A Life Interrupted

By Christopher Zoukis

Sitting in the old wooden chair, I felt cold.  I had been in this small, stark room inside the McDowell County Jail for twenty minutes, waiting for my attorney.  To many the room wouldn't be cold, but to someone wearing only a pair of orange scrubs it was.  Today would include yet another visit with my attorney, a routine repeated so many times it was . . . well . . . routine.  So when he entered I was unimpressed.

He extended his hand and I clasped it.  Staring into his eyes I knew this was a formality not extended to all of his clients.  I knew this because I knew some of his clients were neither pleasant nor hygienic.  After sitting down, he divulged the reason for his visit.  I was to sign the plea bargain that had been offered by the U.S. Attorney.  A vice squeezed my chest.  I couldn't breathe.  My left eyelid twitched wildly as my attorney looked at me with a tender, knowing gaze.  A 22-year-old kid who was in way over his head.

He laid out the deal starting with the good news.  The U.S. Attorney had agreed to drop a charge.  This charge was a bogus one they knew they couldn't prove.  So far, they were only retracting a lie that couldn't add any time to my sentence.  I was less than thrilled but still hopeful.

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Class Update: The Business of Writing From the Prisoner's Perspective

Introduction

This week was week six of Writing and Publishing. Week six is the week when we focus upon the author platform, the different types of publishers, and where to go for outside help. It certainly was a jam-packed session.

Author Platform

Of these three focal points, the author platform caused the most frustration. Sadly, prisoners live in a stunted society where many modern conveniences - and expectations - are not allowed. A prime case-in-point is creating an author platform.

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Providing College To Prison Inmates Series (Part 7)

This is the seventh and final blog post in the ‘Providing College To Prison Inmates Series.’ This series is based upon seven "Recommendations for Policy and Practice" presented by Contardo on pages 154 through 156 of her text Providing College To Prison Inmates.

"Articulate the benefits of college for prison inmates so that outsiders can understand." --Contardo (pg. 156)

While the above quote refers to securing support for correctional education, I feel that this is not the correct way to solicit outside support of these programs. This is because the American people don't want to know how much more they can spend to help a prisoner – someone who broke the law – or how spending this money will help the prisoner. If anything, the American people want to know how correctional education benefits them. They want to know why they should mentally buy-in to the idea of educating prisoners. As such, this blog post is based upon the benefits of prison education to the American people. Though, the benefit of the American people coincides with the benefit of the incarcerated student, too. It's a win-win situation.

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Obvious Truths We Shouldn't Be Ignoring Series (Part 1)

As one of my professional development tasks, I read all I can on education, student development, and better practices for teachers. I do so because I'm not a formally educated instructor. I'm a guy who made some bad decisions when I was a senior in high school. Hence, I came to prison. And, it was here that I hit my educational stride, both in terms of teaching and learning.

The other day I was reading the September 2011 issue of The Education Digest and I came across a terrific piece by Alfie Kohn entitled ‘Ten Obvious Truths That We Shouldn't Be Ignoring.’ In this essay he notes obvious truths such as memorization not being all that it is cracked up to be, that knowing a lot of facts doesn't make a person smart, and that students are more likely to learn what they find interesting than what they don't.

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Providing College To Prison Inmates Series (Part 6)

This is the sixth blog post in the ‘Providing College To Prison Inmates Series.’ This series is based upon seven "Recommendations for Policy and Practice" presented by Contardo on pages 154 through 156 of her text Providing College To Prison Inmates.

"Document successes and failures." --Contardo (pg. 156)

So far we have discussed how to implement programs, the challenges with doing so, and several models to follow. Now let's take a look at measuring successes and failures, and developing a body of research that may facilitate other correctional educational programs.

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Class Update: Enhanced Learning In A Smaller Setting

Introduction

It will never cease to amaze me how seemingly insignificant events can have truly profound effects in a correctional education setting. This week’s installment of ‘Writing and Publishing’ really drove this point home to me.

This week class didn't start so much at 7 p.m. -- as it is supposed to -- but at 6:30 p.m. This was due to the increasingly erratic calling of institutional movements by whoever was working in the control center of FCI-Petersburg. It seemed like they called all of the hourly movements (ten-minute periods when inmates are allowed to move from location to location. This is supposed to be done on the hour) 10 or 15 minutes early. Or, in the case of the 7 p.m. move, 30 minutes early.

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StraighterLine.com: A Model for College-Level Correctional Education Programs?

Long has the battle of how to cost-effectively educate the incarcerated waged on. On one side of the post-secondary correctional education debate, there are those who prefer to focus upon vocational training for those in prison. Supporters say job training is what is needed.

On the other side of the post-secondary correctional education debate, there are those who prefer to focus upon academic education for the incarcerated. Supporters say an academic liberal arts education will allow participants to learn how to think.

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