LOVE AND WORK
The Case of David
How Correctly Designed Class Work
The Case of David
How Correctly Designed Class Work
Helped Eliminate Re-Offending
So often times it happens
That we live our lives in chains
And never even know we have the key
... The Eagles
It was a few minutes before the start of class on my first day inside a prison. Two dozen inmates drifted around smoking and making small talk when the big man swaggered in. He undid his belt buckle and the top button of his jeans, pulled downward on the zipper and tugged at his underwear. Someone pulled the window shades and turned off the lights. You could have heard a pin drop.
Oh, I said, my terrified self trying to smile, you're going to show us your penis. How nice. Then I turned to the group with a thumbs up and a complicit grin.
In a New York minute the room was bedlam with men whooping and whistling, applauding and laughing and stamping their feet till some had tears in their eyes. Whoa! Babe! Way to go! The big man looked around to see whether he’d lost face and realised no one was paying attention to him anyway so he joined in with a sheepish grin and ambled off to find a seat.
Eight months later 12 among these men, ages 21 to 48, all repeat offenders, proudly made a commitment to one another and a law-abiding life. They founded STAYFREE, whose mission was TO NEVER COMMIT A CRIME AGAIN THROUGH BECOMING EDUCATED FOR JOBS WITH GROWTH POTENTIAL. STAYFREE's business would be advising prisons on how to design education that eliminates re-offending.
The Governor said he’d watched in near disbelief as seemingly dispirited, sullen, obfuscating individuals had become both a group of friends and a work team. He said that they were exceeding quality standards for their prison jobs and working with politeness and pride that astonished the guards. He wondered whether whatever had inspired these few could be a route to self-esteem and productive life for many. He asked me what I’d done and why it had been successful.
Hats off to the educational materials I introduced on the first day, I said.
Inquiry Learning and Meaningful Work
On the first day, I set out Machine Sense, which is a program of materials specially designed so that people may work on machine design whether or not they can read, write or do any mathematics. Each participant considers an innovation, makes a work plan and systematically completes a unique design.
Six weeks later the group proudly mounted a Machine Sense Exhibit about design innovation, and that Exhibit was a turning point and where the real transformation story begins.
A Professional Exhibition
The men mounted a professional exhibition, each innovation drawn to to a high technical specification and properly labeled. The other inmates sensed dignity, pride, and respectability and many wanted in. I told the Governor I’d welcome all who wanted to join. Each would need foundation work in Machine Sense, though, so I started up Foundation classes with the old hands helping out.
Well. Now the original group was a team of designers, learners, leaders and teachers. Everyone in the study group ignored breaks. They stopped provoking guards. They ironed their shirts on class days, didn’t skip class and arrived on time. Among the men there was an air of excitement, of being compact, of belonging together. Common responsibility and respect wove a gossamer bond of trust and camaraderie and friendship. They were happy people and everyone could feel it. They made history in the prison.
Work Engenders Reflection and the Need for Intimacy
The men were growing up emotionally and had questions.What caught us up in all this? I mean, we clean toilets to a shine as if they was our own kitchen sinks. David irons his shirts every damn day and Billy Davis is looking so smart you’d think we was havin' a dance. What happened?
And then powerful questions: Could we do this at home? Would that keep our kids off the bad roads? Could we start our kids on something while we’re still in here?
From there the men moved ahead in leaps and bounds, as people do who feel the chance for growth. They talked about visiting day and phone calls; of feeling bottled up, choked, inadequate, shy, stupid, and useless. They talked of staring at their kids and talking tough and feeling soft and wishing they could say what they felt. They said all they really wanted was to say, “I love you.” One of the men cried. So did I. It wouldn’t be long now. I knew it and so did they.
Intimacy, Love and Self-Actualization - The Road Home
The men formed a Father's Discussion Group, drew a poster, and nailed it to a dusty book-closet door. Between the evening meal and lock-up we met in the closet weekly. Thirty new faces, mostly men I’d never met, crowded around with the others and trailed out the door bending their ears so as not to miss a thing. They asked for information about what kids need from parents, about girls and fathers, sons and fathers, husbands and wives and their part in making children’s lives promising.
The Librarian offered to read aloud. I brought children's books and a child development text and he read whenever the men caught a few minutes in the library. They started doing prison jobs at dawn in order to meet before breakfast, and there was a lot said of learning about kids by reading stories kids love.
...
