Reframing the “value” of education in carceral spaces
I’ve learned lately that I am comically bad at Wordle, a game I consider a tougher and worse version of Wheel of Fortune (easily my least favorite game show.) And yet, I’ve found a soft spot for Wordle for one reason alone: playing it with my Petey Greene Program virtual High School Equivalency (HSE) students at the beginning of class. Because I am so awful at it, I’m a more effective spectator than active contributor , but group Wordle inspires a lot of debate, novel approaches, daring guesses, and laughter. Our students have solved every single puzzle they’ve attempted, a collective point of pride for us all.
“In the classroom, we are focused on who you can be, not what you have done. We ask what strengths are coming through our doors, not what faults.”
Playing Wordle encapsulates so much of my answer when people ask me what I love most about my job: I tell them that without question, it is being in the classroom, either virtually or in-person, learning alongside students. Many folks who are unfamiliar with our carceral system are surprised when I describe the vibrant ecosystem that exists inside a prison classroom. Yes, much of the time we have limited material resources and work under less than ideal conditions,but the community that blooms inside is extraordinary. In many ways, the classroom is the opposite of the industrial complex of mass incarceration and supervision: In the classroom, we are focused on who you can be, not what you have done. We ask what strengths are coming through our doors, not what faults. At the chalkboard, students are allowed to be wrong and to bring themselves fully and unapologetically into their experience. We all take ownership of and responsibility for our individual and collective learning journeys.While we find ourselves at different points in reaching our goals of brighter futures, we converge to support each other in taking continuous steps forward to making those goals reality.
“When students walk through the classroom door, their faces often light up with joy, and I can see the subtle shift as they begin to decompress from who or what the environment and circumstance force them to be, into the best version of themselves. ”
When students walk through the classroom door, their faces often light up with joy, and I can see the subtle shift as they begin to decompress from who or what the environment and circumstance force them to be, into the best version of themselves. Learners have shared that the classroom is a refuge from the chaos of incarceration. I watch students slowly build confidence as they move from telling me “I could never” to “maybe I’ll try” to emphatically “I can do this!” with their successes being equally celebrated by their peers. Students have proudly told me about the study groups they informally organize outside of class and of how they hold their peers accountable for homework. I observe and listen as they clarify material amongst themselves to ensure that no student is left behind. I often incorporate their explanations into my own teaching, which pushes me to innovate as an educator or to tackle material from a different and often more creative perspective that I had not yet considered. A wonderful spirit of reciprocal learning thrives in carceral classrooms: I do some teaching, but significantly more listening, and a lot more learning—case in point: Wordle. I watch students grow as leaders, advocating first for themselves, then for their peers, and frequently, on behalf of the program itself.
“A wonderful spirit of reciprocal learning thrives in carceral classrooms: I do some teaching, but significantly more listening, and a lot more learning”
Creating community necessarily works in tandem with being part of that community. It is for this very reason that I am a huge proponent of participatory action research and am committed to incorporating student feedback into my programmatic design and evaluation. We as educators can provide the scaffolding, but ultimately, learners know what they need. As students become more comfortable with advocating for themselves, I have the responsibility to hear and utilize their insight to ensure that our programming is both responsive to the needs they currently have and well-positioned to support their growth moving forward. Being responsive and learning from my students has also meant shifting my conception of productivity and what a “good class session” should look like. If our goal is creating and maintaining an environment that supports students’ educational journeys, then sometimes what I have planned for the day has to be scrapped or adapted, usually in the moment. On some days, success means we get through a great lesson and many practice questions; on others, it means holding space for students to take a breath, play a few rounds of Wordle, sudoku, or a crossword, and letting them know they are capable and we care. Sometimes, success is simply providing our students the freedom to be the multi-faceted people that they are.
“The joy of learning, and all its subsequent benefits like introspection, growth, and empowerment, is for everyone. ”
To me, this is the inherent value of education that extends beyond reducing recidivism, beyond job readiness, beyond so many of the metrics we typically use to measure success in carceral spaces. Education for the joy of liberation, the joy of embracing who you are, the joy of boldly stepping into a new identity—that of a learner, of a scholar, of a peer, of a cohort—is equally important, if not as neatly quantifiable. The reality of the carceral state, particularly with a growing aging population like that in my home state of New York, in conjunction with inhumanely long sentences, is that some of our students may never come home. We may never know how they might fare in the traditional job market or if they would continue their trajectory of positive growth on the outside. What then is the value of education in carceral spaces for these students, for whom traditional metrics do not apply? Aside from the fact that it creates safer facilities, the value of education lies in the often intangible, frequently immeasurable, but immediately perceivable gains in leadership, interpersonal, and critical thinking skills that empower learners to take charge of their own liberation journeys. Education in its own right is the value-add. When we limit the value of education to measures that only encapsulate recidivism, we lose the value that classrooms provide inside: a space for mentorship, leadership, conflict resolution, and personal growth. In doing so, we preclude learners with long sentences or who are elderly from engaging in education and rising to the occasion that a classroom environment demands. As educators, we lose rich sources of leadership, life experiences, and critical inquiry when older learners or those with life sentences are absent from our classrooms. The joy of learning, and all its subsequent benefits like introspection, growth, and empowerment, is for everyone.
I have heard several formerly incarcerated friends, mentors, and scholars note that the greatest contraband in prison is joy. In a myriad of ways, education is an apt antidote to the absence of hope that so permeates our prisons, because education brings transformation, community, and most critically, joy. There are days that I leave the facilities disheartened, but more often, I leave with a smile on my face. I frequently struggle to describe my experience to others—“fun” feels a bit wrong as a descriptor for working inside, but it’s certainly not all bad either. It has been and continues to be one of the greatest joys of my career to not only bear witness to the transformation, but to be transformed myself as I build an educational community in tandem with my students and fellow instructors.
“The value of education lies in the often intangible, frequently immeasurable, but immediately perceivable gains in leadership, interpersonal, and critical thinking skills that empower learners to take charge of their own liberation journeys. Education in its own right is the value-add.”