Prison education: is it worth it?

0 Comments | Corrections Today, Oct, 2006 | by Shimon Soferr

On March 14, 2006, the author participated in the Prison Education Conference held at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Mass. While presenting a workshop introducing the Freedom from Violence Program, now in its 11th year at the Suffolk County House of Correction in Boston, the author was impressed with the professional dedication of the women and men who came to the conference. To them prison education is more a meaningful mission than a regular job.

To the educators who participated in the FFV workshop the main concept of the program was familiar. They related well to the idea that prison education ought to focus on individual efforts to acquire a new, nonviolent lifestyle, in addition to obtaining acceptable certificates and recognized diplomas. They know how much their inmate-students wish to learn how to recognize and apply the benefits of creative work and to appreciate the merits of meaningful family life. Participants were pleased to learn how the FFV Program provides new ways of thinking about and approaching the problems that violent behaviors of problematic people produce. Their participatory enthusiasm inspired this short article on prison education and the people who provide it.

Introduction

In many areas of private and public life the technique of using perfect logic that is based on erudite but deceitful premises is abundantly practiced. It is subtly used in theories of superiority, in justifying wars, in explaining crime and justice, in economics, and more. It is the main tool that advertisers use to sell us things that we do not need. Sometimes, and in certain agendas, this logic successfully defies not only common sense but reality itself. Such is the logic behind views that hold prison education as futile--a waste of time, energy and funds.

For better or worse, this logic underlies current educational affairs in our culture. It promotes the assumption that if one follows all rules, obeys all orders and passes all tests, one's "success" is guaranteed. The few people who can deal successfully with reality, however, know how inaccurate this assumption is. The people who came to Worcester on March 14, 2006, are such people. They are prison educators and, as such, they don't teach but learn along with their students. They know how to translate educere, which in this context means "enlightenment" or "to enlighten," into a meaningful practice and thus transform education into practical knowledge, the kind that leads not only to a better job but also to a more meaningful and creative life. This concept of enlightenment is something that the inventors of Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) have forgotten and that those who leave no child behind have yet to discover.

Prison Educators

Prison educators, for the most part, believe in the concept of behavior by expectation, as opposed to behavior by rule. They believe that desirable outcomes are more realistically achievable through mutual exploration and discovery of individual potentials and capacities, not only to acquire information but also to change. They believe that, rather than telling their students what society deems as good for them in rehabilitative or punitive terms, they ought to show them how to discover what truly is in their self-interest in personal and behavioral terms. These educators believe that good teachers invoke and inspire thinking, not merely enforce rules and prepare for and proctor standardized tests.

These beliefs are at the heart of the underlying conflict with those who believe in the concept of behavior by rule. This concept operates under the assumption that following and obeying rules will more quickly, readily and successfully yield the desired outcomes expected by those who make and implement the rules, whether they run prisons, schools or test centers. Indeed, this logic is backed by the fact that coercive enforcement almost always yields immediate obedience, and therefore makes perfect, but false, sense. Enforcement yields obedience, not cooperation or a desire to change. Since mutual discovery of individual potentials is a long and arduous process that lacks immediate results, this conflict of attitudes, of enforcing obedience versus eliciting cooperation, may not be resolved soon.

Educating in Prison

Children, who lack real-life experience, tend to learn what adults teach. Adults tend to choose and decide what they want to learn, based on how they view themselves and whether they wish to learn from other adults. With this in mind, prison educators teach not by authority, which seldom works with adults, but by consent, which is extremely hard to achieve within compulsory authoritative environments. This consent, however, is what enables many prison teachers to mold disciples out of former discipline problems.

Inmates are adults with a wealth of personal, real-life experience, which to them--however skewed, troublesome and unrealistic--represents true knowledge of the real world. Armed with this knowledge they tend to reject the need for new knowledge and resent efforts to convince them otherwise. Their prison teachers must face a challenge that few, if any, other educators face. It is the challenge not only of introducing new knowledge where the need for it is resented, but also of integrating it so that a wish to change may be inspired and developed. This wish that prison educators hope to spark in their students, is, to them, the major endeavor of prison education. To correctional visionaries, education in prison is currently the most realistic contribution to the kind of rehabilitation that they hope to see. Once achieved, where allowed and supported, it becomes the accomplishment of all.