Re: student of mine working on prison education in HS

Michelle and Erin, sorry to get back so late, but it's been a busy
semester.

You might want to contact the DC Prisoners Legal Services Project, which is
active in this area, and Vinny Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute.
They might be able to refer you to others.  I have cc'd them above.

Katharine Kravetz
Academic Director, Transforming Communities Semester
Washington Semester Program
Tenley Campus - Dunblane 111
American University
Washington, DC 200016-8083
Phone: 202-895-4931
Fax: 202-895-4939


                                                                                
                           
                    "Michelle B. Golden"                                        
                           
                    <mbgolden@mindspring.com>            To:     
service-learning@csf.colorado.edu         
                    Sent by:                             cc:     
<erinbecca63@hotmail.com>                 
                    service-learning-owner@csf.co        Subject:     student 
of mine working on prison    
                    lorado.edu                           education in HS        
                           
                                                                                
                           
                                                                                
                           
                    03/31/01 06:45 PM                                           
                           
                    Please respond to mbgolden                                  
                           
                                                                                
                           
                                                                                
                           




Greetings all,


I'm writing to ask if any of you might be of help to and/or want to
connect with a very thoughtful student of mine, who is also an
educator.


Two quick notes:


1. The first part of this email is context -- but I will get to the point,
I
promise.


2. Also, please excuse the formatting in this email -- try as I might, I
can't get my email program to wrap the words correctly, so it may look
a little weird.


Moving along...


Context:

I had a UC Santa Cruz Community Studies student last quarter who
developed a social-justice-oriented curriculum on prisons for a public
high school class during her own intensive service-learning project in
New York City. The course seeks to educate high school students
about the systemic problems with prison from a critical/activist/anti-
racist perspective.


By the end of this course, the high school students educated their
peers about prison issues  -- so it turned out to be something of a
service-learning class within a service- learning project.


The teacher, Erin Hughes, a college senior, is a talented and

thoughtful educator who has a deep understanding of the core values

of service-learning as I understand and use them -- collaboration,
reciprocity, reflection/self-reflection and diversity (including power
dynamics of diversity). Her understanding of these values shows in
documentation of her practice as a teacher, in how she's articulating
her underlying assumptions about education, and in her contributions
 to our UCSC class during discussions last quarter. I am very
impressed with her work and want to do what I can to assist her and
her curriculum in the next steps of the process.


So that's context. The reason I'm writing to this list is threefold.

First, I want to let you all know about this project in case you have an

interest in this issue (critical/activist prison education) in social

justice high school SL curriculums etc. If you'd like to be in contact

with Erin about this, please email her at
<color><param>0000,0000,0000</param><<erinbecca63@hotmail.com>.</color>


Second, Erin tells me that the non-profit activist organization with
which she worked is  looking for ways to fund a continuation of this
curriculum in NYC high schools and possibly high schools in other
states. Erin is currently documenting and revising the curriculum as
part of her senior thesis, so there will be a good model for others who
want to  use this curriculum.


So my second question to the list is, does anyone have any
suggestions for SL-oriented (or other) funders who would be
interested in providing $ for a social justice/activist prison education
curriculum to be taught to high school students? And/or schools or
organizations that would be interested in something like this
themselves? You can email Erin with any information.  Also, if you
have heard about others who are doing this kind of work in a social
justice SL model who Erin should connect with, please email that to
her as well.


Third and finally, Erin is going to be graduating in June with a BA in

Community Studies from UC Santa Cruz, and is/will be on the job
market. There are lots of ways she could put her skills and talents to
good use, and I personally would love to see her connected to the SL
movement in some way. I'll keep my eyes out for job postings for her,
but if anyone has any ideas and/or knows of something in your area
that will be coming up by June, feel free to email Erin.


BTW, Erin didn't ask me to send this email -- I am just impressed with
her work as an educator and am hoping that some of you might be of
assistance to her in her work. She is interested in living her politics in

her work and in her life as much as possible. As I'm sure you all know,
this is not an easy thing to do, and it is a goal I assume the members
of this list share and want to encourage in others.


Thanks again! Oh, and again, Erin's email address is
<<erinbecca63@hotmail.com>.


Best,


Michelle<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>

<nofill>
Michelle Golden, Ph.D.
Director of Service-Learning
Community-University Partnerships
California State University, San Bernardino
email: mbgolden@mindspring.com