Another Brick in the Wall

Just left my first class at NNCC, where the usual beginning-of-the-semester chaos continues. The lack of books put a crimp in things, but the students seem ready to learn and wanting to use computers. And the computers! Brand new and with flat screens. What a nice change from the dinosaurs we've tolerated for so many years.

Life is funny. In my day job, folks are working on reports involving child abuse and neglect. Listening to what's happened to kids at the hands of adults....I just am not good with it. And the irony is I've taught some of those abusers. Not long ago, I had an elderly grandfather-type student in class who was pretty much the type of person I expected from someone of the Greatest Generation. I was shocked to learn that he was incarcerated for child molestation.

So how do I reconcile this? There are moments it baffles me, too, especially on days when I've put in the full ten hours at the office, then go out to the prison to be locked up (literally) with that most wretched hive of scum and villainy. When I walk out the gates after class and put the razor wire in the rearview mirror, the bands around my chest relax and I start to breath normally.

So why? There isn't one single reason out there because that would be too easy, so in no particular order of importance...

- They need an education. Felons have proved to a judge and jury they can't obey certain laws, but that didn't happen overnight or in a vacuum. Most kids got their first taste of society in preschool and school, and for some of those kids, K-12 was a series of academic failures and run-ins with teachers and principals. So now those kids are now in prison, making up for lost time in school. And...

- They want to learn. They may be in prison, but they're not stupid, especially students in the "mature" age range (35 and older). After years behind bars, they realize their life is a tragedy of missed opportunities. Most of my students want to be in class and they want to talk to teachers, compared to decades ago when they ditched school. I've heard it more than once: "I can't believe I'm back in school." And they're so hungry for knowledge. I can't keep up with them sometimes.

- They're getting out. When I was a grad student in another life five years ago, I wrote a paper on prison education and found, to my surprise, the average inmate will leave prison within five years of incarceration (excluding lifers). The general public likes to think that we've thrown away the key when we've lock up a DUI or a drug dealer or worse, but inmates earn release time through academics, prison work, and good behavior, not to mention changes in the law. In five years, would you rather they be outside with the skills that got them in jail, or would you rather they have a GED and thirty college credits?

- It's a somewhere between a passion and a hobby for me. My life is b-o-r-i-n-g. It hasn't always been that way, but the drama I used to inject into my days have fallen on the wayside as I've gotten older. As the calendar flips over, I've slowly begun to realize I'm not really an expert at a single thing. My professional life is a series of "jack of all trades" type jobs. I can't write a novel, engineer a network, or tune a car, but I can fix grammar in a report, trouble-shoot a server, and find a good mechanic. About the only single thing I do good is explain things. Slowly. Inmates are perfect for that.

- The money ain't bad and it's a great resume filler: "I teach at the college."

- Letty.

Some random Hurricane Katrina web blurbs:

From CNN: White and black Americans view Hurricane Katrina's aftermath in starkly different ways, with more blacks viewing race a factor in problems with the federal response, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday. The poll found that six in 10 blacks interviewed said the federal government was slow in rescuing those stranded in New Orleans after Katrina because many of the people in the Louisiana city were black. But only about one in eight white respondents shared that view. The numbers were similar on whether the rescues were slower because the victims were poor, with 63 percent of blacks blaming poverty and 21 percent of whites doing so. The poll, based on interviews with 848 whites and 262 blacks September 8-11, had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points."

From IMDB: "Acknowledging that after the 9/11 attacks four years ago, journalists had offered to government leaders "a preponderance of the benefit of the doubt," NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams said over the weekend that covering the inept response of government to Hurricane Katrina may bring "a healthy amount of cynicism back to a news media known for it." Indeed, several reporters who were most diligent in holding officials' feet to the fire have had their reputations burnished by their passionate coverage of the hurricane aftermath, particularly Fox's Shepard Smith (who was invited to appear on David Letterman's show), CNN's Anderson Cooper, CBS's Tracy Smith, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough."

From Slate: "The NYT reports that despite Hurricane Katrina's damage, the name Katrina does not risk extinction. After Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the name Hugo actually moved up the list of popular baby names. Still, a Manhattan teenager interviewed for the article got so fed up with references to the storm that she now insists on being called "Kat." Another Katrina suggested eliminating naming storms altogether, thereby avoiding injury to all the Katrinas, Ivans, Charleys, and Camilles: "I think we should name hurricanes after vegetables we hate," she said."

Finally: "At the Houston Astrodome, three-year-old Joshwa Coyette cries out for his mother, who is believed to have drowned during Hurricane Katrina. Associated Press photo by Jessica Kourkounis"