Coming to San Quentin with experience teaching at UC Berkeley, many of us come to the Prison University Project (PUP) not knowing what to expect, but hoping to be able to contribute our language and literature skills to the community outside of traditional academia.
PUP provides Spanish classes to students with five days a week (three days for literature classes), allowing the opportunity for an immersion experience that gives students a great deal of exposure to the language.
What makes the classes interesting is that students at San Quentin are adult learners, most of whom are highly motivated and some have experience speaking in their families or communities. There is a great variety of skill levels and previous experience among the students, which can cause some challenges at times, but also brings great diversity into the learning experience.
Overall, teaching Spanish at San Quentin has been a constant process of negotiation, but it is also very rewarding. Every time a student suddenly understands a grammatical concept, uses Spanish to communicate ideas to a classmate, or discusses Spanish literature, it reminds us why we are volunteering.
Teaching here is both absorbing and energizing, and we hope that the students are getting as much out of the experience as we are, and that they find ways to use their skills on a daily basis.
Becker Newbold is a volunteer teacher at San Quentin.