Penalty Area

The word punishment has never had a positive association for me. The purpose of giving a punishment is to dissuade and discourage; it aims to avoid the action from happening again. When I started primary school we all had to wear the same uniform. It was just the beginning for standardizing us. I took many lessons but when I look back, one of them becomes especially interesting for me. It was called Hayat Bilgisi (Knowledge of Life). This was a mandatory course, standardized all over the country by the Ministry of education which we had to attend from ages seven to ten. Despite its philosophical-sounding name, the course focused on "how-to"s in family, school and society. As it was taught and not experienced, it was actually the educational system's ideas on what the life of the future generation should be. I had no idea what was wrong or right about life. Instead of my personal ideas or wishes, they wanted to integrate one thing to our heads: how to be a good person in society! I was not aware of what was happening to me. It was only after many years that I realized what happened to me during my education: I became like everybody else. I did not have individual expectations.