Meanderings of Prison Work

As of late I've had a strange array of students coming to me with everything from true personal nightmares to the run of the mill young 20-something reactions of life. As my seniors encroach on graduation, and they ask me about life and what I've done, and I force them to look at plan Bs, they are amused in my plan B with a Kentucky newspaper or the hilarity of my once orange hair. Okay, they love that and enjoy the input on what not to do past graduation...so today you have a deviation, as my mind needs to unwind a bit.

So, while I have a closet full of things to blog about, show off my sewing prowess, or make you drool with my newest knitted and cabled hat, I'm deviating this week. Instead, here's an odd window of what I often call my darkest hour as to cope and survive poetry and romance eases the pains and falls of reality.

Sometime ago a former student wanted to know about prison teaching, as I did that once.  Ya know, college level courses in three male prisons.  Mmmm.  I wrote her back, often wondering why she was inquiring . . . perhaps altruism or perhaps because someone she knew was on the inside, so to speak.  So, here is an expanded version of that response . . . with some meanders of memory and the strange trips of the mind along the way.  It took me a belabored while to finish this post . . . memories, flashbacks, and doors I don’t want to revisit crept from my guarded crevices. 

 I taught in two medium level prisons and one level one institution.  One of these prisons is noted as a the one of the largest and most vile centers on the east coast.  It is also home to the execution chamber.  Level one offenders are a different lot, closer to release, and in for lesser crimes.  I taught college courses via the local community college to male inmates. The program I was with was via a federal prisoner rehabilitation grant.  That being said . . . prison works takes many forms.  Trying to pay bills, supporting a family, doing the cause to make someone's life all plays into it.  

Though, no matter how you shake it the pay is very little.  What I made teaching in the prisons was the same adjunct pay from regular college campuses, and since I was in southern Virginia at the time the monetary compensation was so very, very little.  Of course, most civil servant positions--and those of us in higher education--know that somewhere along the way we took vows of poverty.  If you are in teaching pay is usually not a reason you choose this profession, often thankless but most frequently rewarding.  As in this past week, in the middle of the start of Prime Time Advising, a student came into thank for me for making him take a class.  He's enjoying a professor known for his rigor.  And several, in my own classes, told me that my courses are the hardest but most rewarding (even those no longer in my classes).  It's the little things.  

  

Prisoners are unlike any other kind of student you will ever encounter.  I say this with confidence as I've been in college classrooms for more than a decade, and while teaching in those prisons I ran a literacy council and subbed at the local elementary and high schools.  In short, I've been at elite type schools, inner-city campuses, fall back schools, and flunk out places.  The prisoners . . . yes, they have to be approved to be in the program, which usually consists of them taking a minor exam for entrance to the college.  In Virginia they took the Compass exam, which is standard for community colleges.  It is a basic test of math, writing, and comprehension.  With that, many of these students in my classes had "come up" via the GED program in the prison.  At one prison I taught the American History Survey, and I had the same guys for two semesters. Of nearly thirty students, nearly two-thirds of them either obtained GEDs in the prisons or took remedial classes before taking mine for college credit.  Not everyone needed GEDs, but large numbers lacked basic analytic and comprehension skills.  Those are just the numbers from one source.  The data increases with the stats from the other tow prisons I taught at. 

The guidelines of prison education grants runs by the crime committed.  Generally, sex offenders and violent crimes are not permitted entry.  Though, you have to remember what one is convicted of is not always what was done.  You will encounter everything from middle class guys gone awry to outright gang members.  Also, some prisoners will have family members willing to pay for them to be in the classes.  So, just because my grant mandated 37 and younger with less than seven years to serve did not mean I was devoid of murderers in my classes.  I had one, who literally did drive by shootings for fun, in mine.  I remember him because he was overly argumentative, demanding half a point to take his grade from a 97.5 to a 98.  Why? Because he could.  He lived in a world of threats and intimidation, and since he had more than twenty-five years to serve he was nearing the top of the prison political system.  His eyes were the coldest I have ever seen. 

