Posts Tagged ‘Books Behind Bars’
Give Change A Chance: How To Grow From Life’s Challenges
Time For Change When I was in the theater world, we used to perform this improv game where, in the middle of a scene, the director would shout from the side of the stage: “Make a new choice!” If I’d been a lumberjack chopping down a tree, now I was a terrorist felling a television…
Read MoreCompassion and Humility Must Lead the Way to Criminal Justice Reform
I was recently invited by the Good Men Project to respond to a reader who asked a question as part of their Ask an Ally column, where people wanting to be better allies pose an anonymous question about a social justice issue. Here is the question that was asked, and then my response, which was…
Read MoreHere’s Why It’s Important To Protect Voting Rights for Everyone
The fight for fair and equitable elections is front and center in the country’s political debate right now. States are rightly being held accountable for systems that have not been accessible for far too many eligible voters. But few leaders are talking about a group of people who are routinely denied the right to vote…
Read MoreHow Great Students Can Change a Teacher’s Life
We’ve all heard stories about great teachers who have changed students’ lives. Far less common are stories from teachers about students who have changed their lives, yet anybody in the teaching profession knows that learning is a reciprocal activity that can have a profound impact on both members of the exchange. Just as there are…
Read MoreTo Teach is To Love: Dostoevsky’s Message to Educators in Our Troubled Times
Alyosha, the youngest of the Karamazov brothers, has just lived through the heartrending tragedy of his father’s brutal murder followed by his brother Dmitry’s wrongful conviction of the crime. His heart now reeling a few days after the grueling trial, Alyosha, twenty-three, goes to the funeral of the schoolboy, Ilyusha Snegiryov, and there meets a…
Read MoreTeaching Resilience Through Russian Literature
When Lisa* applied to my course, “Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature, and Leadership” in which University of Virginia students lead discussions about Russian literature with incarcerated youth at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, she and I both had high hopes for her success in the class. Her application was impressive. A highly intelligent, passionate, socially conscious…
Read MoreCrime and Enlightenment: Important Lessons Teens Teach Me About Life
The Inmate, the Student, and Tolstoy The gate closes behind me with an iron thud. I walk down the hallway, enter the classroom, and take my seat, flanked by the prison guard on my right, and on my left the chaplain and library administrators. Fifteen pairs of male eyes—wary, curious, bemused, intense—look at me…
Read MoreChanging How Juvenile Offenders See Themselves—One Book at a Time
Duane is an eloquent 19-year-old who enjoys discussing world history and Russian literature. He has taught himself to count in multiple foreign languages and hopes to be an ambassador someday. This is not your typical teen — or youth inmate. He immersed himself in liberal arts while serving a sentence at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional…
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