Disgraceful Educational Opportunities

Former state Senator Jeff Brandes (R, FL)

"You can't expect the universities to do it all, and state legislators haven't made higher ed in prison a priority because they ignore what goes on inside," said Brandes, who sponsored several prison education bills during his time in office.
"I go to some prisons where there's 1,500 residents and no education programming. ... That's [because of a] lack of funding and will from the Florida Department of Corrections."

Hey, readers. I open with a quote from the January/February 2024 edition of College Inside, a paper that focuses on education here behind the concertina wire and fences.

Senator Brandes is not exaggerating about visiting prison camps with a lack of education and programming. My current camp, Blessington, has about 1900 residents, and almost no educational opportunities for anyone.

What's the issue?

The lack of access to education is the issue!
I am fortunate to have entered prison with a high school diploma under my belt. The previous sentence is part of scope setting, and not an attempt to brag.
There are people here who don't have that or a GED to their name; this may include people who read on a very low educational level, if at all. They may struggle with mathematics beyond basic arithmetic.

To get into vocational programming, you must have either a high school diploma or a GED, and you must take the TABE -- the Test of Adult Basic Education, passing it with a satisfactory score.

But getting a GED may require time in an Adult Basic Education class. We do not have instructors for that right now, and it leads back to that lack of funding Sen. Brandes mentioned. If an instructor had a choice between being paid (hypothetical amount) $45,000 a year to teach in a prison, or $45,000 to teach in a local high school, where do you think they're going to go!?

In most cases, the prison is actually safer, at least at first glance -- we inmates aren't walking around with guns, shooting up the camps.

But, we tend to be significantly harder to teach. We're adults here, from the barely 18-year-old justice impacted resident, to the 75-year-old disabled gentleman.
Many of us never learned how to overcome the education-related traumas of our childhoods. I, for example, had adults in my life that told me I'll never amount to anything, and that I will never graduate high school. My response is to attempt to systematically overachieve the goal in order to prove a person who passed away a quarter century ago wrong. I cannot bear, emotionally, the concept of failure when that face comes forward. On tests, when I get answers wrong, I'll challenge it to prove the test writer wrong when given opportunity, to show that I have done the research.
Granted, I feel that I've developed the maturity to gracefully (in most cases) accept that I got the answer wrong, but sometimes the face of my old man pops up in my mind, his voice grating in the deeper recesses, and I react by doing extra work.

Now... Imagine a room full of adults, reacting to childhood traumas in the only ways they know how. It's almost as if you need a degree in adult psychology to go with that educational degree, just to teach Adult Basic Education, or a GED class.

Couple this with the significantly increased scrutiny of security controls to enter the facility each day (even your lunch gets molested in the name of Security), the utter lack of all of the materials you need to teach (what's a book? you thought we had computers and software? hahaha!), and the faces of people who have given up so hard on themselves that don't want to be in your classroom and lash out (sometimes violently) in order to be put out of the class...

It becomes easier to risk the K-12 environment than try to teach a room of incarcerated adults! In our country, we're sending kids to school with kevlar plates in their backpacks to protect them from morally bankrupt people who shoot up schools instead of seeking mental health help, while continuing to teach even this generation that no-one cares about the Mind-as-a-System.

Education, and by proxy, her educators-as-a-profession, face hard decisions. K-12 academia needs teachers dedicated to the art of instructing, but imprisoned adults need teachers dedicated to the art of healing and instructing at the same time.

Where do we find this absent mythical beast?

I think it requires a multi-pronged answer.
Yes, we still need K-12 teachers that truly care, and we need a lot of them, to cater to the individual learning styles of children, to meet them where they are, to offer the little a big hand to hold on to until they're truly ready to run ahead.

But, we desperately need an adult equivalent to that same system, for those who were left behind, despite the proud toots of "No Child Left Behind!" made by people who didn't get the idea that the parents behind these fences are part of that child. That child has a wound in their heart. That child grew up into an adult in the only way they knew how.

Can we find a way to model in-prison education in a way that treats the whole person as someone who deserves a chance?

After all, when we who have out dates leave here, we become your neighbors, we become the people serving in your neighborhoods, the person you meditate or pray beside. Wouldn't you prefer giving us the time to become the best version of that before we leave?

Last, as food for thought, I wrap with a quote I saw in my copy of UltraViolet I received the other day:

Angel Garza, currently housed in CSP Corcoran, California.

The secret behind life sentences that no one is talking about is, "we who all have LWOP sentences are the security deposit to keep prisons open and running from generation to generation."

May we all find peace, kindness, and caring throughout this coming year.
Thanks for reading!