I sound very crass saying this, but prisoners live in a drastically different world than us.  They have a complex political network within, and they have their own codes of behavior.  They are excellent at manipulation.  They are skilled at conniving.  The guards are not women to them.  You may be the only woman they see.  That being said, the tax prison works takes on you is varying.  Yes, I make jokes that I got to be the prettiest girl in the room, but there was a price to pay.  I had to buy unscented soap to bathe with, I wore my hair in a nasty looking rat bun, I have a hideous pair of purple glasses (think “Ugly Betty”) that I wore, and my clothes were all two sizes too big.  Heels, which we know I love nearly as much as wife beaters and Birks in the summer, are very difficult to get the right height.  Instead, I wore my well worn Doc Marten’s in there.  I only wore make-up because I was told I needed to look professional.  Accordingly, I had to “ugly” myself up to survive.  It did not really work . . .

The guys will go to great lengths to get near you.  As in I had several try to smell my hair, and the day my hair tie broke in the middle of a three hour class my long hair fell . . . I will not soon forget the looks on the male faces in that room.  There are few situations when I have felt that uncomfortable and unsafe.  They will also attempt to find ways to touch you.  They will do this in the forms of brushes, long brushes up against you, and outright touching.  I had one individual put his hand on the small of my back, with his fingers under the hem of my sweater.  As I stood there in horror fearing of what the other eight would do, unable to hide the fear in my very wide eyes, one large student in the room (in for probation violation, drugs, and a botched shooting I think) pulled his hand away and told him to not “be a dick.”  You will find that some will protect you.  You find that some look at you too long.  You will also find that some are so far beyond confrontational that you are shaken from the mere sight of a moving mouth. 

Television and movies teach us that the guards will come running.  This is not always the case.  I was told I could not kick a student out of class for being confrontational.  I was told that if I liked my job I had better keep my mouth shut.  I was also told that sitting on a table, in front of the room more than three feet from students, was “advertising.” I was never violated, physically harmed, or damaged . . . but, there were several close encounters. 

On a different note, there are some rewarding experiences in there.  In my composition classes, I found myself sitting at the tables with them.  Of course, I made sure I had a clear line to the door, but still . . . Teaching composition and skills courses is difficult when you will not sit with a student and walk him through the steps.  I felt mostly safe doing this after a few weeks, and by then I knew who would protect me more than others.  Though, thinking back, some of the guys were just happy to have a woman inches from them.  Always, I had to make sure I did not touch them or them me.  Some of these individuals went from barely making a sentence, in college remedial writing and American History, to completing full paragraphs.  Some were very happy to tell me that they began writing letters to their family.  You also have to remember to always collect your pens and pencils upon leaving.  Letting a prisoner keep one can be seen as a giving a gift.  More so, prisoners are only allowed a select number of them at any given time.  They can be used as weapons.  But, for the most part, students who I loaned pens to were grateful like small children receiving attention from the teacher.  I learned this trick early on.  This trick kept me safer in one prison, the same place were two students flanked me every class after one tried to touch me.  It is all rather unnerving to think about in retrospect. 

All of that being said I also ran a literacy council that year.  That program was on the outside, and I encountered everyone from desperately poor to those looking to get a GED—or into classes—to avoid potential jail time.  Some of that work was rewarding.  A woman who I bought my gas and Diet Sun Drop from every morning came into get her GED.  She scored exceptionally well, and when I found out she didn't have a GED I nearly fainted.  She tells me she came in because of me, to show her daughter it could be done, and that I did not make her feel dumb or a lesser person.  There are other stories with the literacy council . . . heartbreaking accounts of adults unable to write anything beyond their names. 

At points the good merges with, well, the darkside. So, on days when I come gone worn out, and exhausted, from the labors of the department, teaching, and writing I certainly have something worse to have come from.