Can schools change society or must they reflect society

In today's information society people often think that characters from TV-shows or talkshow guests reflect our society.
Although that opinion is rather based on the disability of people to use information than on any logical thoughts, there is
something every talkshow reminds us of: people are not perfect. So, I say, society can not be perfect either. I believe that
society works by that society doesn't work. People are too different to put them all into one melting pot, but you have to,
because otherwise society would end in destruction and hate (as seen in the Third Reich).

I believe that schools have an obligation to prepare children for life in society. Therefore they don't necessarily have the ability
to change society but I think today's situation in Germany is not nearly as bad as the situation in "Dead poet's society", a movie
based on a true story. In the movie a teacher tries to let his students be creative and critical towards everything they see and
hear while neglecting values like punctuality and obedience. At first he is successful, but as soon as the school board notices his
ambitions, he gets suspended for some odd reason.

If a teacher in Germany tries to influence students in the way that they are more creative that is generally seen as positive, but
what almost makes this impossible is the number of students in a class and the time frame of just 45 minutes, which is short if
you are going to hear all the different opinions of all the students.

If we accept that there do exist problems in society that need to get fixed, we also have to see that it is not school's job to do
this alone.

Schools just cannot make decisions for society, but they should work on "producing" individual, critical and creative thinkers
with a strong social conscience. However other institutions need to support schools in doing that and I think it should
specifically be pointed out that the current decrease of teachers while numbers of students are increasing, can have fatal
consequences for the next generations of citizens.