Why School and Prison are the Same Thing

U.S. History is possibly the longest class ever. Yes, it is the same 100 minutes in length as all other block periods at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, California, yet it feels like the time stretches out for hours and hours. The big hand on the clock seems to have a hangover every time I enter that class, slumping lazily and painfully slowly around one and two-thirds times before reaching possibly the most incredibly and merciful time of the day: 11:40 AM. Which can be translated by any Sequoia High School student into two words: lunch time.

I ram my binder into my overstuffed backpack, crumpling papers and books alike, hurriedly zipping it closed and racing out of the classroom. I’m on the top floor, at the end of the science wing (I have absolutely no idea why my History class is at the end of the science wing, but there it is), and just around the corner lies freedom.

I run down the stairs, skipping them two at a time in my haste. When I reach the bottom I am met with two doors, and I slam one of them open. The cool November air meets my face with a startling chill, and I lose a bit of my excitement as I bundle up against the cold.

I walk out from under the archway, out into the open. My destination: the B quad, where only fellow juniors hang out, and where my friends and I are not yelled at nor forced to pick up trash nor forced to clean up spilled food nor forced to clean desks of writing and gum just because we like to play hackey-sack at lunch. This, we have discovered, is frowned upon when one enters High School. At least, the ridiculously large security guards don’t like it very much. Hence our moving to the B-Quad.

I haven’t reached the B-Quad yet; it’s a wee bit of a walk from the science wing. As I’m walking, I turn my head to the left, and am met with a sight that I see practically every day I walk to lunch.

There, drawing the tall, spiked gates closed, drawing the heavy metal chain and locking the great giant lock, is one of the massive security guards. I see this every time I pass because I hear the huge metal gate screeching shut, and if its not that, then it’s the sound of the gigantic chains clanking against the fence as they are wrapped tightly around and around, making sure no one escapes.

And to my right is another security guard, locking the gate to the teacher parking lot, emitting the same clanking and screeching noises in the process. He pauses in the process, having spotted a student attempting a break at freedom, and within seconds he’s radio-ed his fellow Terminators and is now shouting and waving at whoever it was who simply wanted to know what the outside world was like.

Whenever I pass by these colossal security guards, and whenever I see these giant people locking us in the boundaries of our completely isolated and “secure” environment, I can’t help but be reminded of scenes from films such as Escape from Alcatraz, The Shawshank Redemption, O Brother Where Art Thou and, most especially, Chicken Run. I know I certainly feel like a chicken being caged inside this place ridiculously isolated from the world around, yet claiming to prepare us to enter this very same world. I don’t know about you, but I think that rings a little false…

And now the gargantuan is telling me to keep moving, and so I do: he could kill me just by breaking wind in my direction. Therefore, I make my way to the B quad and lay my backpack down upon the cold stone steps surrounding the courtyard. I sigh, looking around at the quad, and my eyes meet the three security cameras pointed directly at us. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to eat when cameras are pointed directly at you, just staring and watching, but it’s slightly difficult. However, we have no choice. This is the only place where we won’t get in trouble for kicking a ball around, and if we try to leave, we’ll get impaled by the spikes on the tops of the fences surrounding us. God, I love school.

We all bring our own lunches, because buying school lunch is a horrific affair. You wait in line for half an hour, guards shouting at you to not cut and to shut your face, and when you finally get to the front the lunch ladies scream at you to hurry up, and so you practically vomit trying to talk fast but also above the roar of all the students around you. Half the time they don’t understand you, and when they do, there is only a 33% (we actually did the math) chance that they will have what you want.