a glimmer

Rather than write today, what I really want to do is get started on the project I’ve got to complete this afternoon.  But because my whole person is so deeply driven by guilt and obligation (Thanks, Catholic school!), I’m gonna hammer something out here because I promised (promised who?) I'd post every morning.

I’m working on a fifteen-week curriculum for a GED prep class at a prison.  This class is so cool.  It was founded and is run by incarcerated men who, knowing that many men have jobs during the day and so cannot attend the daytime GED program in the Education Building, petitioned the warden to let them create a night class.  I think they’re inspiring; they’re honestly the primary reason I’m (I guess) committed to staying in the Bay Area instead of packing up and moving home.

We’re meeting this afternoon (the inside leadership of the program and a few of the outside volunteers) to discuss this coming semester.  We’re moving toward a model where the inside leaders do the vast majority of the teaching and the outside volunteers support them.  I can get real excited about the idea of an emerging parallel program: GED prep/teacher-training.  And then beyond that, this badass, dynamic, humane learning community that becomes not just a model for other prison education programs but for learning and teaching communities, full stop.  I believe that these guys could help folks really meaningfully think and work against the larger carceral state.  For real. 

Okay, seriously seriously, I need to get shit ready for this meeting.