There were not many places to sit and either study or engage in leisure reading, so the more clever students began to figure out which halls leading into the restricted areas were being monitored and at what times. For me, one of the most pleasant experiences during the school day consisted in covertly entering a restricted area with a book or essay and a compact, easily concealable lunch. I would sit, alone, for forty-five minutes at a time, near a large semi-circular bay window on the second floor and, while enjoying the view, would perform the kind of self-education for which public schools leave precious little time.

          At the same time, I would eat my lunch, which was also against school rules. The prohibition on food in classrooms and hallways—even if no littering or negative externalities were involved—was particularly baffling to me. Even about half the teachers ignored it. How can any human being learn autonomy, initiative, and personal responsibility when the decision of when, where, and whether he may eat his own food is not his to make?

          Some of the most severe restrictions at my high school were imposed with regard to students entering or leaving the building. There were no metal detectors there, fortunately, but there was the heinous offense of not signing in if one was called out of an early class by a parent and then arrived later during the day. The offense was often committed by no fault of the student.

          For instance, my schedule one semester involved physical education at X South, followed by humanities classes at X North, where I participated in an academic program held jointly between the two schools. I was recovering from an illness one morning, so my parents called me out of physical education, meaning that I would need to report directly to X North for my subsequent classes and sign in there. Unfortunately, the officials at X North failed to tell the officials at X South that I had signed in. As a result, I was called into the office of one of the assistant deans.

          This individual, who was known to have a particularly disciplinarian bent, began to lecture me about the vital importance of signing in and the penalty of detention if one did not. I attempted to interject by saying that I had, in fact, signed in but that X North had failed to report it—but I was sharply told not to interrupt. After five minutes of lecturing me, the assistant dean's tone instantaneously changed to a sweet, polite one, as she asked, "Now then, what did you want to say?"

          After I explained the facts of the matter, the assistant dean proceeded to call X North and verify my story—all for a mere procedural formality. I escaped detention that day, but others in similar situations were not so fortunate.

          And, of course, all students under the age of sixteen were forbidden to leave the building during school hours, even if they had no class at the time. Students aged sixteen and over were permitted to leave (after signing out and on the condition that they would sign in upon re-entry) if they had a special stamp placed on their student ID cards at the beginning of the school year. This left many students with no options during their free periods except to endure the din, chaos, and crudeness of the "open areas" or to sneak into the "restricted areas" and get some peace and quiet, or else to get some work done in one of the computer labs.

          The regularity with which the petty rules in my school were flouted taught me the superiority of internal discipline over external discipline based on myriad prohibitions and mandates. Under the onus of too many arbitrary, minute, and burdensome impositions, many people begin simply to ignore them, until they become unenforceable. This creates a problem, however, for maintaining desirable and necessary norms—such as prohibitions against aggression, theft, and vandalism. Once the irrational, punitive norms delegitimize all norms in the eyes of many, even the natural laws, which make all societal cooperation possible, are not immune from the resulting reaction.

          In my high school, this was primarily manifested in a thriving black market for stolen TI-83 graphing calculators, which all students were required to purchase at exorbitant prices as a result of an exclusive contract between Texas Instruments and the school. During my sophomore year, two of my friends and I conducted an extensive poll of the students and found that, on average, every student had a calculator stolen once during his or her four years at the school. The calculator thieves would then sell the calculators at far below the school's monopoly bookstore price.

          In the adult world, a similar dynamic occurs because of the war on drugs. The prohibition of and crackdown on what could be an entirely noncoercive activity results in whole areas and subcultures being ruled and terrorized by violent thugs, beyond the purview of any rights-respecting societal order. While in my school the stakes consisted of a few thousand overly expensive calculators, the war on drugs escalates such stakes to the level of human lives.

          At the same time, legitimate commercial activities were prohibited in every public school I attended. I once had the enterprising idea of developing a German-English dictionary consisting only of the words that had been taught during our German class, so that, instead of cramming bulky, standard dictionary texts into already overloaded backpacks, students could have, on a few sheets of paper, a convenient and comprehensive reference to use in exam preparation. I sold the dictionaries at two dollars apiece and made about forty dollars in profit before one student became offended at my venture and reported it to one of the administrators—whereupon I was sternly warned never to sell anything again.

          Even some of the teachers told me privately that they had no objection to my seeking to profit in a legitimate manner that benefited other students—and no one could offer a rationale for the prohibition on commercial activities. Indeed, is it not bizarre that learning some of the most important skills for success in life—the skills of innovation, product development, marketing, and negotiation that are so crucial to any business—is literally prohibited in its most effective form? Yes, my school did have business courses, but theory, definitions, and second-hand exposure can only teach one so much. The massive unemployment rate among young people today can surely be explained at least in part by the manner in which public schools prevented them from obtaining many marketable talents and attributes.
 

The Antidote

          My years in public schools were some of the most frustrating of my life. Nonetheless, I ended up graduating at the top of my class in high school—and not because of the environment I was subjected to. Fortunately, the rise of the Internet had already begun in earnest during my early high-school years. I realized early on that, were I only to study what was assigned and do what was expected of me, I would only achieve at the level of the average student—that is, not much.

          My readings of philosophy, economics, and political theory as written by some of the greatest minds of all time gave me an invaluable store of knowledge and analytical skills that propel me forward to this day. It was during the internet explorations of my high-school years that I discovered John Locke, Frederic Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard, among many others. The amazing flowering of free knowledge online is the surest antidote to the stultifying environment of the public schools, and I truly envy those who, as children and young adults, have the opportunity to fully ground their learning in these resources.

          In recent years, the content base that could be used for genuine education of the highest caliber has expanded colossally, fueled by the efforts of organizations like the Ludwig von Mises Institute to render top-notch resources not just freely available, but also freely reproducible. Just as importantly, the Internet does not confine young people, in the manner of public schools, to an overly narrow range of socially permissible roles. Online, they truly can be creators of an ever-increasing variety of products, and they will largely be judged on the merits of their work, not arbitrarily restricted on account of their age. At the same time, they might even figure out small ways to make money and learn legitimate business skills through first-hand experience.

          I continue to entertain the hope that even one of the states will find it necessary to institute deep cuts to public schools and that, under financial pressures, some of the worst elements of those schools will be the ones to go. Then we would find that the level of general education would not decline; indeed, it would increase.

          The individualism and internal discipline needed for true, focused learning would naturally emerge as some people pursue their academic interests while others—if compulsory school attendance laws are repealed—would try to get an early start in the business world. The morass of today's teenage subculture would largely disappear, as young people's interactions would become more embedded in the broader society, rather than mired in the largely short-term and superficial concerns of their peers. The quasi-monopolies of the large educational service providers—particularly the textbook companies—would be heavily undermined, as these obsolete firms largely subsist off of exclusive contracts with the public schools.

          Technologically, many more people would be propelled into the internet era, as they find it necessary to seek out high-quality, free educational resources. Best of all, a genuine microcosm of socialism in our society would be scaled back. Hopefully, it will one day become a distant memory of a less-enlightened past.