READING RESPONSE 1

 “You Probably Don’t Even Know I Exist”: Notes from a College Prison Program, by Jane Maher

Never did I look into the educational courses hosted in some jails in New York State or elsewhere.  But after reading the informative and eye-opening article of Professor Jane Maher, I realized there is a myriad of information to be learned about adult education in jail.  So what Maher does in this article is elaborate on her volunteering journey as a writing instructor during the 90’s at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for women.  She writes about her experience, or rather, the writing experiences of women at this jail.

What I liked most about the article of the succinct way in which Professor Maher describes her volunteering experience Bedford Hills and the implications of teaching writing to incarcerated women.  At first I thought, “Oh okay, this is an article about teaching college courses in jail.” However, as I started uncovering the many implications of her noble task my interest about the subject increased.  First and foremost, the mere fact of volunteering at a jail located in an affluent neighborhood is a problem for those who volunteer to teach.  And this is so because it is typical of affluent neighborhoods to be far away from public transportation.

So volunteer have to pay for their commute out of their own pocket, whether that commute is done using public transportation or driving.  Either way, the instructor loses money and also what about the fact that Bedford Hills is a maximum security jail?  It takes a long time for someone to enter a correctional facility as a regular person, much worse for an instructor who is coming with working material to teach her class.  The time needed to have access into the jail is very long as explained by Maher.  And that is a real challenge.  Also, Dr. Maher explains that the budget cuts on PELL and TAP grant made in 1995 throughout New York also took a humongous toll on the jail population, for many women relied heavily on being effective writers to be able to communicate with the outside world: follow up on their cases, follow up on their children being cared by other family members or in danger of being lost to the foster care system. 

I particularly love the compelling way Maher talks on her article about the great need women at Bedford Hills Correctional facility had to continue taking writing courses. Actually, the note one of the women wrote to Maher was the very catalyst of the title of her essay.  The beginning of this compelling note reads as follows, “You probably don’t even know I exist […] you are a very busy person and may not have time for me… but do you have college books I can read and memorize to educate myself a little…” Now, that’s what I call eagerness and need to learn.  It was this very paragraph that made me keep on reading until I found the entire gist of the article: teaching writing in jail has many implications than meets the eye.

This article engaged me in a way that no other reading has done in a very long time. It actually made me think about the repercussions that not educating inmates would have in society at large.  First, if a person is in jail, wouldn't it make sense for her to be educated just so she can break out of the chains of poverty, inequality and other social scourges that brought her to jail in the first place?