creating a better learning environment

Education in Prison
Programming for Incarcerated Women

When a woman enters prison, she generally has a few basic needs she wants dealt with immediately. She first tends to the care and safety of her children, then her immediate safety needs and her health needs. After she is satisfied these needs are met as best as possible considering her limited freedom, the routine of prison life begins. This routine includes participation in programs, most of which have an educational, informational or skill development component.

My experience working with women in prison indicates that most have an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs, are victims of physical, sexual and/or mental abuse, are not lawfully employed, are poor, have low self-esteem, have less than a grade eight education and have not had positive experiences within the education system. In addition, most of them are mothers, and in Saskatchewan, most are Aboriginal.

The trauma these women have endured both as a result of violence and from their life styles does not allow conventional educational programs or teaching methods to work. Given the vulnerability of each of the women in relation to each other, group disclosure programs are not highly desirable or valuable to the women. Likewise, programs that are based on the "norm," which in most cases means "male based," offer very little.

In order for programs within prison to be valuable, they need to be culturally relevant and gender specific as well as take into account the violence these women live with daily. Programs need to recognize that the women are at different levels of self-awareness, self-confidence, life skills, cultural awareness and healing stages. For various reasons, some women have short attention spans and learn best with methods presently used with learning disadvantaged students.

I have observed that violence stagnates the learning process. The learner quickly learns to know and see only what her aggressor allows or wants her to know or see; little growth or learning is possible. The learner is too pre-occupied with escaping the violence or coping with it; she cannot afford the luxury of freedom to learn. If the learner is allowed, for example, to attend upgrading, the violent partner most often does not offer the necessary support for the learner to attend classes or complete assignments. The violent partner often feels threatened by the learner trying to gain new information or skills and further violence results. Her efforts are sabotaged by the aggressor and the power imbalance within the relationship.

Since most women in prison come from an oppressive and violent background, it is difficult for them to value learning--it has always had negative consequences in the context of their lives. It is difficult for them to open their mind to learn; they have been conditioned to know only what they are told to know in their power relationship.