Response to "You Probably Don't Even Know I Exist - Notes from a College Prison Program"

While I was reading “You Probably Don't Even Know I Exist - Notes from a College Prison Program” by Jane Mahr, I was forced to face my identity as an adult learner, more specifically as a struggling adult learner because of one particular sentence, “ Approximately 45% of the women at Bedford Hills suffer from mental illness, and some of these women place into the pre-college program,” (91). This statistic came up in our class discussion, and it was a shocking and sad number for my classmates. The gist of the discussion around the presence of mental illness in prison learning contexts was something I paraphrased in my head as, “They really need teachers to help them. I want to help them cope with the difficulty of their life circumstances by giving them power through literacy skills and options through further education.”

Like my classmates, I had that urge to help them. I would not be in this program if I wasn’t deeply moved to my core by a desperate need to help people get the power of self-expression and choice through language and literacy education. However, these women in prison fighting against disabling mental illness, and struggling for their education are not people I just recognize as my future students, I recognize their stories on a more personal level because they are like me. I wanted to go into adult education not just because I wanted to help, but because I am desperate for help balancing challenging circumstances and my education, and for a teacher like the one I hope to be. I wish I had a Jane Mahr in my life to see that I exist and coach me through struggling through school.

Another part of my identity is a struggling adult learner. I have had major interruptions in my education because I have struggled with depression my entire adult life. My mind is cloudy, I can’t concentrate, and I have little energy or motivation an overwhelming majority of the time. I have lost many things and opportunities because of my mood disorder (money, work advancement, time, friends, romantic relationships, physical possessions, physical health), but none of these losses devastate me as much as my loss of education. From my perspective as an academic and an educator, I love language and I feel free, successful, and safe when I am learning. From my perspective as a mentally ill person, school has been an overwhelming source of stress, embarrassment, and confusion.

Unlike many of the women who Jane Mahr teaches at Bedford Hills, I had a fairly privileged upbringing with quality and well-rounded education, and a 3.8 GPA in high school. I have always been able to get into programs I wanted. I got into my first choice university early decision and after I eventually completed my BA in English at CCNY 4 years after my planned college graduation, I got into a competitive alternative teacher certification program, which would pay for my master’s in Secondary English Education. Despite this advantage over these women in prison, I still have faced enormous obstacles in my education. Due to bouts of depression ranging from moderate to severe, I have dropped out of school three times. I left my dream college twice (at 19 and at 20) because of hospitalizations for severe depression and suicide attempts. Last year I became suicidal again while teaching high school English and getting my degree in English education; I was forced to learn a free Master’s and a job behind. Pressure and mental illness caused my educational goals, and a big part of myself, to crumble in a world much safer and simpler than prison.

I have been intrigued by the context of teaching in prisons for several years and I have not been able to identify why until this blog post. I see myself in these women, and I have experienced a fragment of the grief of losing out on education due to illness and life circumstances; I have found it to be crippling. I want to help them, because I want us to help each other as a community. I think that I could potentially have a beautifully meaningful experience as a teacher/co-learner in a prison classroom. I hope that I can manage to fight my way to this Master’s. I want to have the opportunity to have that transformative experience as both the giver of healing and strength to my students, but also as the recipient of those gifts through the participation in the learning experience alongside them.