GUEST BLOGGER Joe Coyle

GUEST BLOGGER: Joe Coyle
Another amazing spirit who is the project manager of Mix IT UP!, Joe brings the voices of incarcerated youth from behind bars and cement walls; empowering them through creative writing, connecting all of us through written word. I have had the opportunity to read and review some of these works and they are absolutely astonishing, beautiful, heart-breaking and inspiring.

Joe Coyle

Project Manager- Mix IT Up!
http://mixituplis.wordpress.com/

 

 Adults rarely listen to the voices of young people when it comes to important social issues, policy, or art. Young people in detention centers are especially ignored. Of course, young folks in custody have a lot to say and are producing important work on these topics everyday. There are many writing programs across the country serving young people in detention centers that bring these voices into the public.

I run a writing program out of the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center in Urbana, IL.  Each week, the writers and I hang out, talk about social issues and our lives, and write.  We also read and discuss literature, essays, and poetry together. The general structure of each meeting tends to be pretty loose because each writer has a different purpose and project. Currently, two of the young people I work with are busy editing a collection of poems and prose on parenting and DCFS, one is working on a zine about the education system, some are writing poems to help process their relationships to family members, and others are producing visual art and entering their work into contests.

            Every two weeks, the writers who are interested publish their work in The Beat Within, a magazine that features the writings and art of young people in custody across the United States. This magazine is always a high circulating item in the detention center library. For some, reading other writers’ words in The Beat Within can help them process their own experiences. For others, reading their own published words can bring a sense of validation of their experiences and is a step in the process of developing an identity as a writer.

            One of the most exciting parts of the writing program is the communication that happens between the writers and their readers. Every week, I digitize the writings and e-mail them to a group of volunteers who provide feedback to the writers. The volunteers come from a variety of backgrounds. Some of them have never known anyone who has been in a detention center. Others are incarcerated, serving prison sentences. The reviewers are yoga instructors, preschool teachers, city council members, activists, stay at home parents, lawyers, counselors, high school students, and so on. The writers at the detention center highly value these reviewers’ feedback. Every day that I run a writing program or provide library services, writers ask me how many pieces of feedback have arrived for them. However, it is not only the writers who benefit from this kind of communication. The reviewers are often receive an education, and are inspired or changed as a result of participating in this program. Plus, they get to read great writing.

            To me, one of the greatest values of this kind of collaboration is that it facilitates intercultural, interclass, and intergenerational connection through the act of writing. It is through these kinds of connections that the voices of young people in custody can continue to be brought from margin to center.

           

 

If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, or just reading weekly writings from the writers at the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center, e-mail Joe Coyle at

Joe.a.coyle@gmail.com

UPCOMING GUEST BLOGGERS

UPCOMING GUEST BLOGGERS!



Rebecca Ginsburg, Executive Director of Education Justice Project--Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Barbara Lawrence, Associate Professor in the Justice and Policy Department at Guilford College

Joe Coyle, Project Manager of Mix IT UP!

Amanda Berger, Prison University Project (PUP) volunteer at San Quentin State Correctional Facility in California

Victor M. Vincent Jr., Guilford College Alum and Founder of The Re-Entry Expert Program

Sara Inman, Education Portal at Oregon Youth Authority

Stacy Bell McQuaide, Senior Lecturer in English at Oxford College of Emory University. 
 

Christopher Beasley, Founding President of Returning Student Support Group 

Tzipporah Gerson-Miller, Dr. V, and Jessika Gurule, Staff and participants at Reforming Arts at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Georgia

 

MORE TO FOLLOW, STAY TUNED!!!

GUEST BLOGGER Kenneth L. Parker

GUEST BLOGGER: Kenneth L. Parker is an Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Saint Louis University who has worked on developments to establish a college-in-prison program at the University. I had the privilege of meeting and gaining Kenneth's support for our efforts during the National Higher Education in Prisons Conference this spring. I am grateful for his participation in this guest blogger series where he highlights profound memories and experiences about his time teaching within prison.

 



 

 

“What I Learned about Learning in Prison”

Kenneth L. Parker

Associate Professor of Historical Theology

Saint Louis University

Saint Louis, MO

parkerk@slu.edu

314-977-2861

The title is misleading … I have never served time in prison. But last semester I had the

privilege of teaching in one. I say “privilege” because the experience became without

question the best classroom experience of my twenty years as a teacher. Don’t get me

wrong—teaching Ph.D. candidates, theology majors, and undergraduates in our honors

program has been stimulating and engaging—but never before have I taught the

intellectually-starved. It is hard to write about this because the experience evoked so

much pleasure. Would I feel the same way if I had spent the past semester feeding the

physically emaciated?

