29 ms·
School or Prison
- joe_the_user 6y agoIt's part of the larger situation that the buildings created by large bureaucracies all look about the same.
- philwelch 6y agoIt’s an architectural style called “brutalism”, which has the predominant aesthetic of “a boot stamping on a human face forever”.
- jclulow 6y agoI mean, not really? I think you're projecting the behaviour of the USSR (or whatever) onto the architectural style. From an aesthetic perspective, brutalism can be surprisingly pleasing -- especially if you throw in some trees: https://twitter.com/Karl_poyzer/status/1246511600300896257 https://twitter.com/Karl_poyzer/status/1246511600300896257
- ben_w 6y agoFor me, the trees are the only things about those examples that I actually like. Absent the trees, they remind me of the Tricorn center in Portsmouth, which local folklore claims won two architectural awards: a professionally awarded one for being good, and an award from locals who had to live with it for being the worst. The place has long since been demolished; I remember it from personal experience as a shopping centre where all the shops had closed, and as a car park where nobody parked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorn_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorn_Centre
- kiba 6y agoThe concrete are still rather ugly to me.
- hndudette2 6y agoIt's the distinctness and uniqueness of those examples, as well as that they're surrounded by trees/nature, that make them so beautiful. Brutalism as intentional art, not as an unintended byproduct of cost-saving or simply not caring. The depressing nature of a lot of brutalist architecture (especially that created by governments) is the uniformity, homogeneity and the mass-produced faux-utilitarian feeling it evokes, as if the inhabitants are all interchangeable peons with no individual spirit. It's a reminder of the depressing local conditions that lead to that architecture coming into being in the first place. https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/13/brutalist-housing-estates-private-barbican-social-london https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/13/brut...
- joe_the_user 6y agoBrutalism is simply an architectural style characterized by the use of raw concrete. It can be done well in various ways and badly in various ways, like virtually any style. It's worth noting that Phil is not just wrong about brutalism but also wrong about these examples being (primarily) brutalist. Not generally using raw concrete, they would not be considered brutalist. The modern "box" has been largely discarded by contemporary institutional architects in favor of rough, pseudo-gabbled, uh, crap, as shown in the majority of these examples. I'd say a bad brutalist building is like a rough bureaucratic dictate whereas present bad institutional architecture is like a bureaucratic dictate but rewritten with contemporary niceness guides - "this is a notice concerning your rights under the involuntary amputation act"
- philwelch 6y agoTo my aesthetic sense, virtually every “brutalist” structure feels authoritarian and dystopian to me. It is not only a good architectural style for prisons, but for any other building that is built with the intention of resembling a prison, which is what makes it so useful for government offices and the like.
- adamjb 6y agoAh yes, neoclassical facades, the defining feature of brutalism. https://res.cloudinary.com/schoolprison/7_pexlbe.jpg https://res.cloudinary.com/schoolprison/7_pexlbe.jpg
- daniel-levin 6y agoHave you ever set up a high-occupancy building in a structure that isn’t rectilinear? It’s a space efficiency nightmare to fit naturally rectangular fixtures and appliances to rounded walls. I worked in a beautiful post-modernist building with a terrible architectural oversight: the aesthetically charming glass panels acted as a lens that focused light in a way that heated the whole office up. The AC had to be cranked up high just to survive in there. I would take a well-lit, well-ventilated box over a more architecturally creative space that causes its occupants problems.
- kfichter 6y agoAlthough your classification of the images presented above is incorrect, brutalism can actually be quite a beautiful architectural style. Except perhaps when attempted by American educational institutions.
- souplesse 6y agoFeelings on brutalism aside, only one[0] of the ten buildings could reasonably be called categorized as such. Boring? Yes. Cold and functional? Sure. Just not brutalist. Brutalist architecture is often considered soulless, but soullessness (in and of itself) !== brutalism. [0] https://res.cloudinary.com/schoolprison/10_wwfagw.jpg https://res.cloudinary.com/schoolprison/10_wwfagw.jpg (which was a school)
- canofbars 6y agoA lot of these images only show a very narrow look at what looks to be the entrance to some front desk style room. I'd be more interested in what the insides look like.