One Tuesday Jerry stopped us in our tracks, picked us up and carried us to the road home. Age 38, father of one girl age 15, he was the most troubled of all the men and the most frequent offender. He’d been in jail more than half his life. That evening he was tense. The guard told me he’d seemed distracted and inward for days.
Before we had settled into the tiny room, he stood up and paced, chain smoking. The kid, the kid, the kid. I’m always thinking about the kid, talking about the kid. Don't I have to know about me before I try to raise a kid? I don’t know who the hell I am. Maybe who I am is who she is. How the hell do I find out who I am?
He handed me a package. A present, he mumbled. He'd made a small pottery jar in the form of a bust with a phrenology map on the head, and a heart where the heart goes, and a giant question mark inside the lid. Who knows? he said again, and went away.
* * *
And so they had arrived inside themselves and had found a comfortable place to start on an orderly route toward a new path of thinking and feeling about their lives in the world.
They formalised the weekly evening meetings: half Father’s Discussion, half Personal Development. Their bonding quickly outgrew the bounds of the formal meetings. They helped one another write letters to their kids, and even stood together during phone calls home.
They had driven right through to the basics, I explained to the Governor, and were ready to move ahead from there to a productive life.
Putting a Stake in the Ground
I knew they were ready because one day they decided to tell everyone in the prison what they’d learned. They would, they decided, give a lecture on human conception and birth to explain how a person could become a criminal and some ways to avoid it.
The Governor said he barely kept his jaw from the proverbial drop when a Father’s Discussion Group delegation arrived to ask for his blessing. The plan was to make giant posters of the male and female reproductive systems – in full colour and copied accurately from an encyclopaedia – and posters about emotional development and growing up after birth.
The Governor said OK and they were away. They checked things with me like, Why do sperm still come out after a vasectomy? and, How do you say uterus? and then made a project plan.
Getting ready took a month -- and what seemed a year’s worth of patience. The men argued, cursed one another, shouted at me and quit a million times. I was relentless about spelling and they cursed me, too. Nevertheless, on the day they were bold. David presented the overview, hosted speakers and fielded questions from the audience. Mostly no one knew the answers but no one minded and everyone was pleased with the afternoon. Some months later this thoughtful group of men decided to help people in other jails find a responsible life through education. That was when they founded STAYFREE.
STAY FREE, a for-profit company aiming to help prisons structure education and thereby reduce re-offending, was due to start trading upon the first man’s release six months hence. They felt the time and spent every free moment getting ready.
Led by David and Jerry they created a mission, a strategy, a business plan and a brochure. They wrote to regional job training centres to arrange basic education for each man upon release. They started work on a prison Job Fair and invited local companies to exhibit and speak. The aim was to discover what knowledge and skills would be required for work and growth in different industries and positions.
How could this happen without counselling?
The Governor had his own set of questions. You’re a teacher, he said. You started off and stayed with educational materials. We haven’t had to punish or reprimand any of these men since they started this type of class. I thought people need counselling or therapy to change attitudes and behaviours. How did this happen without counselling?
I explained that given any chance, people try to find self-esteem, love and work. It’s the way we are naturally. It’s the circle in which we all feel happy.
Two things are interesting here. One is that if any one of the three – self esteem, love or work – seems within reach, then optimism, energy, diligence, initiative and constructive plans can displace even such powerfully negative fears and feelings as anger, rage and despair. Also, once inside it, people drive relentlessly to complete the circle. That drive to feel complete, productive, admired and happy takes on a separate life and becomes priority.
I aimed to help the men find Work because I knew that for most, self-esteem and love weren’t easily within reach. Inquiry materials would do the trick because they’re the most efficient way to spark interest and release talent. From there, growth followed a predictable pattern from work to feeling competent, from competence to confidence and pride, from self-esteem to reflection, inner life to wishing for community and on from there to the ever-lasting hope for love. It’s in the genetic makeup; part of how we survive. Once started, given any chance at all, we all go down those roads.
STAY FREE was born in the midst of prison misery when purpose took over and nourished hope. Few of the STAY FREE men noticed their surroundings. They had much to accomplish, and a clear picture of the self-respecting life they’d lead once free.
This isn’t at all surprising. Many events dictate whether a person grows up productive or takes detours. What's important here is that at any age and no matter how long a person has taken scary dead ends, most people accept any opportunity to live a circle of Love, Work and Self-Esteem. And, even when love isn't on the horizon, respect plus properly structured education can be a path to Work and Self-Esteem for nearly everyone.
