgeport School of Education. — Anonymous

But he had always believed in fighting for the underdog, against the top dog. He had learned it, not from The Home, or The School, or The Church, but from that fourth and other great moulder of social conscience, The Movies. From all those movies that had begun to come out when Roosevelt went in.
He had been a kid back then, a kid who had not been on the bum yet, but he was raised up on all those movies that they made then, the ones that were between '32 and '37 and had not yet degenerated into commercial imitations of themselves like the Dead End Kid perpetual series that we have now. He had grown up with them, those movies like the every first Dead End, like Winternet, like Grapes Of Wrath, like Dust Be My Destiny, and those other movies starring John Garfield and the Lane girls, and the on-the-bum and prison pictures starring James Cagney and George Raft and Henry Fonda. — James Jones

I just absolutely, totally hated school. It was like a prison to me. I just could not stand that structured, absolute disciplined way of having to deal with life. — Kim Basinger

The goal is not to just have rapists expelled from schools. I don't want rapists transferring schools. I don't want them out there, being able to commit these crimes. I want them to go to prison. But if you understand this crime and you understand what happens in the reporting of this crime and the support that a victim does or does not get, you realize that our legislation increases the likelihood that a young woman will go to the police in a timely manner and that the police will investigate and that they will be able to administer real justice in the criminal system. — Claire McCaskill

The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments
not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools
will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession. — David Blankenhorn

I realized a school doesn't need a School Committee or Trustees or Governors or lumber or approved textbooks. All a school needs is a mind that sends and minds that receive. I shall teach my own students how to teach themselves. My own school. No buildings. Break out of the classroom prison. All I need is SKY. The Universe can be my classroom - the great vast world of the Concord countryside. — Henry David Thoreau

Prison is like high school with knives. — Raegan Butcher

Sunday school: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. — H.L. Mencken

Any one who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums, Paul learned, who find prison so soul destroying. — Evelyn Waugh

Put 'em who threaten possessions and power together with 'em who offend our tastes in sex and dope. Those who're touched, put 'em in asylums. Pack off old ones to 'senior communities,' nursing homes. Our children? Keep'em prisoner, baby-sitter as warden. School? Good for fifteen to twenty years. Army afterward. Liberated, we live in prison. No this, no that. Kill us before we die! — John Cage

Going to school is like going to prison ... you have about two weeks to establish your credibility, failing which you're either a punk or as good as dead. Depending on the school, some students can manage ot avoid those stark alternatives, but even at the best school, no teacher does. — Garret Keizer

Prison for the crime of puberty
that was how secondary school had seemed. — David Brin

Forget about showering with my fellow students in Tribeca Alternative's prison-style showers - one nozzle for four to six girls at a time - in the locker room.
It was impossible to work up a sweat during what passed for physical education class at TAHS, so there was no need to shower, anyway.
Well, impossible for me, considering that, in the past, whenever a volleyball or whatever came near me,
I'd always make sure to step calmly away to avoid it.
See? No sweat. No need for a shower. Problem solved. — Meg Cabot

Public school felt like prison - cinderblock walls, fluorescent lights, metal lockers. It was so sterile and unstimulating. — Sufjan Stevens

Mrs. Weasley glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. Harry liked this clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise very informative. It had nine golden hands, and each of them was engraved with one of the Weasley family's names. There were no numerals around the face, but descriptions of where each family member might be. "Home," "school," and "work" were there, but there was also "traveling," "lost," "hospital," "prison," and, in the position where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, "mortal peril. — J.K. Rowling

The atmosphere [in the school lunchroom] is not quite that of a prison, because the students are permitted to talk quietly, under the frowning scrutiny of teachers standing around on duty, during their meal-they are not supposed to talk while standing in line, though this rule is only sporadically enforced. — Edgar Friedenberg

Oh my eye Betty Martin! Aren't I glad it isn't me that's going to school! It looks just like a prison. — Henry Handel Richardson

Perhaps you have heard about the college executives who were discussing what they wanted to do after retirement age. One hoped to run a prison or school of correction so that the alumni would never come back to visit. Another chose to manage an orphan asylum so that he would not be plagued with advice from parents. — Robert H. Jackson

Chopper Read attended a writing school I gave for inmates at Risdon Prison in Hobart many years ago. Even if I hadn't known about his hacked-off ears and his criminal history, I'd have found him powerful and compelling. — Garry Disher

In the United States we spend $40,000 a year to incarcerate each prison inmate and $8,000 to educate each elementary school student. — John Grisham

Well, the terrible thing right now, and I don't know the statistics, but there's a growing concern in some communities about how rapidly people are sent from school to jail, how quickly they're put into the criminal justice system. And of course the rapidly growing number of brown people, both men and women, in prison. And this is terrible. — Anna Deavere Smith

I was thinking that if I'd had the sense to go on living in that old town I might just have met this prison guard in school and married him and had a parcel of kids now. It would be nice, living by the sea with piles of kids and pigs and chickens, wearing what my grandmother called wash dresses, and sitting about in some kitchen with bright linoleum and fat arms, drinking pots of coffee. — Sylvia Plath

If I can give one bit of advice to any drama major, high school theater kid, or inmate who is reading this in a prison library with dreams of being cast in he prison play, its this: write your own part. It is the only way I've gotten anywhere. It is much harder work, but sometimes you ave to take destiny into your own hands. — Mindy Kaling