Scenes of Prison
Addendum:
60. Training for Life
W hen I first came to the prison and began my job as a caseworker, I got to know the inmates, but often, I felt that I already knew them. At LCC, our prisoners were mostly young, and they reminded me of the young teens who had occupied much of my time in my office at the middle school where I had worked before becoming a caseworker.
As a middle school counselor, I was involved in the struggle to keep kids in school. Dropping out is not permitted in Nebraska until a child reaches the age of sixteen. In the middle school, although these future dropouts were still present, most of them had already given up. Dropping out was in their future. They were defeated by school, and they were bored, and as they waited to reach the age of sixteen and walk out for the last time, they enlivened their days by acting up. They entertained themselves by raising a ruckus and creating some drama. That’s what brought them to my office.
Giving up and acting out in middle school is the second step in the process of dropping out of school, and every middle school counselor invests a lot of time and caring trying to help these kids, but by then, it’s usually too late. The opportunity to change the course of the student’s life has already passed. It occurred in elementary school.
Dropping out is a three-step process. The first step occurs in elementary school where these students endure countless failures both in the classroom and outside of it. Every spelling test that comes back amply marked with red Xs, every math worksheet that everyone else understands perfectly, every choosing of teams where they are the last ones reluctantly assigned to a team . . . all these and more add to the equation.
Teachers reluctantly give up on them, too, mindful that all the other students in the class do understand the lesson and are getting bored and restless while the teacher tries to help, so they go on to the next unit and leave the student behind with some vague suggestions for enlisting the help of parents.
When report cards arrive, their grades are so low that they are ashamed to show them to anyone, not even their parents. All day, every day, the failures pile on until the child finally learns for certain that he or she is a loser, a dummy, stupid. It’s a lesson that only gets stronger if a student is persuaded to try again and fails again. “I’m a loser“ is a hard way to live, but that was their reality when they arrived at my office in the middle school.
That’s who they were. They were losers. Stupid. They knew it, and they knew they couldn’t hide it, and every test and graded assignment returned to them publicly repeated the message: “You are a loser.”
Losers serve a purpose in the school as the negative example to spur motivation: “Pay attention to the teacher and study your lessons, or you will turn out like this loser.” They were destined to drop out of school, and for those who chose criminal behavior, they were also destined for prison. Violence is a great equalizer, and for some, an attractive choice. As a caseworker in a prison, incarcerated inmate became the next step following dropping out, and that’s when I next encountered them. I felt as though I already knew them.
When the Lincoln Correctional Center was designed, we built a community college campus inside of it. It was the Southeast Community College LCC Campus, and it had classrooms for academic studies and several skilled trades. I recall building trades, masonry, and automotive repair, but there may have been others. It looked like a dream come true, the ideal prison experience to turn lives around. It didn’t last.
The Southeast Community College administrators decided that the degrees they would grant at our campus would be equivalent to those granted at their other campuses. Unfortunately, that meant that admissions would be limited to those who could meet their entrance requirements, one of which was a high school diploma or a GED. That hurdle funneled all our inmates who didn’t have a high school diploma but did want to complete a skilled trade into GED classes, and ultimately into remedial math and reading classes, classes for “dummies and losers.” They were right back where they were when they dropped out of high school, urged to try once again, but the math problems were no easier, and they still didn’t know the words in the reading assignments. Been there, done that.
A long hallway through the center of the administration building formed one side of the school, and large windows allowed passersby to observe activities going on inside. Before very long, we recognized a pattern. The remedial classes were crowded with our youngest inmates with a high proportion of students of color. The skilled trades were sparsely populated with older, white inmates. As we looked more closely, we recognized these older white inmates. They were white-collar criminals and sex offenders with long sentences whose backgrounds did not include school failure. It was an ideal setting for them. They could spend long hours separated from the other inmates, the “losers,” and they could hang out with other people like them and learn a new skill while they passed the time. They were in no hurry to complete their programs.
Staff were not the only ones who noticed this pattern. To the inmates of color, who passed by these windows on their way to and from their remedial reading and math classes, it looked a lot like a privilege reserved for white prisoners. They did not buy the excuse that multiplying fractions or using prepositions correctly would help them lay cement blocks in a foundation or change the spark plugs in an engine. To them, the skilled trades were a dirty trick on them, and it left a bad taste in their mouths.
