Student Police in Peru
When I was going to the bank this morning I saw a big gathering in the town square. I felt confused. It looked one of the Sunday parade gatherings. But it wasn't a Sunday. At first I thought, "I don't need more pictures of parades, I already have enough." But I decided to go have a look anyhow. Here is the first picture I took. These girls were just arriving. They were just walking. Not marching, as you will see other students doing later. All of these girls are wearing the braided cords which means that they are "brigadiers". When I see these students the words "Student Police" come to my mind. And memories of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. But until today I have never heard anyone else call them "Student Police." As I walked around and took pictures though, I heard a man say something about the ceremony in honor of the "Policia Escolar", which pretty obviously means.... Student Police.
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I am thinking of a letter I got from a friend in England. She said the "prefects" are not really student police. But in Ausralia they had special powers to do things like order other students to tuck their shirts in or put their ties on. If their classmates disobeyed, the "prefect" could report them to school authorities. So while I don't know for a fact yet that prefects in England have this kind of power over other students, I still would imagine that the whole idea of prefects comes from the idea of police/military regimes. (Note, after I sent this to a friend in England she said the prefects do have the power to boss other students around and she said they basically do the teachers' dirty work in her school.)
I have about 20 pictures here. I don't think I need to say too much about them. They are pretty self-explanatory. What I will say is none of these students think they are being brainwashed. That much I can pretty much promise you. They all think this is "normal" and indeed it is here in Peru. But "normal" does not mean "healthy"... or good for humanity.
By the way, these are not special military schools. They are not even special private schools. These are the regular, "normal", public schools