- joe_the_user 6y agoI've seen and been in enough of these kinds of buildings to make them absolute bottom of my list of places to see inside or out.
- noncoml 6y agoWhat’s the point being made here? That if you take a picture of a building from a specific angle it’s difficult to tell the function of the building?
- ve55 6y agoI would guess that the intention is for the readers to think about other similarities between schools and prisons, and the the outsides of the buildings are just a convenient way to inspire more comparisons.
- nerdponx 6y agoI just found it fun. Like the "boobs or armpit" type of games on Newgrounds.
- dijit 6y agoGoing to be honest though. School (at least mine) functioned very similarly to a prison, in fact, most prisons had better conditions than my secondary school. There is a simple fact that schools can be glorified daycare so that workers can offload the burden of childcare. For this purpose, a prison makes sense. Despite not being the most humane considering the kids didn’t do any crime worthy of rehabilitation.
- issamehh 6y agoI can't even look at school as not being a prison. It's one of the only places I've had the displeasure to be denied basic rights such as going to use a toilet.
- finnh 6y agoAlso one of the only places with a nontrivial amount of people who would lie about needing to go to the bathroom, many times per day, just to be disruptive and/or to get out of class. aka "this is why we can't have nice things", juvenile edition :)
- 6y ago
- cyberbanjo 6y agoIs 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
- paulpauper 6y agothis is because tall, rectangular buildings maximize volume to surface area, whether a hospital school or prison. It is not a form of social control or domination. it is more efficient this way. A one-story hospital would be prohibitively expensive to build in an urban area, and it is not like healthcare is not already too expensive.
- jhardy54 6y ago> tall, rectangular buildings maximize volume to surface area, I imagine that you mean that tall buildings maximize ground area, and that most property is rectangular. The way to maximize volume to surface area is to build spheres, or cubes if you're forced to remain rectilinear, but tall buildings optimize for ground area.
- dooglius 6y agoYou shouldn't be downvoted, this is correct
- gpm 6y agoSurface area in this case refers to surface area of the earth, while volume refers to volume of the structures placed on the earth. OP is entirely correct, and no one misunderstood the point OP was making. You are simultaneously being needlessly pedantic, and less than charitable by needlessly interpreting inconsequential ambiguities in OPs sentence in a way that would have made them incorrect. Someone else commented on the downvotes on your post being wrong, the above is why I downvoted you.
- liquidify 6y agoCould easily make one of these for a lot of hospitals too.
- ThePadawan 6y agoI did quite well by measuring "overall area of ground level windows".
- GuB-42 6y agoIt was my criteria as well and the only one that failed me was https://www.holmesmiller.com/project/hmp-grampian https://www.holmesmiller.com/project/hmp-grampian Which looks really nice for a prison. I suspect it is an administrative building, or just the entrance. Not the place where inmates actually live.
- ThePadawan 6y agoI have to admit I cheated on that one by recognizing "HRP" as the UK-typical naming scheme for prisons.
- throwaway2245 6y agoIt shows no windows at all, beyond the reception area.
- GuB-42 6y agoThe photo in the quizz is cropped. You see less of the wall.
- allenu 6y agoIt does look really nice. Based on the photos, it does resemble a school, or at the minimum, a library.
- danielheath 6y agoSee also "Is the front door designed to let one person through at a time, or many". School buildings move their entire populations through the entrance in the space of 10 minutes. Prisons are more-or-less entirely designed to prevent exactly that from happening.
- 6y ago
- sahin 6y agoJust a cool service
- thrower123 6y agoThe prisons seem to have nicer outdoor grounds and recreation areas.
- Mountain_Skies 6y agoPrisoners appreciate those areas more because they don't have access to them in any other context.
- oseph 6y agoThe secret is windows.
