The Donation

So classes are going on full bore. And, I stay busy. Right now, I’m the only college aide: 1. With a college degree, and 2. Not enrolled in classes. That means I’m the only T.A. available to assist. That isn’t a bad thing. Time is flying by right now. We’re already two full months into the year, only two weeks away from the end of our first eight-week semester.

            I enjoy working with the college teachers. It takes a unique outlook to willingly agree to come out here and teach. There is a screening process – to make sure the professor doesn’t have a prior criminal record – and then the pat down and search every time they come out for class. Everything they try and bring in – like plastic protractors for math – has to be pre-approved by “operations” before it’s admitted. And “operations,” like every other office here runs on “correction’s time,” which means it isn’t a priority.

            I respect those teachers who are willing to go through all that for guys in here to get a shot at an education. The easy response, the typical response usually is, “the hell with them. They broke the law, why do they deserve a college education?” That’s a tough attitude to fight. This past week the Wall Street Journal reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his plan to use state funds to finance college programs in ten New York prisons. The Governor pointed out that New York taxpayers spend more to house an inmate for one year than it costs to send a student to Harvard that same year (the State will spend $5,000 per inmate/college student for its prison degree program; it costs $60,000 per year to keep an inmate locked up in New York).

            More important to the Governor was the difference a college education means to a released offender. Bard College (the same school partnering with SVCC to operate our college program here) has funded college programs in six New York prisons since 1999. The results are astounding. Since 1999, graduates of the Bard prison college program have a 4% recidivism rate versus the New York State rate of 40%. College breaks the cycle of repeat offenses.

            These teachers, who don’t get much per class to come in here and teach, matter in the long run to these men. The guys – most of them anyway – get it and appreciate it. I do too. I try and do extra to help, take on more in – and outside – the classroom to make the instructor’s job a little easier. Part of that involves grading papers for “street classes.” The teacher gives me an answer key and off I go, knocking out loads of quizzes, tests, homework assignments for kids on the street who probably don’t realize how lucky they are getting the education they do.

            I was in Math class two weeks ago grading sets of pre-calculus exams from three “street classes.” I got to the last set of papers and discovered it was a set of questions on Dicken’s “A Tale of Two Cities.” Now, Charles Dickens is one of my favorite novelists, so I went through the papers and was really impressed with the range of questions asked. “This is a really good test on the book,” I told the teacher. “I’ll let the English teacher know,” she told me. Then it hit me; I was grading papers for someone else. “I told my friend my TA wouldn’t mind grading these,” she said. And I didn’t. It just struck me funny that a guy behind bars was doing so much for Profs on the outside. “Ask her if she’s teaching on “Bleak House” (a thousand page Dickens novel that is my favorite). If she is I’d love to grade those.”

            Fast forward to yesterday. The principal called me back to the office. There were two boxes of books up front that officers were bringing back to us, class sets of classics: The “Red Badge of Courage,” “Paradise Lost,” “War and Peace,” and others. “They’re a donation from an English professor to thank us for our help. We’ll use these for our college book club.” We now have all these books we can use, books the English teacher’s “street students” weren’t interested in.

            Next month, we’re starting a series of seminars in the dorm with the college guys. If they are successful, they’ll use them in the re-entry dorm. One seminar will focus on health and discuss meditation techniques. Another will focus on financial literacy. A third seminar will deal with time management and soft job skills. Then there will be a book club with both classic literature and contemporary nonfiction such as “Band of Brothers” and memoirs/biographies such as “Job.”

            Everything we’re working on right now is to give our guys exposure to life lessons and knowledge most of us from the “good” side of the street take for granted. “War and Peace” may not stop a guy from using crystal meth when he gets out, or maybe it just might. That’s why what goes on in here matters so much. That’s why a person like the English Professor who donated the books may make the difference for one of these men deciding not to risk coming back here.