Early Childhood Education and Prison Education: cultural overlap?

Jody Lewen came to speak to students about Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison in California. She described her own path from HM to graduate school to a PhD in rhetoric and finally landing as the executive director of this project. She started as a volunteer during graduate school and as she described it, "if you follow the things that feel right it all comes together."

As I listened to Jody talk about how hard it is to humanize the prisoner in conversations about what is needed and why programs such as this are important, about the culture of prisons that they need to talk about during teacher training, and about the challenge of helping prospective teachers confront their own personal biases and stereotypes about prisoners, I was hearing so many parallels to my conversations with graduate students about teaching young children. A common thread was the idea of holding ourselves accountable for the ideas, impressions, and assumptions we bring to a group of people who have been made invisible by society or who have been hidden from us behind a deep stereotype.

Jody talked about the gang culture of prisons, but also about the ways in which this Associates Degree program has been shifting culture. She discussed the impact the program is having not only on the prisoners who are receiving an education, but also on those who are in contact with or living among those prisoners. With one in ten prisoners in the program it has great potential to bring about true cultural change.

This conversation brought to mind Carla Shalaby's idea that schools are simply places where we teach children to go to school and that discipline parallels the punitive nature of prison discipline. Perhaps this is true about education as well. Do we need to train teachers in both cases about culture and bias first to develop an educational program that counteracts the forces that impact the human condition of being incarcerated or being young in our society? Do we need to convince funders of the value of educating these two groups of people as a humane and imperative act rather than a preparation for participation in society in roles defined for them by society?

Rochester weekend

Breakfast at Mad Hatter on Friday with Pam. She is researching the history of the delta trying to better understand an area where her father grew up. Two books recommended to her by an employee at the Cotton Museum in Memphis, TN: Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Harvard history professor Sven Beckert and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John Berry.

Saturday, dropped the car at Zeibart in Canandaigua for the annual undercoating. Had the interior steam cleaned. The exerior coated to protect the paint. On the way back to Fairport, we stopped at the Pittsford Farmer's Market, browsed the lumber store and bought a piece of olive wood to make a cheese board. Stopped to buy beeswax wraps from a woman who makes them locally, www.Weslee Rose.com. Stopped for a cupcake and coffee.

Visited Dad at FBH and spent some time cleaning up and editing the family tree. We ended up with a list of people he didn't recognize, but as soon as we were done he started to tell me stories. "You should write these down..." He talked about his grandparents and his father's sister who was much younger than his father and who helped raise the children after his mother died. Later in the evening when I returned from picking up the car he didn't seem anxious to get to bed. For a second night he hadn't gone out to change the calendar that hangs in the lounge, a job he's done every days for four years. He said he can't remember the date when he goes from his room where he has a calendar to the lounge. He said he told the woman who made the calendar that he couldn't do it. We went out for the second night and changed the date. Left after 9pm.

Yarn and books

Saugerties, NY, located between the foot of the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River and just across the river from Rhinebeck. It was a beautiful morning on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; the day that my Godmother, Amy, died in 1996. It felt like a good day to take a slower drive up to Rochester along the Hudson and check out a new town.

The exit off the highway leads right into the Main Street of Saugerties, about two hours from Riverdale and an hour north of the turnoff for Route 17. Turned onto Main Street and then circled around a block to find parking. Discovered The Perfect Blend, Yarn & Tea Shop at 50 Market Street. The shop occupies two storefronts and there are yarns filling shelves along all the walls and through the center of the store. In the back room three women were working at a knitting table. The woman who greeted me mentioned the Sheep and Wood Festival in Rhinebeck coming up on October 20-21 and then mentioned that the Indie Untangled, the kickoff to the Festival, was taking place in Saugerties that Friday. I mentioned the one memory that sticks with me from my last visit to the Festival, the woman who spins wool from her live rabbit. "Oh, she works here on Mondays and Tuesdays!"

Walking down Main Street I saw the other store that caught my attention, Inquiring Minds Bookstore & Coffee House. A large corner property filled with books, seating and a coffee shop in the back. Children's books on the shelves near the entrance, NY Times on the coffee table by the seating, good coffee.

Stopped in a natural food shop and bought some snacks to take to Ellen's and headed north for Sodus. Arrived in Rochester around 9pm and spent my first night in my apartment. Mental list: a rug for the livingroom, rug for the bedroom and a place to sit in the kitchen.