- meekrohprocess 6y agoA fun anecdote from my youth near a US seaboard was that our elementary and middle school buildings were designed by the same person who designed a few prisons around the area. When I bounced around cities later in life, I was surprised at how many of my peers said the same thing as a conversation piece. Maybe they used the same governmental bidding process. "Needed: a building. One food preparation and eating area. Hallways suitable for lining up and proceeding in rows with many small rooms. One yard with sporting facilities."
- kiba 6y agoIt's a series of boxes. That's the default setting for buildings.
- avs733 6y agoCheapest as well
- KingMachiavelli 6y agoBoth are often government contracts so they are often going to attract the same firms and contractors. They share a lot of the same requirements; large and cheap. The exterior facade needs to be easy to construct and unremarkable in that government building kind of way.
- kirillzubovsky 6y agoThis is fantastic. I love how if you do it long enough, the results go way down, and after a while you can no longer tell, or be certain one way or another.
- aarroyoc 6y agoMy philosophy teacher said that both prisons and schools end up being a panopticon because you want the same in both places: maximize the feel of power of the authority, don't leave any place without surveillance,...
- im3w1l 6y agoI have never seen a school with a literal panopticon (a tower from which everything can be seen, and which can not be seen into). So then if not a literal panopticon, a metaphorical panopticon? Doesn't mirror my school experience either. Feeling was that the teachers had no idea what was going on most of the time. But I didn't go to school in the US, maybe that's why?
- hshshs2 6y agoTechnological panopiticons now, most doors are locked or alarmed and the remaining entrances have video surveillance. Windows even on the first floor are often limited from opening very wide. Many American schools also have a police officer on site and it’s not unusual for police to stop children outside of school grounds for truancy.
- KingMachiavelli 6y agoHigh schools in the US can sometimes get very close. There are often large schools of two to three thousand students and in a country with ample access to weapons, security becomes an issue very quickly. Both university level and lower education levels in the US will probably have large security camera systems. I know some smaller schools can't quite afford it but the medium and large state schools can.
- slavik81 6y agoThere's a lot less barbed wire around these prisons than I'm used to seeing.
- throwaway2245 6y agoI was surprised that this was relatively so easy: you don't have to understand very much about the two types of buildings to spot important functional differences. As other people have commented, space for windows is crucial. (And, at least 2 of the pictures had identifying words in different languages) I scored 10 out of 10 and the game bounced me out.
- Hamuko 6y agoYeah, 東京都立新宿高等学校 and Tóth Árpád Gimnázium were freebies.
- Gravityloss 6y agoBy comparison, in the army during initial training I had flashbacks of kindergarten. We weren't herded that much at school. Also the food was for some reason very similar.
- jamespwilliams 6y agoIn the UK our prisons often look nicer than our (state) schools. Many of our prisons are quite ancient, whereas many of our state schools are 1960s monstrosities. For example: * https://hidden-london.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/geograph-4430981-by-Dr-Neil-Clifton-HMP-Scrubs-742.png https://hidden-london.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/geograp... vs https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/James_Hornsby_Comprehensive_School.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/James_Ho... * https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1185483.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Usk%20prison https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1185483.ece/ALT... vs https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Cefn_Saeson_Comprehensive_School_-_geograph.org.uk_-_223167.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Cefn_Sae... * https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/HM_Prison_Exeter_-_geograph.org_.uk_-_1062012.jpg https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/HM_... vs https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Wetherby_High_School_%281st_January_2019%29_002.jpg/300px-Wetherby_High_School_%281st_January_2019%29_002.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/We...
- layoutIfNeeded 6y agoIt’s unfair to compare CLASP [1] buildings with centuries old stone buildings... The CLASP system was a stopgap measure for cost-effectively building schools for the baby boomer generation given the economic constraints of post-WW2 Britain. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consortium_of_Local_Authorities_Special_Programme https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consortium_of_Local_Authorit...
- KingMachiavelli 6y agoAnd given the purpose of a school, building it cheaply is very utilitarian as it allows you to build schools faster. I would rather have the institution be more effective than more pleasing to look at.
- AbrahamParangi 6y agoIt doesn't look bad because it's cheap, it looks bad because it's inhuman.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoI thought an obvious clue would be Windows or no Windows. I’m wrong.
