Education Not Incarceration

Action Starts at Home

By Jennifer Dannenberg

Last year one of my ninth grade students wrote a well-crafted, heartfelt narrative about his family and friends as part of a unit on Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street. We start every year with this incredible memoir. Every year students say, "We read this in middle school!" They're protesting, of course, that they've been there, done that. What's remarkable is that students never fail to be inspired by the beauty of Cisneros' language and the depth of her recollections, using these as inspiration for their own reflections on their names, their neighborhoods, and their family and friends.

In Andre's essay he wrote about his family, and especially his father. His father called Andre, his mother and his siblings the "home team." He called himself, a California prison inmate, the "away team." So many of my students have had personal contact — a mother, a brother, a father, a friend — with the prison system that I thought it was important for us to participate in an Education Not Incarceration Teach-In in Oakland planned for November 2003.

I was fortunate in teaching this unit to have the assistance of our local Education Not Incarceration group, which had put together curriculum ideas for teach-ins related to the drafting of the state budget. They also had lined up presenters from groups like the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; Books Not Bars; Critical Resistance; Proyecto Common Touch; Uhuru House; Prison Activist Resource Center; and the National Lawyers Guild. I was able to choose from this pool of presenters, and to show an excellent video, produced by Books Not Bars, which breaks down the prison industrial complex through images and words of activists and young prisoners.

What made this unit even more relevant to my students was the fact that we — administrators, teachers and students alike — were experiencing the negative effects of education cutbacks daily: fewer security officers on campus; overcrowded classrooms; fewer custodians; and teachers whose paychecks had shrunk by 4 percent. In addition, our school district had suffered budget shortfalls of $100 million (or was it $80 million? or $30 million? We never knew for sure!). Consequently, our district had been "taken over" by the State of California, and our State Trustee was also considering closing 11 neighborhood schools in an effort to tighten the district's belt.

DAY ONE

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Sacramento, prison spending was UP! With the help on our first day of the unit from a hip-hop artist/youth educator, Jennifer Richardson, my ninth grade students began to think about what might lead young people down a path to incarceration. Jennifer, an energetic young woman who lives in East Oakland, discussed from a first-person perspective the lives of young people of color in neighborhoods where remedies for poverty are in short supply.

She wove a scenario of a hypothetical young couple — Baby Daddy and Baby Momma — on the brink of parenthood, whose lives are suddenly changed by unemployment. Where that leads them was all too familiar to many of my students. Baby Daddy begins to sell drugs in order to keep his family in their home with food on the table. Then he's busted and Baby Momma ends up on the street hustling so she and her baby can survive. In short, they become additions to the increasing number of young people of color behind bars.

What a great "opener" Jennifer was for my students! Students relate to someone who "tells it like it is," so this was a powerful and interactive presentation for them. Jennifer sketched a real-life scenario they could relate to. She outlined the hard facts about unemployment and welfare and how much it costs to live in the Bay Area. She showed where the prisons are in California and how we lead the country in prison spending.

At the end of the first day, students wrote thoughtfully in their journals, responding to the questions: "How were you affected by the presentation? Do you agree or disagree with the presenter? Why or why not?"

DAY TWO

Day Two of our unit started with students reading aloud a word bank of terms related to the curriculum:

• justice
• civil rights
• prisons
• inequality
• school
• democracy
• education
• incarceration
• sentencing
• racism
• crime
• moratorium
• punishment
• violence
• parole
• compassionate
• vocational
• recidivism

These words were divided into sets, and each cooperative group brainstormed the meanings of their group's set of three or four words. Students developed their own definitions from common usage, arriving at the connotative meanings. They then often checked the definitions using the dictionary. Finally, they were asked to draw a simple illustration of each word next to its definition.

Each group presented their words to the whole class at the end of the period.

DAY THREE

We started the day by discussing how articles appear almost daily about cuts to schools in California, and how students feel budget cuts have affected their school.

Students read silently and independently an online journal or newspaper article assigned to their group, highlighting important ideas as they read. Article topics included:

• West Contra Costa County schools losing their high school counselors;
• How education budget cuts will affect applicants transferring to the UC system; and
• The cost and effectiveness of California's parole system.

When everyone in the group had finished reading, each group worked together to summarize the most important ideas in 100 words or less. Students in the group compared highlighted sections to see if they agreed on the most significant points, while a facilitator in each group tried to bring group members to agreement.

At the end of the period each group presented their article summary to the class.

DAYS FOUR AND FIVE: ACTION DAYS!

Students brainstormed possible targets for a letter-writing campaign related to state budget priorities. These names were recorded on the chalkboard.

A great sample legislative letter was part of the suggested curriculum about the state budget included in the Spring 2003 Children's Advocate newspaper. Students received a copy of this letter, and we reviewed its form and content on the overhead projector.

The class discussed two handouts, "Ten Ways the 2003-04 Budget Cuts Have Already Impacted Education," and "Ten Ways California Could Reduce the Number of People in Prison and Cut Prison Spending." Statistics from these handouts were suggested support for students' positions on whether the state should decrease, maintain or increase funding for education and for prisons. Support for their positions could also come from the articles we had read and summarized the previous day.

Students were also asked to include in their letters whether and how cuts to education had affected them personally.

We spent the remainder of the class period and the next day writing, peer editing and revising our letters. Final drafts were mailed to the legislators, with a copy to the governor.

RESULTS AND SIGNIFICANCE

Each student's letter to a legislator was a writing portfolio piece, fulfilling the California State Framework requirement for Ninth Grade Reading/Language Arts Writing Applications 2.4 (Writing persuasive compositions) and 2.5 (Writing business letters).

It's unfortunate but true that only one of the three public officials we wrote to answered our letters. The aides to these officials had promised the letters would be responded to by someone (we knew it wasn't going to be the elected official!), but this did not happen. This in itself was a learning experience for all of us, raising the question, What is an effective action to take regarding public policy?

I think the Education Not Incarceration curriculum was an effective first step in terms of our political action as a class. Our discussions were informative and thoughtful, and I'm quite sure most of my students will remember the big-picture ideas about funding of schools and prisons. A next step could very well be a field trip to Sacramento to hand-deliver letters and position statements and to interview legislators.

The big ongoing questions I have about participating in this curriculum are:

• What are the most effective ways to bring incarceration issues into our classrooms here in Oakland, or anywhere?
• How does the culture of imprisonment become a norm in the community?
• How can students be agents for change regarding issues like state budget priorities?

I think the important thing to remember is that students will get involved if we work to create curriculum that highlights how issues are affecting their lives. It may start with one unit a year, but one is better than none. What students gain is invaluable: the ability to think critically and act with conviction.

Jennifer Dannenberg is a ninth grade English techer from Oakland, California. For more about Education Not Incarceration, visit http://www.may8.org/.