Yet that is the intellectual equivalent of what I did. Teachers crave, even long for the

experience of students who walk into their classrooms with eager smiles and open minds.

Imagine assigning texts that baffle the brightest undergraduates on the main campus and

find a room filled with students who have read the text three and four times, outlined the

argument and struggled until they had conquered the riddle of words and syntax. Try to

picture fifteen students sitting for almost three hours engaging in intense discussion and

debate on topics that you have posed and who are eager for your instructional guidance.

Conjure up the image of a student returning his paper to you … because he wants more

correction and guidance as a writer. Consider what it feels like to have a group of

students in the final assessment tell you that the experience in your classroom has given

them hope—a sense that life has purpose. What I have described is just a pale reflection

of my experience of teaching in prison. What I learned in prison is that the privilege to

learn, when withdrawn, creates desperation and despair, a loss of hope that is hard to

revive and a smoldering anger that is difficult to extinguish.

America’s prisons were not always an intellectual wasteland. Between the mid-1970s and

the mid-1990s a network of over 350 college-in-prison programs existed in forty-five

states. Numerous studies confirmed that college education in prison dramatically reduced

recidivism rates. The more undergraduate education received while in prison, the less

likely an inmate would re-offend once released. When recidivism rates nationwide

averaged around 65%, college-in-prison programs produced results in the 15% to 0%

range.

Yet in 1994 a Republican senator from North Carolina and a Democratic representative

from Missouri helped champion a campaign to bar inmates from access to Pell grants.

They argued that if hard-working, law-abiding citizens struggled to educate their

children, why should the government subsidize criminals in pursuit of college degrees?

Jesse Helms and Dick Gephardt succeeded. Their legislation effectively shut down

undergraduate education in American prisons. In many states even vocational training

and GED programs were treated as luxuries that prisoners did not deserve.

The results for the United States have been devastating. In an atmosphere that shifted

from rehabilitation to retribution, the last fourteen years has seen our prison population

explode. Although we are 5% of the earth’s population, we house and feed 25% of the

world’s inmates. One in every one hundred adult Americans is behind bars. The

construction and operation of prisons has become such a burden that states have slashed

funding of state-run universities and colleges. This has resulted in higher tuition at these

institutions and reduced access to higher education for the country’s working poor—

further exacerbating the cycles of behavior and despair that result in criminal behavior

and more prisoners.

When the Saint Louis University Prison Initiative, funded in part by the Incarnate Word

Foundation, solicited applications from the prison population we serve, over 300 men

applied for fifteen places. The applications were compelling and often heartrending. Most

of the men came from impoverished backgrounds, with little parental guidance (often

because one or both parents were in prison), and found affirmation and nurturing for a

criminal life on the street. In prison they now have time to think and reconsider their

priorities in life. They long for guidance. Yet the recurring theme in applications was that

programs did not exist to address this constructive desire. Many described the SLU

Prison Initiative as their first opportunity to pursue post-secondary education after

years—sometimes decades—of incarceration. In the end, selection of students focused on

those who were using what they had to make a difference inside. The students in our

program are GED tutors, facilitators in restorative justice groups, and several are

autodidacts—one reads his New Testament in Greek. Another has become an award

winning script writer. There are self-taught musicians and artists. One student’s academic

skills are so advanced that he could easily pursue graduate studies. In prison I learned

there is great talent and extraordinary ability behind prison walls—human potential that

we as a nation are wasting because we chose not to redirect and reshape it toward

productive and positive purposes.

College education offers a key. I have long known that students will live up to my

expectations. If I create demanding goals in a course, those who persevere tend to excel

and achieve beyond their ordinary patterns in other settings. This is what I did in the

prison course. Assignments that are selections from a book on the main campus became

book assignments for my prison students. I marked their essays severely, but added notes

of encouragement at signs of progress. While this practice often is met with grumbling

and complaints on the main campus, prison students rose to the occasion and spoke in

triumphant terms about their struggles to understand a text and how they conquered it.

They discussed the pain of writing four and five drafts of essays assigned until they

achieved the desired result. The passion and commitment astounded me.

What I learned in prison is that there are men and women aching for the opportunity to be

pushed to their limit and receive praise for achieving hard won goals. These are human

beings—like us—who crave respect and restoration of their dignity. I learned that despite

their crimes, often heinous, there is a core of humanity that responds when respect is

given and judgment is suspended. When I consider that 95% of the women and men in

prison will one day be back on the streets, it is only prudent to ensure that they will leave

with their dignity and sense of self-worth intact. College education on the inside is the

only proven way to achieve that goal.

