A smooth, accurate, precision-made machine.

            Personally, I do not believe that one could not accurately say that schools are run as Nurse Ratched runs her psych ward. It could be argued that in a school, like a psych ward, there is very little choice to be made in how your days are run. However, I think that the amount of influence you have over your life in school is exponentially more than you would have in a mental institution.

            Firstly, in a mental institution, everyday has the exact structure and monotony of the day before, the month before, or even the year before. In school, you have the ability to choose what classes you want to take semester to semester. If you don’t like a class, you can just switch into another. If you chose your classes correctly, you can create a sort of path for yourself and your life after high school. In a psych ward, you are forced to live as they tell you to, and every minute of your day is planned out for you. You have no choice about when to eat, sleep, bathe, or even relax. If they tell you to work, you have to do just that. Plus, in Nurse Ratched’s ward, there is very little criticism given which actually helps to pave a path for the patients’ futures. She only uses her power to gain more control.

            In school, you also have more representation and power to better the conditions in which you have to work. Your best representatives in school are your parents. They are the taxpayers whose money is spent to pay for the institution and the majority of the workers in it. Plus, they have your best interests in mind. If they go in and complain that they don’t like the way you are being treated, arrangements will be made to fix the situation. In a psych ward, however, the patients’ only representation is their family, who often don’t see them frequently enough to be familiar with their situation. For the most part, the doctors can run the hospital however they want to.

            Lastly, in school you have the choice of whether or not you want to be there. In a psych ward you don’t. You only get to leave once the doctors have clear you and marked you safe for society. At school, everyday you have the choice of whether or not you want to go in. There are of course consequences if you don’t go in enough, but the choice is still available to you, and at the end of the day, you can always go home again.