- jchw 6y agohttps://res.cloudinary.com/schoolprison/10_wwfagw.jpg https://res.cloudinary.com/schoolprison/10_wwfagw.jpg You can read “学校” on this building, making it a bit easier than it should be. :)
- geocrasher 6y agoI get what the comparison is about, I do. But really- how many different ways are there to house hundreds of people in an institutional setting?
- mleonhard 6y agoEach ground-level classroom could have doors which open onto the surrounding garden. Upper floors can have external stairs, like personal residence buildings. A school building could provide maximum natural light to the occupants. For example, it could have shape and orientation so most of its windows get sunlight throughout the year. Interior spaces can have skylights and be used for short-duration activities like restrooms, locker rooms, and equipment storage.
- alisonkisk 6y agoWhy wouldn't a prison have natural light?
- ARandomerDude 6y agoPublic school is a prison where both parents can abandon their children to be raised by strangers while the parents chase what they really love: money. We make ourselves feel better by teaching them a few worthwhile things during their minimum 13 years in lockdown, coupled with a massive public jobs program, but most of it is a waste of precious family time where parents should be teaching and loving their own children.
- m1gu3l 6y agoThank you for reminding me to call my fantastic parents and tell them that I love them.
- EGreg 6y agoUBI and competition between schools can fix all that. But naked capitalism tells women to "lean in and earn $1 for every 70 cents" instead of telling men to "lean out and earn 70c for every $1" ...and spend more time with your children, family, contributing to open source software, learning science, an instrument, hobbies, sports and exercise and doing other things not valued by the market. UBI is far superior to both a jobs guarantee, minimum wage laws and unions in rebalancing the power dynamic between the employees and employers. Instead, today, we are brainwashed that your worth as an individual comes from working for a corporation, and the schools train the kids to sit down and shut up for 10 hours day to do just that. Look at Finland. Or http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158
- thotsBgone 6y agoWe teach children how to do paperwork starting at age 5. How necessary is that?
- jacoblambda 6y agoI'd argue that's a pretty essential skill in the modern world. Reading and writing are arguably the two of the most important skills we can learn since from them you can eventually do anything else. Paperwork specifically is also pretty important. Sure you could argue that they could postpone teaching that until later but teaching how to fill out paperwork is basically just teaching how to do homework which will be essential for teaching mathematics at any reasonable scale. Of course now things are digital but it's still the same skills but in a different shade.
- EGreg 6y agoRelated: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158
- foolfoolz 6y agomy biggest complaint about schools at least in the US is they all are specially designed. they usually have an architect involved. it’s style is specific to the land it’s on. and each one is so expensive to build. then the community can show off its fancy school, great, it’s a snowflake i would rather the state appoint an architect group to design like 5 model schools that are modular. and then any time a city needs to build one you just get to play some lego on the modular design. this would make school construction faster and cheaper and maintenance easier
- musingsole 6y agoSchools are one of the most universal community hubs that the largest majority of a community will interact with regularly. No one wants a cookie cutter community center.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago> No one wants a cookie cutter community center. The specific point of the parent comment is that they do want a cookie cutter school. Saying "no one wants that" isn't really a substantial counter argument. I suppose the problem with them all being so similar would be if you spent every day visiting a different one, you would tire of them all being them same. But no one does that - you spend many years in a single one, without much awareness of others. In the end it's important that it's effective to spend long periods in, and its uniqueness is basically irrelevant to the people that actually use it.
- musingsole 6y agoThe problem with them all being similar is that would mean they don't reflect their inhabitants. The same as no two rivers flow the same, no two schools work the same. They nominally accomplish the same task in similar ways but will have a fingerprint in how its done. There's a degree of practicality that comes with a school that can be met with common resources, but it's still apparent communities don't want modular schools (regardless of individual opinions). There's a long list of reasons schools aren't just a cleared field with a bunch of mobile-unit classrooms thrown out there despite that being the most cost-effective way to house classes.
- ineedasername 6y agoI think this just shows that prisons often have nicer facades than some schools.
