example essay

I hate it. I'm rewriting it now.

The children grew immediately quiet upon the woman's entrance. They sat up strait while they nervously prepared to receive what she had to say. The woman had a consistent broad smile set neatly upon her face. The smile didn't change with any event; it just remained there like it was painted on the portrait of her face. Her business suite was perfectly smoothed and pressed. The sight of her was a far cry from that of the children. Each of the four was dressed in rags. They're shoulders were slouched as their legs swung lazily under the desk. Each had a dark expression. Their faces shown sadness or perhaps just fatigue. The woman drew in her breath and began with a single statement: "You're all worthless, broken, degenerates of society." There was no question what the faces of each child shown after those words. Each head hung low with the unmistakable expression of shame. However, the woman brought a small iota of hope with her next words: "But here, we will fix you." What exactly does it mean to be fixed? The children were about to find out.

From then on the day of each child was executed in the same way. In the morning, blood was drawn. After a brief recovery time, each child lined up to receive his or her respective ration of pills. When one of them reached the front of the line, they were scanned. It was not unlike the way a farmer scanned his cattle to identify them. After the scan, each child was identified and matched with veritable doses of anti-depressants. After being drugged, the children moved on to school. It was an uneventful process of working through meaningless packets. None of them received any form of teaching or console from a teacher, just more packets and assignments. From there to occupational therapy. I'm not sure anyone knows what the point of this process is. There was one card exercise to train the children not to take unnecessary risks. Another exercise was on choosing friends carefully. How you could really express the importance of either through a simple deck of cards, is beyond me. From occupational they went to recreational therapy. This was every child's favorite time of the day. The time was spent painting small statues and crafting small items out of leather. Even though the activities helped keep their minds off things, the children couldn't help but be reminded why they weren’t allowed to use sharp objects. After recreational therapy, the fun stopped completely.

The children then went to a vastly depressing session of group therapy. Not sharing wasn't an option. In some ways the children became forced best friends, as they were forced to tell the others all of the intiment details of their lives. Out of the seven days each resided in the hospital, there was not one session of group therapy that did not result in tears. The children were also forced to partake in solo therapy sessions. The topic throughout seemed to remain the same: what they were doing wrong.

A children’s behavioral center seems like a good idea on paper. A place to send children when they just refuse to do what they’re supposed to.