31 Teaching in America’s Prisons Taught Me to Believe in Second Chances
Learning Outcomes
- Apply the reading process to “Teaching in America’s Prisons Taught Me to Believe in Second Chances.”
- Summarize the article.
- Respond to the article.
- Research an individual used as an example in Cantora’s article.
Preview the Article
Follow the steps below to preview the article “Teaching in America’s Prisons Taught Me to Believe in Second Chances.” Ideally, you should print the article and write your responses in the margins of the printed copy. To read more about previewing, visit the chapter on previewing a reading.
- Read the title. What does it make you think about? What do you think the article is about? What questions do you have? Record your predictions and questions on the printed copy of the article next to the title.
- Read the author’s bio and watch a video interview with Cantora.
- Read the first two or three paragraphs. What additional predictions do you now have about the article? What additional questions do you have? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
- Scan the article and notice the headings (e.g. Education changes self-image) within the article. What additional thoughts or questions do these raise? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
- Scan the bolded and underlined vocabulary in the article. If there are any words that you do not know well, look them up in a print or online dictionary and write some notes about their meanings on the printed copy of the article. Keep in mind that some words have multiple meanings. You may need to read the sentence containing the word to understand the word’s usage. Additionally, there may also be proper nouns, such as Pell Grant, and acronyms or abbreviations, such as GED, that are unfamiliar to you but that you need to know to understand the article. These terms usually are not in the dictionary, so you will need to conduct a Google search to find out their meanings.
- Based on your preview of the article and the vocabulary, what do you think is the central point of the article? (Don’t worry if you are not sure. This is a prediction or guess – you do not have to be correct as long as you are engaging your brain.) Record your prediction on the printed copy of the article.
- Based on your preview, do you predict that the article is narrative, expository, or argumentative?
Read Interactively
Now, read the article using the guidelines from the chapter on reading interactively. As you read, follow these steps to engage with the text.
- Pause to confirm or revise your predictions and to answer the questions you posed while previewing the article. Write down those revised predictions and responses to the questions as you read. If you cannot find the answers to your questions, save them for further research and discussion.
- Pause at other points to check for understanding of what you just read. Can you explain key ideas in your own words yet? If not, reread to clarify. Ideas that come later in a text build on the previous ones. Therefore, it makes no sense to keep reading if you did not understand something or if you became distracted. Anyone can become distracted while reading, so don’t hesitate to use the strategy of rereading when necessary.
- Pay attention to any vocabulary words that are confusing. Look up the words in a dictionary if they are interfering with your understanding, or mark them to return to later.
- Record any opinions or reactions you have to the reading in the margins of the article.
- Write down any further questions that develop as you read.
Teaching in America’s prisons has taught me to believe in second chances
Andrea Cantora, University of Baltimore
March 18, 2019
1 In 2007, I gave someone a second chance. I was in Danbury Federal Correctional Institution recruiting women for a new program for people returning from prison that I was running in New York City.
2 A woman approached me and handed me her portfolio. It was basically a detailed resumé of her accomplishments, skills and goals for the future.
3 Over a two-year period before this, I had visited at least six female facilities in New York and Connecticut and met hundreds of women looking to enter our program. But when Jamila approached me, something stood out.
4 She was bold, persistent and confident about her future. Her portfolio showed that she took advantage of every educational program available to her while in prison. When she was released in 2007, I hired her as an administrative assistant intern. Over the next several years she worked her way up to a top management position at the same organization that ran the program.
5 A decade later I met another person, Chris Wilson, who created a master plan of what he hoped to accomplish in life. He, too, had embraced books, self-education and formal education while incarcerated. Even though he was serving a life sentence, he believed he could get out of prison and persisted until his judge gave him a second chance by reducing his sentence.
6 Like Jamila, part of Chris’ success stemmed from the opportunity to get a GED, an associate degree and complete many other programs while in prison. But he also went a step further and engaged in many years of self-education – from learning languages to understanding the operations of the stock market. Chris realized that through education, he could achieve success. Once released, Chris developed his own businesses, created artwork and wrote a memoir, titled “The Master Plan: My Journey from a Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose.”
7 In between meeting Jamila and Chris, I met hundreds of incarcerated people who clung to education as if it were a lifesaver. I know education can transform lives because I see it constantly in the incarcerated – and formerly incarcerated – people I’ve met. I see it every week when I enter prison to direct the University of Baltimore’s Second Chance College Program.
Education changes self-image
8 I’ve been running the program since 2016, when the University of Baltimore became one of 67 colleges to participate in the U.S. Department of Education’s Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative.
9 In the last three years, the program has served 63 students, with 43 currently enrolled and taking courses towards a bachelor’s degree in human service administration.
