warmed-over soapboxesclever would be nice

Teaching at the Pen, part 1: Bureaucracy and what my students write about

§ July 27th, 2010 § Filed under edutainment § 2 Comments

I’ve decided to answer your questions about teaching at the pen in installments, partly because I’m lazy and mostly because …

WTF, I think the neighbor just drove his motorcycle across our weeds. I mean lawn. But still!

…anyway: mostly because some of my responses will be longer than others. Like this one.

Question 1: I’d be curious to hear more about the roadblocks I remember you talking about (limited access, pencil trading, obnoxious bureaucracy, etc.) and how you’ve learned to work with or around them. I’m also curious about what they are writing about, if you have received any particularly interesting papers, etc.

There are still plenty of roadblocks. We still have librarians do the research part of research writing, which is frustrating in that the students should be doing it, but I am working on getting us to buy access to a database specifically designed for teaching in prison situations that we can load onto some of the computers in my classroom so students can find journal and magazine articles related to their topics (so much research is online these days, something I have trouble explaining to bureaucrats whose last research paper was written decades ago!). I am trying to get more books for the fledgling library, but no one wants to spend money on books (the sarcastic part of me says, Yeah, let’s give these students an education but god forbid they read books! *sigh* I do understand budget constraints, but there are so many cheap, used books out there that it seems preposterous not to buy them). I do think I have an in right now to get a series of books, which I am hoping for, but I find that doors open and shut here with little warning.

You may recall my minimeltdown over whether or not students could use highlighters. Last quarter there was a clamor for highlighters, and I was able to procure both the highlighters and permission forms for students carrying them. (Yes: Permission forms to carry highlighters. It kind of makes those fucking dorm hall passes they required in boarding high school pale in comparison.) That said, there has been no such clamor this quarter, so I am not worrying about it right now, but it’s nice to know that there are workarounds for some difficulties. I guess learning to be a grownup/bureaucrat and pose my requests with potential solutions is working.

I think sometimes there is unnecessary harassment of students; for example, one student got a disk to use to save his Word documents on and took it back to his cell not knowing he wasn’t allowed to have it there. He was taken out of class and remonstrated for having done this. He came back angry and embarrassed, and I thought it was unnecessary. I mean, where the fuck is he going to use this disk, anyway? I’m pretty sure the dinosaur computers in our classroom are the only ones that still have a disk drive. But this is why I teach instead of guard: I don’t have to worry about how a disk could be broken down and fashioned into some sort of weapon, which was probably the concern. But still — humiliation is not an effective form of punishment or correctional education, in my opinion.

Other little things that might be of interest: I can only give my students one pen and one pencil — and the pens are closely guarded in a locked supply room (pencils are more freely available). The reason for this, as you can probably guess or already know, is that the pen ink is used for prison tattoos, and therefore pens can become objects of barter and trade instead of tools for education (huh, grad school flashback). And let me just say this: I love my students, but some of them have some seriously ugly-ass tattoos: all manner of skulls and flames, barbed wire, naked women; lots of knuckle tats (you know, the type where you put your fists together and it spells out a word); a surprising number of facial marks, such as teardrops. You can tell the difference between a prison tat and an outside one: prison tats are black/blue and sometimes either very artistic and thin, or very poorly done and blunt, depending on the artist; outside ones are full color or deep black (no skimping on ink). I don’t ask the guys about their marks, but I’ve really wanted to. One guy obviously has the name of his dead child on his arm, which makes me sad every time I see it.

To the second part of this question, what they write about, I would answer that I gave them more latitude to write about what they wanted in the first couple quarters. Seriously interesting shit, but I found myself getting so into their stories that it was difficult to assess their writing, and anyway, I’ve changed the direction from personal writing to topical writing to better fit the course goals as laid out by the English department. Some would write about why they were in jail (it surprised me how many cited alcohol and/or drug addiction as their downfall, which generally led to whatever they did to go to prison); many wrote more idealistically and nostalgically about times and places they enjoyed before prison, or, somewhat depressingly, between prison stints. What I find particularly interesting are the guys who write about their ethnic heritage: one of my favorite papers was from a student who wrote about learning the language of his heritage when he was an adolescent; another wrote about male patriarchy in his native culture and how language was actually a tool for male dominance and female subservience — the women aren’t allowed to address or speak to men the way they would speak to women — wow! I probably enjoy these essays more because they are born from research writing, not just experiences, which when woven together are particularly more compelling to me than experiences alone.

Another aspect of research writing in my classroom is how many students are interested in prison reform: when we had to decide on a topic for the first research paper, prison reform was second only to the oil spill in popularity, and several students are doing it for their individual choice paper. I know it’s probably an interest that comes from their frustration, but I hope that it is also educational/enlightening to them to find out how to get out and stay out. This topic sometimes gives me an opening to tell them, Hey, learn this stuff, and don’t repeat your mistakes; I don’t want to see you back here. (Some students are open about how they consider themselves career criminals, which is depressing and probably self-defeating, but I am not always in a position where I can say anything. And I will say that I think my ethos to challenge them on these things is growing — I can say things now that I couldn’t and wouldn’t've said my first quarter, but some classes, and students, have different chemistry than others.)

Many students, despite their inability to vote, are politically aware, though sometimes I think there is an odd disconnect between the politics they support and the politics that would benefit them. But it makes for interesting discussions and papers. One student wanted to do his research paper on why social progressivism was a bad form of government (bet you’d never guess how he feels about the president), whereas another is doing his paper on what type of government structure is closest to utopia.

So that’s a small overview of bureaucracy and the topics my students write about. Coming soon: Part 2 — why my job rocks and I could never go back to working at a desk.