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When Prison Teaching Breaks You: A Professor’s Journey Through Burnout
Teaching Inside the Rising Scholar’s Program (Prison Education) My entire Tik-Tok feed is discussing work burn out right now and since I just experienced it (and that is probably why it keeps coming up in my feed), I wanted to talk about it. I took a semester off, but it might have come a bit…
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Growing Pains: Navigating the Evolution of Prison Education
Changes Ahead: There are some many wonderful changes coming soon to education in the prison system. They are wonderful changes, but I am nervous about how it is going to impact me while I am there. I love what I do and believe in it. Education is the path forward to rehabilitation for people currently involved…
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The Inherent Worth and Dignity of Every Person: A UU’s Journey into Prison Education
**This is a speech I gave at my local Unitarian Universalist Church. It was recorded, so I will upload that video as soon as it is available, but here is a copy of it for now.** Morning everyone, Most of you know me. My name is Sara Wallace, and I am an English instructor at…
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Skipping Through Prison Gates: Why We Choose to Teach Here
Back again! We are back inside — at least for the moment. This semester started out with more of a whimper than a bang since most of the prisons were locked down (COVID again). When will this ever be over? It was only for one week for most of my classes and then I was…
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From Lockdown Teaching to Pet Lizards: Surprises in the Rising Scholars Program
New Semester! New Name: We have changed our name to the Rising Scholars Program! The name Rising Scholars is the name being used across the state for education programs inside the prison system. Our program decided (with guidance from the state chancellor’s office) that we would change our name to be in alignment with the state’s…
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Meditating in My Car: A Prison Educator’s Guide to Pandemic Survival
It has been a struggle to find a silver lining in all of this, so I have not written in this blog very much over the past year. It was depressing and everything looked bleak. I recognize that I am in an extremely privileged position in that I am not experiencing homelessness or unemployment or…
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The Weight of Words: Rethinking ‘Inmate’ in Prison Education
That word Inmate Criminal justice reform advocates and people who work with incarcerated students have advised that we not use this word when talking about people who are in prison facilities. COs use this word and sometimes they use this word as a means to degrade and enforce their power over the prison population. A reader…
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Teaching in Half a Dimension: Nine Months of Correspondence from the Outside
Teaching Inside in the Time of Corona, part 2 I just want to go back to prison. Every one of us who teaches in the Inmate Scholar’s Program has said this or something like this almost every day since the start of quarantine. It has been about nine months or nine billion years since we…
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Professor Gumby: When COVID-19 Locked Us Out of Prison Classrooms
Well…an already challenging job has become even more so. As I am writing this, we have 1,005 cases of Coronavirus in Kern County. Because it takes so long to test for the virus and sometimes there are no symptoms or the symptoms are basically the same symptoms as allergies (which we all have in Kern…
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The Language of Power: Hard-Won Lessons from Teaching Behind Bars
(This was written before the recent CoronaVirus Outbreak, and some of the lessons and experiences with teaching inside have already changed dramatically). Lessons Learned so far: I am teaching composition. There are some real differences between teaching on campus and teaching inside, so it has not been a seamless transition, which was not surprising. Pro-tip: Do not put…
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Beyond the Worst Thing: My Journey Teaching in Prison
As an English professor who works in the prisons, I am constantly asked: what is my why? My answer right now is more questions: what on earth are we going to do with the formerly incarcerated after they get out? How do we make sure they stay out? Education is the key to these problems…
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When Prison Teaching Breaks You: A Professor’s Journey Through Burnout
Teaching Inside the Rising Scholar’s Program (Prison Education) My entire Tik-Tok feed is discussing work burn out right now and since I just experienced it (and that is probably why it keeps coming up in my feed), I wanted to talk about it. I took a semester off, but it might have come a bit…
-
Growing Pains: Navigating the Evolution of Prison Education
Changes Ahead: There are some many wonderful changes coming soon to education in the prison system. They are wonderful changes, but I am nervous about how it is going to impact me while I am there. I love what I do and believe in it. Education is the path forward to rehabilitation for people currently involved…
-
The Inherent Worth and Dignity of Every Person: A UU’s Journey into Prison Education
**This is a speech I gave at my local Unitarian Universalist Church. It was recorded, so I will upload that video as soon as it is available, but here is a copy of it for now.** Morning everyone, Most of you know me. My name is Sara Wallace, and I am an English instructor at…
-
Skipping Through Prison Gates: Why We Choose to Teach Here
Back again! We are back inside — at least for the moment. This semester started out with more of a whimper than a bang since most of the prisons were locked down (COVID again). When will this ever be over? It was only for one week for most of my classes and then I was…
-
From Lockdown Teaching to Pet Lizards: Surprises in the Rising Scholars Program
New Semester! New Name: We have changed our name to the Rising Scholars Program! The name Rising Scholars is the name being used across the state for education programs inside the prison system. Our program decided (with guidance from the state chancellor’s office) that we would change our name to be in alignment with the state’s…
-
Meditating in My Car: A Prison Educator’s Guide to Pandemic Survival
It has been a struggle to find a silver lining in all of this, so I have not written in this blog very much over the past year. It was depressing and everything looked bleak. I recognize that I am in an extremely privileged position in that I am not experiencing homelessness or unemployment or…
-
The Weight of Words: Rethinking ‘Inmate’ in Prison Education
That word Inmate Criminal justice reform advocates and people who work with incarcerated students have advised that we not use this word when talking about people who are in prison facilities. COs use this word and sometimes they use this word as a means to degrade and enforce their power over the prison population. A reader…
-
Teaching in Half a Dimension: Nine Months of Correspondence from the Outside
Teaching Inside in the Time of Corona, part 2 I just want to go back to prison. Every one of us who teaches in the Inmate Scholar’s Program has said this or something like this almost every day since the start of quarantine. It has been about nine months or nine billion years since we…
-
Professor Gumby: When COVID-19 Locked Us Out of Prison Classrooms
Well…an already challenging job has become even more so. As I am writing this, we have 1,005 cases of Coronavirus in Kern County. Because it takes so long to test for the virus and sometimes there are no symptoms or the symptoms are basically the same symptoms as allergies (which we all have in Kern…
-
The Language of Power: Hard-Won Lessons from Teaching Behind Bars
(This was written before the recent CoronaVirus Outbreak, and some of the lessons and experiences with teaching inside have already changed dramatically). Lessons Learned so far: I am teaching composition. There are some real differences between teaching on campus and teaching inside, so it has not been a seamless transition, which was not surprising. Pro-tip: Do not put…
-
Beyond the Worst Thing: My Journey Teaching in Prison
As an English professor who works in the prisons, I am constantly asked: what is my why? My answer right now is more questions: what on earth are we going to do with the formerly incarcerated after they get out? How do we make sure they stay out? Education is the key to these problems…