Going to Teach in Prisons: Culture Shock*

Journal of Correctional Education, Mar 2005 by Wright, Randall

Abstract

Novice prison teachers experience confusion and disorientation-culture shock-when they go to teach in prison because teaching and prison cultures collide. The stages of acculturation associated with culture shock are predictable and so are the identities and experiences of teachers who are positioned by the cultural dynamics of prison teaching. Acculturation theory enables us to appreciate the social-psychological dimensions of prison teachers' experience, facilitates the design of pre-service programs for novice prison teachers, and encourages veteran prison teachers to reflect on their experiences.

Introduction: Culture Shock

It's a different culture in a sense and I sort of like going to different cultures -I think people are interesting and how they interact in different settings is interesting

(Anna, a prison teacher).

Most prison teachers did not intend to teach in prison. They started teaching in prison "casually," by accident, rather than as part of a sequenced, mediated, preservice stage in a professional development program (Geraci, 2002, Eggleston, 1991, Wright, 2002). Learning to teach this way is not only "dangerous and frustrating" (Eggleston, 1991, p.16), it is confusing, disquieting, unsettling. For many novice teachers, prison teaching is a "totally different" experience, and prison is a "foreign place." Without comprehensive pre-service training, they find they have to "work by the seat of their pants" (Wright, 2002), frequently lacking the cultural maps (Ceraci, 2002) to understand their experience. Even the stereotypic images of prisons disseminated in the media do little to dispel the confusion.

I didn't know what to expect - I mean, I had one cousin who worked in a jail, and that was it, and he didn't really tell me any stories, and so I just knew what I had seen in the movies. When I got there, the inmates were just walking around, and I was thinking: Why aren't they in their cells? Somebody's not doing their job here! I had visions of being in a classroom with a guard with a gun, and I got there, and it was a little more lax than that! (Kathy).

Teachers bring to prison professional identities and practices fashioned in a different cultural landscape. Little wonder novice prison teachers are bewildered, confused, and disoriented on the inside as they experience the nuances of prison life. For example, they are puzzled when they encounter prisoners for the first time, who surprisingly are not the monstrous "others" portrayed in the media, but quite human after all. Moreover, they feel the heavy weight of prison walls and towers on their bodies and minds, as the silent language of architecture communicates to them they are in a different place. Furthermore, in their preliminary encounters with prison officers, they often feel insulted and demeaned when their personal belongings are searched, or their motives for teaching in prison questioned. And, they are confused and surprised when they raise the ire of surly officers who expect compliance to prison rules and practices that are a source of confusion for the new prison teacher. Novice teachers experience culture shock (Jandt, 2004) because prison cultures are different from school cultures on the outside (Geraci, 2002). Gradually, though, teachers adjust to prison life as one veteran prison teacher at an international symposium in Canada recalls.

You know, I just remember when I first started, the first week it was the first time I'd ever been in a prison. I was scared, I'll admit it. I had no idea what to expect, I was looking over my shoulder ever two seconds, checking to make sure my wallet was still in my pants pocket. Asking-you know-if it was okay to bring a wallet into the facility. I mean I was asking just tons and tons of questions-you know-the security, the programs, just everybody. Just trying to find out what it is like inside there-because it's such a foreign environment to anyone on the outside. But within a couple weeks I noticed that I stopped looking over my shoulder all the time and I stopped worrying about my wallet. I could even leave certain objects on my desk and not worry. I could step away because I knew the guys who were in my area well enough to know that if I left, you know, an immediate area for two seconds that I didn't have to worry (Cameron).

Methodology

This paper is based on the assumption that teachers undergo similar experiences of intercultural adjustment, identified as stages of culture shock, when they go to teach in prisons. Moreover, they assume stage-related identities such as the teacher as visitor, tourist, stranger, settler, during this acculturation process. Gudykunst's (1983) approach to intercultural adjustment and acculturation, as well as Jandt's (2004) work on the stages of culture shock articulates the speculative social-psychological topology of the prison teacher's professional experience and identities I propose here. This topology of the stages of acculturation and identity formation of prison teachers is supported by data from focus group interviews conducted by the author with twenty-two prison teachers across western Canada (Author, 2002), and from transcripts of focus group sessions held at an international symposium at Pine Lake, Ontario, in May, 2000.