- et2o 6y agoI just played and got 10/10 right although a few were difficult. I don’t think they are all so similar.
- ineedasername 6y agoA more meaningful comparison would be bathroom privileges. In prison you can pretty much poop or get a drink of water whenever you want. In school you need special permission, and hope the teacher wasn't in a bad mood or that 3 other kids hadn't needed to pee in the last half hour, meeting some mental quota the teacher has for the appropriate # of people that should have to use the toilet during a given period of time. Seriously, it seemed like a revolutionary concept when I hit college and realized "Hold on, I can just get up & go?." Or that (absent computer labs) I could bring a cup of coffee or bottle of soda with me to class, and that common etiquette even allowed for a bit of food if it wasn't noisy to eat or have a powerful smell.
- dorkwood 6y agoWhen I was eight years old I had a teacher who told us that if we needed to use the bathroom, rather than ask "can I use the bathroom?" we should instead say "I'm going to the bathroom". She said she would never stop us from going, but that we should at least let her know why we're leaving the room. I never got to experience that again at school after I left the second grade.
- madengr 6y agoHell, in second grade I peed my pants in my desk as the witch wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom.
- leephillips 6y agoI like her. Last time I taught HS I told my students that I would never deny them the right to go to the bathroom, but that if they went more than three times in a week (or something) I would send a note to the nurse so she could discuss a possible health issue with them and their parents.
- jolux 6y agoWhy would you do that? That doesn't seem very trusting of your students. People need to go to the bathroom several times a day, there's no reason to think that needing to go to the bathroom in your class is an indication of a health issue.
- afrojack123 6y agoWhat is up with the clickbait headlines on this site
- steffenfrost 6y agoI thought this was a proposal to give convicted criminals the choice between prison or school.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoThis is fun, but to the extent that it's trying to make a statement†, most of the difficulty comes from the angles used in the photos. They just look like generic buildings. You could make the same game out of "school or doctor's office" or "prison and bank" and it wouldn't be any more obvious if the photos were shot this way.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoIn one of the largest high schools in Texas, we weren't allowed to leave campus, we couldn't even take our lunch out of the double doors and eat our sandwich outside. It's something I absolutely despise about our contemporary culture. I live in Latin America now and envy the kids for getting 45 minutes free at lunch time to hang out outside, socialize, buy from the street vendors that will gather at that time, maybe run a quick errand. My parents point out that they had a high school experience in the US more like the Latin American one. Something is changing about the US, and it's rotten. There's a book that presents a good overview of some of these changes: "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure" (by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt).
- pavel_lishin 6y agoOur principal refused to let students leave campus, as a student had gotten in a car wreck over lunch and died at a previous school. So, there's some logic there. They are nominally responsible for you during school hours.
- kristopolous 6y agoI call this "outlier driven policy"; one single instance of some thing happening some where at some time within the past 100 years means that everyone for perpetuity has to follow some new rule because the lim(x -> 0) risk is simply too much. For instance, there was one person, 2 decades ago, flying out of france, who hid a bomb in his shoes so today we are all still taking off our shoes, all of us, each time, on every flight. Splendid. It's a completely reactionary narrative driven policy that really illustrates the probabilistic illiteracy, cost/benefit illiteracy, lack of critical thinking ... it's like we've taken the structure of folksy tales like "one child did that and they poked their eye out" and are all like "ok, let's make official policy around this" This is how all the fun park equipment has been dismantled and replaced with things no child past the age of 4 or so would ever find appealing because the existence of a non-zero risk, regardless of how small that is, are all treated equivalently with their volumes cranked to 11.
