I once heard a quote from my high school teacher, it went something like “Never give up hope but stay strong and positive”. In the book, “Shakespeare saved my life” by Laura Bates, she talked about her experiences on getting into maximum security and getting to know the inmates that she will be teaching with. Bates talked about how some people doubt her and told her to stop trying to teach prisoner because they will never learn. Many of the people around her did not really support her. After getting a break from teaching in minimum security, she gets a chance to teach in the maximum security. In there is the most dangerous inmates, they are the one that can not be around others and must be kept alone in a small dark room. She soon met these two inmates who she was able to learn from them. Newton and Green are the two inmates who really made Bates change her perspective of prisoners.
I can relate to Laura Bates on not giving up( helping prisoners get some education) when others don’t support you. Coming from a student, I get put down by others around me. I know that when you give up that just means you’re giving up on yourself which you should never do. Bates knew that getting into maximum and being able to teach the inmates in there will be hard, but she never gave up because that was the choice she wanted to take. .
In this article called, “College Behind Bars: How Educating Prisoners Pays Off “, by David Skorton and Glenn Atlschuler, a man named Richard Polenberg, a Cornell emeritus professor and award-winning teacher who taught a constitutional history course at Auburn stated,
“When visiting the program, we found students hungry for an education and grateful for their efforts. “These men are quite extraordinary,”. “They are very, very well behaved in the classroom and they ask really good questions”(Skorton and Atlschuler). What Richard Polenberg said in the article does relate to what Dr. Bates commented in her book. Dr. Bates wrote, “ I found myself reflecting that I had never heard such and enthusiastic Shakespearean discussion in any college course I’d taken or taught. I realized that on my very first day day, I had already achieved what the prisoners themselves told me was impossible” (Bates 29). Both of these two authors understand the stitutional problem here. They both want the help and gives these inmates a chance to have education in their life. These prisoners may be in prison for doing wrong but I believe that if they want to some education they should get the chance.
Skorton, David J., and Glenn C. Atlschuler. "College Behand Bars:How Educating Prisoners Pays Off." College Behind Bars: How Educating Prisoners Pays Off. Forbes, n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2013.