So after all, the Governor said, from Machine Sense to STAY FREE was not a long journey for the men to make. Love and Work had been there waiting, all along.
So often times it happens
That we live our lives in chains
And never even know we have the key
... The Eagles
It was a few minutes before the start of class on my first day inside a prison. Two dozen inmates drifted around smoking and making small talk when the big man swaggered in. He undid his belt buckle and the top button of his jeans, pulled downward on the zipper and tugged at his underwear. Someone pulled the window shades and turned off the lights. You could have heard a pin drop.
Oh, I said, my terrified self trying to smile, you're going to show us your penis. How nice. Then I turned to the group with a thumbs up and a complicit grin.
In a New York minute the room was bedlam with men whooping and whistling, applauding and laughing and stamping their feet till some had tears in their eyes. Whoa! Babe! Way to go! The big man looked around to see whether he’d lost face and realised no one was paying attention to him anyway so he joined in with a sheepish grin and ambled off to find a seat.
Eight months later 12 among these men, ages 21 to 48, all repeat offenders, proudly made a commitment to one another and a law-abiding life. They founded STAYFREE, whose mission was TO NEVER COMMIT A CRIME AGAIN THROUGH BECOMING EDUCATED FOR JOBS WITH GROWTH POTENTIAL. STAYFREE's business would be advising prisons on how to design education that eliminates re-offending.
The Governor said he’d watched in near disbelief as seemingly dispirited, sullen, obfuscating individuals had become both a group of friends and a work team. He said that they were exceeding quality standards for their prison jobs and working with politeness and pride that astonished the guards. He wondered whether whatever had inspired these few could be a route to self-esteem and productive life for many. He asked me what I’d done and why it had been successful.
Hats off to the educational materials I introduced on the first day, I said.
Inquiry Learning and Meaningful Work
On the first day, I set out Machine Sense, which is a program of materials specially designed so that people may work on machine design whether or not they can read, write or do any mathematics. Each participant considers an innovation, makes a work plan and systematically completes a unique design.
Six weeks later the group proudly mounted a Machine Sense Exhibit about design innovation, and that Exhibit was a turning point and where the real transformation story begins.
A Professional Exhibition
The men mounted a professional exhibition, each innovation drawn to to a high technical specification and properly labeled. The other inmates sensed dignity, pride, and respectability and many wanted in. I told the Governor I’d welcome all who wanted to join. Each would need foundation work in Machine Sense, though, so I started up Foundation classes with the old hands helping out.
Well. Now the original group was a team of designers, learners, leaders and teachers. Everyone in the study group ignored breaks. They stopped provoking guards. They ironed their shirts on class days, didn’t skip class and arrived on time. Among the men there was an air of excitement, of being compact, of belonging together. Common responsibility and respect wove a gossamer bond of trust and camaraderie and friendship. They were happy people and everyone could feel it. They made history in the prison.
Work Engenders Reflection and the Need for Intimacy
The men were growing up emotionally and had questions.What caught us up in all this? I mean, we clean toilets to a shine as if they was our own kitchen sinks. David irons his shirts every damn day and Billy Davis is looking so smart you’d think we was havin' a dance. What happened?
And then powerful questions: Could we do this at home? Would that keep our kids off the bad roads? Could we start our kids on something while we’re still in here?
From there the men moved ahead in leaps and bounds, as people do who feel the chance for growth. They talked about visiting day and phone calls; of feeling bottled up, choked, inadequate, shy, stupid, and useless. They talked of staring at their kids and talking tough and feeling soft and wishing they could say what they felt. They said all they really wanted was to say, “I love you.” One of the men cried. So did I. It wouldn’t be long now. I knew it and so did they.
Intimacy, Love and Self-Actualization - The Road Home
The men formed a Father's Discussion Group, drew a poster, and nailed it to a dusty book-closet door. Between the evening meal and lock-up we met in the closet weekly. Thirty new faces, mostly men I’d never met, crowded around with the others and trailed out the door bending their ears so as not to miss a thing. They asked for information about what kids need from parents, about girls and fathers, sons and fathers, husbands and wives and their part in making children’s lives promising.
The Librarian offered to read aloud. I brought children's books and a child development text and he read whenever the men caught a few minutes in the library. They started doing prison jobs at dawn in order to meet before breakfast, and there was a lot said of learning about kids by reading stories kids love.
...
One Tuesday Jerry stopped us in our tracks, picked us up and carried us to the road home. Age 38, father of one girl age 15, he was the most troubled of all the men and the most frequent offender. He’d been in jail more than half his life. That evening he was tense. The guard told me he’d seemed distracted and inward for days.
