This is where I'm trying to write down some of the things I do, teach, think, see, and hear while working in three different detention facilities in Colorado.
I teach in two, help run a library in a third.
Teach: reading, writing, discussion, oral storytelling, art, cartooning, listening, social studies, vocab.
Library cart: bring books of all varieties-- weekly-- to hundreds of men and women locked up in three different pods of a jail. Books from Urban to history, cooking to poetry, DK and science to autobiography. No CDs or movies though. Otherwise, pretty-much a full on library delivered on wheels, at a set time, once a week to each pod.
Inmates have 10 minutes to choose three books for the week, provided they've returned the ones they already have.
- They can kite us ahead of time for requests. (Kite=intra-jail email system)
- We can order new books that we don't have, and do each month-- this particular library system is blessed with a health budget.
- They can also check out law books and conduct their own legal research. I'm now pretty familiar with LexisNexis and may soon know enough to become a legal assistant (once again-- did that once upon a time in the Rocky Ford/La Junta/San Luis valley areas of Colorado).
What next...?
- I've proposed adding a chess club to a different men's unit-- the diagnostic unit.
- I'm proposing (next week) to develop and offer classes in the jail that houses the library-- a great inmate library, but one of the only things offered inmates there. This particular jail has no real educational programming beyond some access to GED prep.
Gonna see how this year shapes up!
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