- highmastdon 6y agoJust the idea of a school is worse than a prison: - it’s mandatory - closed confinement - not allowed to do what you want in that closed area - you’re being told what to do for at least 8-14 years - you’re being told when to pee - during the years there is no choice in what you want to learn And at the end of your school/studies you’re asked to be creative and responsible
- throwawaygh 6y agoThe following is specific to the USA: 1. School is not mandatory; education is mandatory. Ask any home schooler. A rare few private schools offer quite different experiences than the typical public school (e.g., the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools). This applies also to "closed confinement" and "control". Of course, opting out requires enlightened parenting and lots of resources. 2. You are constantly told what to do, but outside of some broad physical requirements there's really no forcing you to do what you're told. Choose some good coding/math/philosophy puzzles during the evening and work on them instead of paying attention in class. No one can control what you do in your head. You can similarly opt of almost all graded work; especially if you stick to AP courses then the grades you are assigned by the instructor you don't much matter anyways. 3. You are not given a choice in what your lectures cover, but you can choose what to learn and eschew any required "creativity"/"responsibility". In other words, you can always choose not to play the game and still turn out just fine. Having a friend group that reinforces this option is helpful; I was part of one and today we're all very highly paid and well-educated professionals because -- not in spite of -- our complete disengagement from the high school game (including the academic component). To any highschoolers reading this: if you find yourself intellectually dead and generally creeped out by high school culture, consider ignoring your coursework to study for a GED and then simply attending a nearby high school instead of college. However, at least finish your freshman year somewhat engaged. Many aspects of American culture are easier to understand if you know how the vast majority of its citizens are socialized. E.g., many modern political rallies are intentionally choreographed to match the structure and emotional melody of a high school pep rally. Attending a few yourself as an open-minded and non-judgemental exercise in field anthropology will be helpful.
- 6y ago
- ZainRiz 6y agoA good heuristic: If it has a ton of windows, it aint a school
- temptemptemp111 6y agoBest HN post ever.
- gcheong 6y agoI would take out or obscure the ones that have names in a non-English language. I was able to guess two knowing a little German and Japanese.
- Aunche 6y agoIn China, a lot of schools in poorer areas have bars with them, which makes them look like prisons. These aren't highly competitive schools, so it doesn't make sense for the bars to be for the students. Rather they're to prevent people from breaking in and stealing the furniture. https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1098,format=auto/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/images/methode/2018/02/12/da1a2fea-0fd9-11e8-851b-21ca695cbae4_1280x720_220126.JPG?itok=7majAc8B https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1098,...
- HeavenFox 6y agoThat isn’t unique to schools though. In older buildings outside of gated communities, they are extremely common in first floor and second floor apartments too.
- Aunche 6y agoThat's a good point. It's especially noticeable with schools though because they're often isolated and completely empty very often. This makes them look especially prison-like.
- fireattack 6y agoThis has nothing to do with school; you can barely find any low-level windows without bar in most of cities in China.
- didibus 6y agoRecently I thought about the educational structure and I wondered if we couldn't do way better. My idea was to make it much more like how paid for classes and work are. Instead of grades, there should be classes happening of various levels at all times. And student should be able to apply for promotions at any point, where if they pass the test, they can get promoted to the next level. Grades should be secret from one another like salaries often are, so students shouldn't feel like they compete with others, but only with themselves. And they should focus on working towards their promotions, with a 1:1 with the teacher where the teacher can tell them what they should focus on next and all to work towards their promotion. That way everyone can go at their own pace, which can even be a pace that varies from time to time. Students don't feel a competitive pressure. You don't really have "class mates" in the sense that there's much more churn at all time of who is currently in any given lesson. And you get more personalized feedback on how to reach the next level. Also, schools shouldn't be rated with how well their student performs, but instead by the diff of how much better the students became year over year. Like imagine a fitness studio bragging how their program makes you super fit, but they only accept people who are already super fit to join, doesn't make any sense.
- DreamScatter 6y agoI've been proposing this kind of system to universities for years, but they are never going to change or improve, they are permanently crippled and unable to evolve.
- giantg2 6y agoSo... what's the point of the site? It's just a bunch of buildings. The onea I saw could be labeled just about anything (hospital, office, court, etc).
- mrslave 6y ago> common etiquette even allowed for a bit of food if it wasn't noisy to eat or have a powerful smell And then you graduated, started catching the train to your new job, discovered that many people do not reciprocate this standard, and there's split drink, empty bottles, and undesirable aromatics on every train.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- alisonkisk 6y agoWhat's the point of this? Schools and prisons are both buildings.