10 As one who studies correctional education and prisoner reentry, I have seen how formal education changes how men and women in prison view themselves and their future. It gives incarcerated students a sense of confidence, builds self-esteem and increases maturity.
11 I’ve observed that being a college student provides a sense of hope and accomplishment that is often absent inside prisons. It also creates a sense of community among those who are participating. Other incarcerated people see all of this – and they want the same thing.
12 The prospect of becoming a college student in prison seems to have a positive influence inside the institution. Every week men approach me, asking “How can I apply?” Cynics might suspect they do this just to get some time outside of their cells. If so, it is time well spent. If they are persistent enough, they end up excelling and become honors students. From what I’ve seen, they all work incredibly hard to complete tough courses like college algebra, psychology and biology.
13 Education is not only empowering for the individual, but it is also contagious. I have witnessed how education can indirectly influence the college trajectory of sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and even parents of incarcerated students. My incarcerated college students often tell stories about the conversations they have in the visiting room with their family about the books they are reading and the lessons they are learning in the classroom. Their education journey has inspired family members to start, or continue, their own journeys of education.
14 Prison education programs achieve all the positive benefits that politicians and the public desire – increased employment and higher earnings, as well as other financial benefits.
15 Educating people in prison also makes our communities safer – statistics show people who participate in post-secondary education in prison are 43 percent less likely to return to prison and more likely to find work.
Political action needed
16 With decades of research and anecdotal evidence, prison education and vocational approaches are being embraced by people from all political spectrums. For instance, in the foreword to “Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform Inside and Beyond America’s Prisons,” Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, and Van Jones, a news commentator and former Obama administration official,
wrote: “Empowering people in prison through greater access to quality educational opportunities is a worthy effort to increase public safety, strengthen our democratic institutions, and grow our economy.”
17 Increasing the access to prison education and vocational programming will likely result in more benefits for incarcerated people, their families and society. The newly passed First Step Act will perhaps do this in the federal system, as the bill is expected to increase funds for vocational and rehabilitative programming.
18 But it would also help to lift the federal ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated people. Lifting this ban would allow states to increase their education and vocational programming options. Together these legislative changes will make communities safer and give more people in prison – the Jamilas and Chris Wilsons of the world – a second chance.
Andrea Cantora, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Baltimore
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Reflect
After reading the article, use the following questions to reflect on the content of the article and your reading process. See the chapter about reflecting for a discussion of why this is a crucial step.
- Try to paraphrase the main idea in a sentence. This may be challenging because you have read the article only once. If you are struggling, do your best. You can refine this when you reread and summarize the article.
- Is the article primarily narrative, expository, or argumentative? What is the purpose of the article? In other words, why do you think the author wrote it?
- Which predictions were accurate, and which did you have to revise?
- As you previewed the article, you wrote questions. What questions remain unanswered after reading the article?
- What else do you want to know about the article or topic of the reading? Write down any additional questions.
- How did previewing the article help you to understand and engage with the text while reading?
- Where did you struggle to understand something in the text, and how did you work through it?
- What, if anything, could you have done differently to improve your reading process?
Summarize
Complete a summary of the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Summarize before proceeding with the summary.
- Reread the article and complete the Summary Notes. See Preparing to Summarize for a review of this topic and an example.
- Then, use your Summary Notes to write a one-paragraph summary of the article. See Writing a Summary for a review of this topic and an example. Make sure that you include in-text citations and the Work Cited.
- Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Summary to self-assess your summary or invite a peer to provide feedback.
- Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make changes to your summary.
Make sure you are comfortable with your summary before advancing to the response. If you misunderstand something in the article, then your response may be skewed based on that misunderstanding.
Respond
Write a response to the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Respond before proceeding with the summary.
- Use the Response Questions from Preparing to Respond to brainstorm possible ideas for your response. See the example in that same chapter.
- Read over your replies to the Response Questions. Choose one idea to write about in your response. Express that idea in a topic sentence. See Writing a Topic Sentence for a Response for examples. Ask a peer for feedback on your topic sentence.
- Brainstorm about possible support you could use in your response. See Generating Support for a Response for examples.
- Use your topic sentence and ideas from the list of support to write a one-paragraph response. See Writing a Response writing guidelines and examples. Make sure that you include the Work Cited and in-text citations for any quotes or specific ideas from the article.
- Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Response to evaluate your response or have a peer provide feedback.
- Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make improvements to your response.
Extend: Research and Discuss
Andrea Cantori gives the example of Chris Wilson and the success he achieved through the educational opportunities he had while incarcerated. Visit Wilson’s website to learn about his memoir, his entrepreneurship, and his art. What do Wilson’s experiences and accomplishments show about the power of education? Share your ideas with your peers.