I learned in prison that the best students and most fervent learners are to be found behind

bars. If you would like to experience the guilty pleasure of teaching the intellectuallystarved,

develop a college-in-prison program in your area. You may be surprised, as I

was, that the help to do this is waiting for your call. While others may praise your

altruism and commitment to serve a despised population, your greatest challenge may be

living with the guilt of knowing that you are enjoying the best teaching experience of

your life!


Please visit Kenneth's Profile Page: https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/kenneth-l-parker/
SLU College-in-Prison Program: http://www.slu.edu/school-for-professional-studies-home/prison-program

Medical Facility at Butner Federal Correctional

Friday, April 12, 2013

4:19 a.m.

In four hours I will be on my way to Butner Correctional Medical Facility (BCMF), in Durham, North Carolina

Usually, and surprising to most people, I have very little anxiety about entering a correctional facility, but this one is different.  My mind has been racing all evening into the early morning hours.  I can’t sleep and the thought of entering the facility brings me to the brink of tears.

I can pretty honestly say, I have been a wreck most of night.

BCMF will be an all around different experience.

Here, is where many of the inmates at Butner Federal Correctional will relocate if they become seriously ill or are dying.

The thought of someone spending their last days slowing dying in a cold, lonely place is incredibly disheartening.  There are some inmates who might qualify for medical parole, but that is not the majority of cases.

I have read several articles written by nurses who care for terminally ill inmates and the overwhelming consensus is that while they are undoubtedly compassionate for the victim’s of the offender’s crime, the inhumane way of dying alone, without a loved one, without the very basic need of our human element: connection is a very sad reality. (Note: most nurses who wrote about the conflicting compassion expressed intense guilt for such compassion towards the inmates. (This shaming is sad and unfortunate.).)

This may be a touchy subject for some. Some will have little sympathy for these terminally ill patients.

Let us dare to ask though, how we would want our loved one: our son, daughter, father or mother to spend their last moments before dying? Alone? Scared?

Absolutely not.

Can we not afford incarcerated patients  equal worth?

I ask that we all try to be mindful and carry a compassionate, open heart.

A Boy Named Freedom

A Boy Named Freedom

There was a boy, his name was Freedom

A funny name of sorts

His parents, Law and Justice

Never really knew him

His father stoic, dry and lacking warmth

His mother blind.

There was a boy named Freedom

Like every young boy

In search of who he was.

Defined by others perceptions

Liberation was as foreign as his father acceptance

There was a boy named freedom

Who stood on the shore

Looking for the girl he loved-

Hope.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction

Rebuilt in a more beautiful and breathtaking design.

A design that never could have been imagined in a different place and time.

This is your blueprint:  use color

Be fearless and draw your lines askew

Outside the box.

Hell, draw a circle if you want.

In your canvas use texture and never forget its feeling.

Appreciate the Cool, rough and bumpy

Imagine. Despite all you think you don’t have.

There is always more in the art of life we don’t see.

Cusped in your hands

Is warmth.

Create a beautiful and breathtaking design.

In the sanctuary of education, you don’t have to be a prisoner:

 

In the sanctuary of education, you don’t have to be a prisoner:

Recalling defining moments of our visit to the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison

 

“There is a resilience of human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity. “ –Howard Zinn

 

 There are many of us who have seen stories of San Quentin prison depicted on “reality” television shows whose claim to fame is to bring outsiders a “truthful” look inside a notorious institution. An institutional juggernaut of violence, addiction and gangs.

My goal here is to not discount everything that is depicted. There is some truth to the conditions of prison life. It is not a place to be or to call home.  Prison is painful, exclusionary and sad.

Try to imagine it.

The lack of human affection; of love.  The absence of the warmth of your lover’s body wrapped around you at night, the inability to hold your child…these are all lost human connections. Sometimes replaced with actions of violence, against oneself and others; feelings of vulnerability, shame, fear and anxiety to conceal the maddening loss of autonomy, respect and loving connections that compose our humanity.

There are gangs.

 There is violence.

There is addiction.

 There is mental illness.

 There is death.

There is despair.

 There is sadness.

 There is remorse.

 There is guilt.

 There is shame.

And there is regret.

There is also something else.

Hope. Courage.  Determination.  Strength.  Resilience.

This is the story within the walls of San Quentin I want to tell.

That despite its conditions and limitations the inmates in general population at San Quentin find themselves in, there is an unyielding journey of repair, self-discovery and determination to not let mistakes define who they are.

Our visit to San Quentin Prison was to see first-hand the structure, dynamics and interpersonal relationships that occur and develop within the Prison University Project (PUP).   We were nothing short of blown away.

Jody Lewen, Executive Director of the Prison University Project, met us at the gate before escorting us through the prison clearance routine. Meeting Jody was like reuniting with a long lost friend. I had corresponded with Jody through several emails and telephone conversations prior to our visit out to the West Coast. Jody wanted to ensure we were all aware of the rules and dress codes at the prison but also extended kind gestures of transportation, food and networking. She was even more warm and welcoming in person than she was over the phone.  After exchanging hugs, Jody thanked us for visiting and thanked us for our pursuits advocating for education within prisons.