- canjobear 6y agoI got 9/10. Not so hard. If the point was that they look indistinguishable, then the point was not made convincingly.
- MarcScott 6y agoBefore I go off topic, very cool and interesting app. I was surprised by the number of times I got it wrong. Now then... There's a lot of people crapping on schools and teachers in this thread, and as a former teacher and spouse of a teacher I'd like to point out a few things: Schools and teachers provide a vital service. Not only do they educate our children, they babysit our children, and the pandemic has shown us how vital that aspect of the service is. I've anecdotally seen many parents on social media complain about having to look after their own children during the day. Schools need arbitrary and often draconian seeming rules, such as refusing toilet breaks, not allowing food or drinks in a classroom, or enforcing strict dress protocols. If you truly knew how manipulative a group of children can be, when ganged together you'd understand this. Toilet breaks are often abused, with children skipping class to, for instance, vape in the toilets. I've had classes where I've spent my break cleaning up chewing gum, spilled drinks and crumbs from students sneaking snacks. When kids aren't in uniform, or under a strict dress code they'll push the limits of what is acceptable and additionally bully the poorer children that can't afford the latest fashions. If we want schools to ease up on such restrictions then you need to invest in more teachers and other staff. I've had science classes with 35 students all with Bunsen burners merrily flaming, flammable and corrosive chemicals in beakers at their desks, and syringes or pipettes (also read as water pistols). Or my engineering class with 20 soldering irons all on, pillar drills being operated, while a couple of kids are etching circuit boards. Try running that type of class without strict rules and you're liable to see injury, loss of employment, a lawsuit and possibly prison. If I'd had smaller class sizes, or more staff in the classroom, I could have relaxed my rules. I'd know the kids better, have built up a more trusting relationship been able to monitor who was doing what with greater efficiency. These are kids we're talking about and they're developing, experimenting, learning, and struggling to navigate a complex social dynamic in a very unnatural environment. Without rules in place, they'll screw up. For God's sake, how many of you "adults" have had to sign a code-of-conduct agreement before being allowed admittance to a tech conference or hackathon? Even grownups can't be trusted.
- musicale 6y ago> they babysit our children I think realizing that daycare with some level of adult supervision and guidance is the primary purpose of much of K-12 could allow us to design better schools that are more like kindergartens, recreation centers, laboratory facilities, art and performance studios, and libraries, and less like factories and prisons. Though thinking about the factory bit, I do think that craft and maker facilities, as well as gardens and outdoor building areas, are nice to have in schools, making students the creators and crafters rather than the products.
- kylecazar 6y agoThere was a myth going around my university that the dorm blueprints used were repurposed prison designs. Never bothered to investigate.
- tomjakubowski 6y agoUnless you had an open toilet between your beds, seems unlikely.
- ctulek 6y agoYou may like Peter Gray’s article on the subject: [1] If you are more curious, I would also suggest his book titled “Free to Learn” [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/200909/why-don-t-students-school-well-duhhhh https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/200909...
- OJFord 6y agoI was pretty ready to upvote this, but then I scored 9/10, (the one I got wrong had Chinese/Mandarin writing on - another I got right kind of looked like a school but said HMP, I'm British, I know that's Her Majesty's Prison, so 'swings and roundabouts').
- ezoe 6y agoThis test biased toward the western building culture of school and prison. As a Japanese, I'm clueless on most buildings save for one image that was of Japanese high school and it literally says high school in Japanese.
- WoodenChair 6y agoThis reminds me of an essay that Paul Graham wrote that compares schools to prisons: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html > Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it. > In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn't want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric.
- KittenInABox 6y ago> Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. I went to a public school that was most definitely not like this. My teachers were really invested in the students and often perform significant emotional labor for children who don't otherwise have supportive adult relationships. I went to many schools (moved a lot) and they all largely had teachers who were passionate about the well being of the children under their care. I had a very poor home life and having teachers who identified I was going into a suicidal spiral was very useful when I was a teenager.