The programs for skilled trades didn’t last, but the GED classes and the remedial classes did. We were told that the programs were canceled because women prisoners could not participate. As a matter of fairness, they removed the classes in skilled trades from the men. At the time, it seemed like a weak excuse.
I watched this drama unfold day after day as I passed by the school windows going to and coming from my Unit, so I had a lot of time to think about what was happening, and I thought we missed an opportunity. I believed we could have developed our own program to replace the skilled trades.
We should have asked the inmates, “What would you like to know how to do?”
We should have asked nonprofits who work with former prisoners, “What do they need to know when they get out?”
We should have asked ourselves these questions, too.
I believe if we had asked these questions, we could have designed a training program to fulfill the needs this inquiry would have identified. Maybe we still can. The program I envision would serve all of the inmates, not just the ones with high school diplomas. I'll briefly outline what I have in mind. I named it “Training for Life.” It’s my own invention, but I’m sure someone has already thought of it. It could be implemented in any correctional facility. Perhaps you are familiar with a similar program already in operation somewhere else.
The goal of my “Training for Life” program is to develop life skills in inmates and give them tools and strategies to make the tasks they will encounter in their lives easier to accomplish.
The curriculum for the program would follow the typical roles we all must fill in our day-to-day lives: employee, parent, spouse, fixer of broken things, friend, voter, customer, consumer in a digital environment, patient, and caregiver for an elderly spouse or parent. Undoubtedly, you can think of others. Within each role, specific skills would be identified, explained, and practiced.
A unit on the employee role, for example, might include the specific skills of listening to instructions and remembering them, taking orders without arguing, reacting to criticism, and asking for a job.
Specific skills within a unit on parenting could include cooking nutritious meals, responding to emotional outbursts, and choosing suitable books to read with children. Before leaving this unit, inmates would fry an egg and turn it into a tasty, balanced meal, and they would be the first to eat it.
Specific skills within a unit on being a consumer could include making change, filling out an application for social services, and making a grocery list.
Specific skills in a unit on fixing broken things could include changing a tire on a car, resetting a breaker switch, replacing the batteries in a smoke alarm, and searching YouTube for repair tips.
Specific skills in a unit on being a spouse could include active listening skills so that a spouse would feel heard and understood, identifying appropriate gifts for a spouse, understanding female physiology and its impact on mood and temper, and negotiating equitable agreements.
The content of “Training for Life” would evolve as students and teachers implemented the program and recognized unmet needs, and units would be finished when inmates could demonstrate mastery by actually doing these things to the satisfaction of other inmates in their group.
Inmates would not enroll in this program as individuals. Groups of five or six inmates would be assigned to complete the program as a team, and they would be matched with other inmates who share close proximity to their release dates.
Camaraderie developed within the teams would carry over after the inmates are released so they would have comfortable relationships to turn to for support while they are making the transition to life outside the prison.
In life, we often find ourselves as members of a group with an assignment to complete or a need to fill. At work, we have co-workers who jointly contribute and cooperate with each other to fill the needs of customers. At home, families that begin with two people can quickly grow with the arrival of children and relatives. Sports teams are a familiar way young men organize their efforts, and political parties elect our leaders. Being assigned to a group in the prison mirrors the roles they will be expected to navigate in their lives outside of the prison. Becoming comfortable in this setting will help them make the transition to life in the community where they will quickly find themselves attached to groups. The image of the rugged individual does not serve ex-cons very well. They need support. They need to fit in.
Students’ mastery of the content would be demonstrated by performance in simulated settings created within the group. For example, skills learned in managing emotionally charged conversations can be practiced and demonstrated in the group with other members providing the emotional outbursts for practice.
No one would fail these experiences. They would continue practicing with the help of other team members until the group agreed that an inmate had achieved mastery: a person will be able to perform this skill when the need arises. The group would not give up on a person who was struggling because the next unit might stump one of them.
“Training for Life” is a program to teach prison inmates life skills they can use to manage their lives outside prison without resorting to violence, intimidation, and deceit. It’s probably similar to other programs you can name, but hopefully, there’s enough that is new and different in this chapter for you to be glad you read it.
Discussion
- Imagine you are responsible for organizing a Training for Life program at your local prison. What units would you include?
- Which units would you be able to teach?
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