News

Introduction

Prison education, also known as Inmate Education and Correctional Education, is a very broad term that encompasses any number of educational activities occurring inside a prison. These educational activities include both vocational training and academic education. The goal of such activities is to prepare the prisoner for success outside of prison and to enhance the rehabilitative aspects of prison.

Educational programs offered inside prisons are typically provided and managed by the prison systems in which they reside. Funding for the programs are provided through official correctional department budgets, private organizations (e.g. colleges, nonprofits, etc.), and the prisoners or their families, if the prisoner is pursuing education through a correspondence program.

Educational opportunities can be divided into two general categories: academic education and vocational training.

By Janice M. Chamberlin

Whenever I am asked what I do for a living, there is first surprise and maybe a little bit of shock when I say I teach at an all- male prison year round.

I can almost predict what people are going to say. They’ll want to know if I’m afraid. “Is there a guard in there with you? What do you teach them? How do you get them to learn?”

“I wouldn’t do what you do for twice your salary,” is what I’m often told.

Generally, my first response is to tell them it is the most challenging and rewarding teaching I have ever experienced.  I then proceed to explain the setting and offer many stories. My dad, especially, has always said, “You should write a book.” 

Even my colleagues have come to me more than once and said, “What do you do that produces increasing numbers of GED’s every year? What’s your secret? Do you just get the ‘cream of the crop’?”

Well, that has to be a joke, because teaching in a prison, I think the “cream of the crop” would be difficult to find.

Out of my class has come a smorgasbord of interesting writing, some of it very good and some of it not so good. In the spirit of promoting my fellow prisoner-writer and prisoner-student, I have an excerpt for you. One of my students turned in a superb beginning to his novel. He agreed to allow it to be posted on the blog. His hope is to receive feedback which I can forward to him. My hope is to show you what great work came out of my class and to hopefully humanize prisoners a bit. I hope you enjoy. It is certainly witty and clever…not to mention eerily similar to my current surroundings, a land for which I have coined the phrase “The Land of Misfit Toys.” Do note that parts of this writing are slightly graphic, so be prepared.

I’m currently in a lull between classes. My last class ended on 5-21-2011, and my next is slated to start on 6-13-2011. During this time, I have ferociously been working on the student notes. Those are certainly a chore. Each week’s notes are looking to be between 4,000 and 6,000 words, certainly a comprehensive task. I don’t use this as a quantitative method of analyzing the quality of the said notes, but I do view this as a measuring stick of comprehensiveness. To tell you the truth, later on down the road, I plan on using these notes as the foundation of a book. But I always plan to do so when it comes to new smaller projects. Why don’t we just refer to this as ‘future envy.’

I don’t have a ton to report this week since I don’t have a class. The notes are driving me crazy. I finished revising my curriculum, I brought on an IT guy to assist with the more technical elements of the site, and class signups will be on May the 31st and June the 1st. Besides this, I do have the list of upcoming ACE classes and the official completion rates for the March through May 2011 classes. I thought you’d find them of interest. Here are the completion percentages for each class.