Truly a warm welcoming especially compared to the intimidating infrastructure of historical Spanish architecture that now housed thousands of California citizens under state correctional supervision, towering in the background.

Several guards dressed in dark-green military style uniforms met us at three different identification check points and security scan before we could even actually enter the prison. Not to mention slamming prison gates that mimicked infamous Californian earthquakes.

Despite the warmth and kindness of Jody, all the intimidating factors started weighing in.

How does one truly prepare their psyche to encounter what is a reality to so many but so far removed from outside society?

After all, this was the notorious San Quentin Prison! I think I can speak for myself and my colleagues, that walking through the corridor of the prison, down the descending pathway and around the corner of the long prison wall we were expecting to see a scene of "thugs" ballin' it up in the yard, lifting weights and pockets of racially segregated groups.

We approached the yard and nothing could have been further from the truth.

What we did see was amazing and a powerful testament to the value of the Prison University Project. We saw men lining the outside walls of the educational trailers.

Armed with books.

 Books in white mesh book bags thrown over their shoulders. We saw a table set up to encourage other inmates to participate in a democratic dialogue of concerns and community building within their walls. We saw staff writers and editors passing out the current edition of the San Quentin news; one of the only newspapers in California, possibly in the nation written entirely by inmates.

We saw men approach Jody, bid her good evening and strike up conversation as if they had been friends for a lifetime.

Their attitudes were contagious. At every corner, there were not rival gangs defending their yard territory, there were men engaging in conversation and debate about what social psychology theory best applied to the anticipated night’s lesson, men sitting independently proofreading papers to turn in for class, men reviewing notes from the last class.

During the several days we visited San Quentin, we had the opportunity to sit in on higher education classes all taught by professors and graduate students from Stanford and UC Berkley, some of them driving over an hour to and from to teach….voluntarily.  The dialogue was challenging and thought-provoking. The PUP students were held to the same academic parity as fellow graduate students from Stanford or Berkley.

During a break in one of the seminar classes I had the privilege to speak with a PUP student, Kenyatta (what I didn’t know at the time was that Kenyatta was the valedictorian of his graduating class for his Associates Degree). He inquired about our visit and relayed to us that the PUP was literally a lifeline for him.  He said that “education was the most worth having possession he could have.”

In our time we also had the opportunity to attend the preparatory reading, writing and math classes. I have sat for weeks trying to find the right words to express how sitting in those classes watching grown and sometimes frail, old men struggle to read or do simple multiplication made me feel.

Is there a word for sadness so deep it burns a picture into your being? I will never forget those men. Struggling but remaining hopeful. Frustrated yet persistent.

Each time we left the facility during our visit there was an array of emotions to sort through. Whether we travelled back into the city by car, train, cab or ferry our conversations were filled with reflections about the classes and social dynamics within the program that trickled out into general population.  

Documenting mentally and on paper the stories behind the Prison University Project has helped me further advocate for the benefits of educational programs in prison. Furthermore, our visit has empowered me with greater knowledge and a deeper understanding of the dire importance to aid in the deconstruction of social misconceptions of those incarcerated. Misconceptions generate a fear; creating an unhealthy divisionary reaction of seclusion from one another and our communities; placing members of our society into categories of us and them; the worthy and the un.

I want to make clear, prison is no playground and there is definitely a need for reform. It is sad and painful. There is little rehabilitation and in some pockets, breeding grounds for further criminalization. But understand this; there are more people than not who are holding on to hope and doing the very best they can in their circumstance to change the course of their lives. There are men incarcerated at San Quentin who do community fundraiser to help at risk children, they organize walks, runs and prison baseball games to raise money for fellow inmates with cancer. They are not all bad people; some have just made mistakes (or been in the crossfire of bad law and policy). They are human beings who work against our societal grains of letting their mistakes define who they are. It is ridiculous and sad that these stories are not what we see in the news and media.

I am thankful to Jody for all of her inspiring work and relentless dedication towards stimulating public awareness and meaningful dialogue about higher education and criminal justice. The Prison University Project at San Quentin is one of the guiding models the Guilford College Higher Education in Prison Initiative hopes to learn from.

 

The following link is a video reflection of the research and visit to San Quentin and the Prison University Project. Enjoy! https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2tf87247m46etc/Prison%20University%20Project%20-%20SQ.m4v?n=145957607

For more information on the San Quentin Prison University Project and the San Quentin newspaper please visit: www.prisonuniversityproject.org and www.sanquentinnews.com