InmateTutoringSummary

From LiteracyTentWiki

[edit]

Summary of Discussion Topic 5: Inmates tutoring inmates: negotiating with a prison to enable inmates to tutor others

Discussion began with a question about how to negotiate with prisons to enable inmates to tutor other inmates. An article was cited where there is a description of an inmate, a certified Laubach Literacy Tutor Trainer, who tutors others. http://www.tehachapinews.com/11242004/edu.html The Corrections Education Association and the Maryland DOC were referenced for information about a peer-tutoring basic reading skills program with a well-developed tutor training curriculum, and which has been emulated in the Vermont prison system.

The following advice was given:

Opportunities:

  • Some traditions in prison management insist that to maintain prison order and security there must be tight control. Other approaches, such as unit management, seek to give inmates more control over their lives and support direct participation in their prison communities. These approaches strive to create inmate leaders. They are based on the belief that prison security is enhanced when people have a degree of control in their lives.
  • Check out your state’s Corrections mission statement and goals. Preparing offenders for success outside of prison, developing employment skills, or assisting offenders in becoming positive contributors to society are powerful arguments in favor of a tutoring program.
  • Use a tutor development program that has outside certification. In the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP), at least one prison has a Department of Labor-approved apprenticeship program for inmate tutors. Well-trained tutors are better able to manage classes and may be able to use the certificate to get a job in adult education after release.
  • Plan for staff coverage during the time inmates are tutoring (e.g., a floating staff supervisor.) The FBOP runs hundreds of (voluntary) inmate-taught adult continuing education (ACE) programs. Typically the classes run in the evening with one staff member overseeing 5 or more ACE classes.
  • Most prisons allow inmates to work at various facility jobs. Make inmate tutoring positions facility jobs. They would then fall under the supervision rules of all other facility jobs.
  • Call tutors “students,” They are receiving education in teaching reading

Challenges:

  • If a tutoring program is poorly planned or not carefully monitored inmates inmate tutors may have difficulties, For example, if staff are not present, they may be placed in untenable positions of authority. When rules are violated, the tutor could be in the difficult position of having to violate the "prison code" in order to enforce them.
  • inmates with lower-literacy abilities may resist taking risks in front of other inmates
  • inmate tutors may need extensive mentoring to develop patience, a non-directive coaching style, and confidence

Two Connecticut corrections facilities have programs where graduates help inmates working toward external high school diplomas.

In the early 1990s a group of incarcerated Nevada Vietnam veterans contacted the Nevada Laubach trainer and developed a peer tutoring project that lasted for several years.

In Iowa, especially since the prisons have lost all funding for basic literacy, a volunteer one-on-one inmate tutoring program in the women’s correctional facility has been welcomed. It provides inmate tutor training, and systematic instructional materials

In Delaware, at the Sussex Correctional Institution, we have created and managed an exceptional peer tutoring program for nearly 13 years. The first tutor was a high school graduate who finished in March, but helped 7 others complete by the following August. Our second tutor became the most gifted computer guru on the compound. The third tutor, who lacked the academic skills of the first two, was gifted when it came to working with the younger, handicapped learners (we still call them "jitterbugs"). That tutor was executed almost 12 years ago. Now the tutor positions are paid; they are no longer volunteers. It has been an ongoing learning experience for the students, the tutors, the teachers and the correctional staff. We have all learned from each other.

Go to main page http://wiki.literacytent.org

Retrieved from "http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/InmateTutoringSummary"