A new normal

I went into my underwear drawer this morning and pulled out Felicity's monkey shirt. The peek-a-boo face was smiling up at me! Happily there is no erasing the traces of a summer's visit. The claw machine teddy bear has landed on my bed looking like a placeholder.

It has been a beautiful Sunday and I started as I have so many Sundays before, seeking peace and meditation in gardening. I am realizing that I have been holding out for a feeling of normalcy; searching even while knowing that what I want normal to be is not hidden somewhere to be found.

I headed out to the garden to weed and tidy and clip away overgrown plants freeing up the paths we created so long ago for children to run through. The lavender is full still with some flowers. The grasses I brought back from the country after a visit with Martha and Harvey, a plant I almost pulled out thinking it would never come back, has rejuvenated and is sprouting slim green blades of tall grass. The marigolds have multiplied and ensure that we will have oranges and yellows into fall. The fig trees are very full with leaves, but sadly no figs. They are quite bushy so perhaps I haven't nurtured them to trees after all these years. They seem quite hardy as they have returned each year with beautiful greenery.

Denise and I went up to the farmer's market and I loved the chance to pick out just enough tasties to last until I leave for Rochester on Wed. We stopped for coffee at Buunni and discovered that the balcony was filled with blue grass musicians jamming on a Sunday morning. I was reminded that I need to get back to my violin if I am ever going to learn to fiddle. So, I returned home to practice violin with Violinlab and then headed out once more to buy the Sunday Times. It took me right near the Moss Cafe so I sat inside in the air conditioning with a flat white and read the paper. Came home to clean out another room; this time the library. I am sad that I didn't do it before Emma and Henry used it this summer, but it is now airy and much tidier. I am lightening the load of the house one step at a time in preparation for my salon.

It's just about 6:30pm and I am going to find the evening news hoping that something miraculous and hopeful will be reported. It would be so nice.

Humid

it has been uncomfortably humid for several days; not summer, not fall. Someone remarked yesterday that we hadn’t seen the sun since the start of the week. The air has been heavy with moisture under a white sky.

I was speaking with a parent I met in the Nursery ten years ago and he was describing to me the diversity work taking place in his investment bank. The initiatives are primarily centered on advancing women and he had just learned the shift one company was making from mentoring to advocacy. Thinking about the need women have for advocates who can help to create an upward path by identifying what they need to do and alerting others that they are coming through. It’s an interesting shift from thinking about support as just holding someone up through coaching or leading the way through mentoring. Clearing the environment of obstacles seems a worthy undertaking.

Primary election day

Today, I voted in the mid-term elections. The polling station is on the fifth floor of the new Manhattan College building; the one with the Starbucks in the lower level. For the first time, the volunteer turned to the last page of the voter registration book and Gregory's name was gone. I was the only Zuroski on the list, last in the alphabet. It takes a long time to disappear from public records.

Coming home

Before Dolly passed away she said to her children, "Don't let your dad get weird." She meant don't leave him alone too much. Don't let him do things just his way. He liked to putter and often disappeared from sight after dinner, driving around in his pick-up truck or sitting out in the garage or walking up to the Point.

Coming home last night after a glorious summer of rooming with Felicity and spending my days with Emma and her children I realized that I was still struggling with this state of being alone. It's not that I don't cherish the privacy and freedom of movement, but it is easy to settle into one's own head and not seek or remain open to others. I still need to find the balance.

I arrived in Newark Airport at 11:45pm and by the time I'd picked up the car at an off-site parking lot and driven home through the Holland Tunnel and up the Henry Hudson Parkway, it was 2am. I had been hesitant to walk back into a house strewn with bits and pieces of Emma's departure; diapers, toys, summer clothes and a whole line of outgrown shoes.

However, I walked in the door and felt a new energy and resolve. After seeing Connie in her new home talking about renovations and not waiting too long to create the home she wants and seeing Cordelia's house high up on the mountain outside of LA and overlooking the Pacific coast and Margate Canyon knowing she is about to leave it after 40 years to live in a condominium closer to her new grandchild in Northern California, I knew I had to find my own momentum and really move forward.

I've kept busy for five years, but have pretty much stayed still; working around the things I didn't want to change and creating newness, some sustainable and some not. I moved the dining room table back into the dining room. The space in the front hallway is refreshing.