- itisit 6y agoIt turns out Paul Graham's experience is his own and not necessarily indicative of a larger trend or phenomenon.
- Shorel 6y agoIt turns out that Americans' experiences are their own and not necessarily indicative of a larger trend or phenomenon in civilized countries. We of course, are endlessly subjected to an artistic representation of it in Holywood films.
- throwaway998662 6y agoAs someone who's been to prison and school, lots of comments here sound pretty tone deaf. Prison in the USA is really bad. Yes school is authoritarian, but most popular entertainment on prisons downplays how bad it really gets. Watch some interviews of people who have actually been to prison. Murder and rape is common (I saw it happen), you will get your possessions stolen under the threat of murder/rape, you'll probably spend 10-30% of your time in solitary confinement for reasons outside your control (torture according to human rights groups: I've been there, I'd prefer nonpermanent torture), you have to learn violence and get into fights with people who might be carrying a knife or else get taken advantage of indefinitely, ... It's bad. And psychologically, you have no freedom whatsoever: no you cannot poop or drink water whenever you want to. You can only poop when your cellie isn't around (1-2h/day). You will be abused by prison staff (false accusations, physical abuse, food deprivation, ..) The whole thing is an abomination. It serves no useful purpose to society to subject most criminals to prison: it doesn't serve as a deterrent (based on talking to ~50 prisoners about this), it only radicalizes them further against "the system", making it easier for them to break further laws. Why don't we have more outrage against this outdated institution created out of 1600 era values? The amount of human suffering it creates... It's astounding. Most prisoners would probably rather a super old school punishment like chopping off their arm over the prison sentence they get. And it would be more effective.
- mbrodersen 6y agoThe US prison system is purposely designed to be as violent, demeaning, and inhuman as possible. So you can argue that it works perfectly the way it was designed to work. The official theory is that it somehow will reduce crime. That hasn’t happened obviously. And yet the system continues. So obviously the real purpose of the US prison system is not to reduce crime. Other countries has for years shown how to effectively reduce crime without torturing people.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago>As someone who's been to prison and school, lots of comments here sound pretty tone deaf. Now why don't people apply this to everything else? You think HN knows what it's like to be a plumber('s apprentice), janitor, drive a floor buffer for min-wage, etc?
- adav 6y agoI wrote an essay for an English creative writing lesson comparing our school with prison. It led to a detention where I was asked to rewrite it...
- dwd 6y agoI think the only perceivable different is likely the size and placement of windows. Also prisons are highly unlikely to not have security bars or screens on every window (excluding a public entry foyer which is not part of the actual prison.
- pashabitz 6y agoAre we slave labor for ML data?
- Igelau 6y agoI only got a 700. My school was rumored to by designed by prison architects, so maybe that's why. Can I flag the whole thread as off-topic? Geez, HN.
- avs733 6y agoSo...government architecture is hard to place? I feel like this is meant as a commentary on the culture of schools but the outside of the building has nothing to do with the inside and is just designed by the lowest bidder to look fairly generically “place”
- echelon 6y agoThis is not very difficult. The design constraints of each are fairly unique. A few good heuristics: - Windows: Few or many? Are they only on the top floor? Are they small? (Prisons don't have lots of windows.) - Bars on windows? (Dead giveaway for a prison.) - Lots of security cameras? (Not the best indicator, but it weights in favor of prison.) - Fences around parking lots? (Criminals might want to break into cars.) - Is the name on the building large, inviting, and stylish? (School.) I think the message being sent is more interesting than the "game".
- surajs 6y agoSo done with school
- dehrmann 6y agoOne of the high schools where I grew up was rumored to be designed by a prison designer.
- da39a3ee 6y agoIt was easy to get 10/10.
- barefeg 6y agoToo easy
- ulisesrmzroche 6y agoI didn’t do so good here. 4 out of 10. Schools really should be given a makeover. They do look too much like prison. But what, round corners? I dunno. I guess they’d look too much like giant iPhones. Unrelated but in case the simulation changes theme to “post-apocalypse”, what’s better to use as HQ: the school or the prison?