Education leads to Conformity

I am trying to amp up my seniors' critical thinking skills (and their ability to critique society and institutions) before sending them off to college. Last night, they read short articles by Foucault and Paolo Freire on education's tendency to demand conformity rather than individuality. In class today, they read a series of quotes about conformity in education, then wrote a paragraph for ten minutes, and then I had them discuss in a free-form way without much guidance or traffic control by the instructor. The conversations were interesting to me and to the students. Some blamed education for making them conform, others explored how students tend to conform to peer groups to fit in. Others accepted the conformity expectations so they could succeed in college.

Tonight they are to post to their blogs a response to the conversation. Here's an excerpt from the first blog response, which seems thoughtful:
There is a large tendency among poor teachers to let students deny responsibility instead of accept consequences for their actions. Those who teach with with the opposite goal in mind encourage individual growth. The idea that success is defined as earning a high-powered job is something that schools and society are also inserting into the goals of students. . . . So to give a person freedom by trusting them with the accountability of their own actions, causes them to conform to the expectations put on them by their society-imposed goal.