Before we had settled into the tiny room, he stood up and paced, chain smoking. The kid, the kid, the kid. I’m always thinking about the kid, talking about the kid. Don't I have to know about me before I try to raise a kid? I don’t know who the hell I am. Maybe who I am is who she is. How the hell do I find out who I am?
He handed me a package. A present, he mumbled. He'd made a small pottery jar in the form of a bust with a phrenology map on the head, and a heart where the heart goes, and a giant question mark inside the lid. Who knows? he said again, and went away.
* * *
And so they had arrived inside themselves and had found a comfortable place to start on an orderly route toward a new path of thinking and feeling about their lives in the world.
They formalised the weekly evening meetings: half Father’s Discussion, half Personal Development. Their bonding quickly outgrew the bounds of the formal meetings. They helped one another write letters to their kids, and even stood together during phone calls home.
They had driven right through to the basics, I explained to the Governor, and were ready to move ahead from there to a productive life.
Putting a Stake in the Ground
I knew they were ready because one day they decided to tell everyone in the prison what they’d learned. They would, they decided, give a lecture on human conception and birth to explain how a person could become a criminal and some ways to avoid it.
The Governor said he barely kept his jaw from the proverbial drop when a Father’s Discussion Group delegation arrived to ask for his blessing. The plan was to make giant posters of the male and female reproductive systems – in full colour and copied accurately from an encyclopaedia – and posters about emotional development and growing up after birth.
The Governor said OK and they were away. They checked things with me like, Why do sperm still come out after a vasectomy? and, How do you say uterus? and then made a project plan.
Getting ready took a month -- and what seemed a year’s worth of patience. The men argued, cursed one another, shouted at me and quit a million times. I was relentless about spelling and they cursed me, too. Nevertheless, on the day they were bold. David presented the overview, hosted speakers and fielded questions from the audience. Mostly no one knew the answers but no one minded and everyone was pleased with the afternoon. Some months later this thoughtful group of men decided to help people in other jails find a responsible life through education. That was when they founded STAYFREE.
STAY FREE, a for-profit company aiming to help prisons structure education and thereby reduce re-offending, was due to start trading upon the first man’s release six months hence. They felt the time and spent every free moment getting ready.
Led by David and Jerry they created a mission, a strategy, a business plan and a brochure. They wrote to regional job training centres to arrange basic education for each man upon release. They started work on a prison Job Fair and invited local companies to exhibit and speak. The aim was to discover what knowledge and skills would be required for work and growth in different industries and positions.
How could this happen without counselling?
The Governor had his own set of questions. You’re a teacher, he said. You started off and stayed with educational materials. We haven’t had to punish or reprimand any of these men since they started this type of class. I thought people need counselling or therapy to change attitudes and behaviours. How did this happen without counselling?
I explained that given any chance, people try to find self-esteem, love and work. It’s the way we are naturally. It’s the circle in which we all feel happy.
Two things are interesting here. One is that if any one of the three – self esteem, love or work – seems within reach, then optimism, energy, diligence, initiative and constructive plans can displace even such powerfully negative fears and feelings as anger, rage and despair. Also, once inside it, people drive relentlessly to complete the circle. That drive to feel complete, productive, admired and happy takes on a separate life and becomes priority.
I aimed to help the men find Work because I knew that for most, self-esteem and love weren’t easily within reach. Inquiry materials would do the trick because they’re the most efficient way to spark interest and release talent. From there, growth followed a predictable pattern from work to feeling competent, from competence to confidence and pride, from self-esteem to reflection, inner life to wishing for community and on from there to the ever-lasting hope for love. It’s in the genetic makeup; part of how we survive. Once started, given any chance at all, we all go down those roads.
STAY FREE was born in the midst of prison misery when purpose took over and nourished hope. Few of the STAY FREE men noticed their surroundings. They had much to accomplish, and a clear picture of the self-respecting life they’d lead once free.
This isn’t at all surprising. Many events dictate whether a person grows up productive or takes detours. What's important here is that at any age and no matter how long a person has taken scary dead ends, most people accept any opportunity to live a circle of Love, Work and Self-Esteem. And, even when love isn't on the horizon, respect plus properly structured education can be a path to Work and Self-Esteem for nearly everyone.
So after all, the Governor said, from Machine Sense to STAY FREE was not a long journey for the men to make. Love and Work had been there waiting, all along.
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