“Teaching is a political act,” said Berkeley High School teacher Hasmig Minassian. “It’s the job for the teacher to fight for the conditions that create safety for students.”
Minassian said teachers need to be willing to act decisively for the benefit of the kids, and avoid focusing on policies and practices that don’t work.
She was speaking at a roundtable at San Quentin State Prison, where on March 4 about a dozen convicted criminals met with Bay Area teachers, a local TV news producer, and an international author to discuss solutions for keeping children in school.
“We come from unstable homes, and then we come into an unstable school system. So the kids don’t change,” said moderator Miguel Quezada, 34, who is serving a life sentence for a 1998 murder he committed during school hours at age 16.
Barriers to the educational process became a central focus of the roundtable discussion.
“What is going on in these public schools that’s adding to the problem instead of helping kids?” asked Bowen Paulle, the author of “Toxic Schools.”
Paulle wrote the book after teaching high school in impoverished areas of Amsterdam and New York and witnessing the same emotional toxic environment that produced negative behaviors from students in both schools.
He discovered that many high school students engaged in negative behaviors wanted to change their lives, but they didn’t or couldn’t in toxic schools that made them worse.
Paulle’s solution: desegregating schools, “no matter what it takes.” He added, “We need to regulate the everyday experience of these kids, even if it becomes draconian.”
By examining gun violence, “NBC Bay Area We Investigate” reporter Stephen Stock brought light to the toxic environment across the bay in Oakland.
Stock found citizens of all ages suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), like veterans returning from combat. However, Stock said when looking at the people in Oakland, they cannot get away from the place where they developed PTSD. Many PTSD sufferers wind up in prison, where the problem is compounded.
The solution: social workers advocates for more resources to treat trauma at an early age, “NBC We Investigate” finds.
Inmates said the solution to keep students in the classroom will come from going beyond the traditional educational system.
The teachers’ boots-on-the ground solution calls for smaller classes and greater community input.
The Prisoners’ Stories:
The prisoners told a wide range of stories: one had endured childhood abuse and the shame it carries. Another was born in a refugee camp. Another remembered violence between his parents from when he was a toddler. Others spoke of racism in school, of being drawn into a gang as a result of a neglectful home life and peer pressure at school, of being an immigrant, of processing your parents’ divorce and then having an adverse relationship with a stepfather.
These troubled pasts can be difficult to overcome. Guiding Rage Into Power (GRIP), a self-help program in the prison, teaches a transformation process.
“GRIP graduates have learned about emotional intelligence and that ‘Hurt people hurt people and healed people heal people,’” creator of the program Jacques Verduin said. “We should be sending people who have made the change inside to help on the outside. If you don’t do it for ideological reasons, do it for money. It costs $64,000 annually to incarcerate each of these men.”
Every prisoner who spoke had undergone rehabilitative services, similar to GRIP. Each told of the lasting repercussions of their past trauma, and struggled with a lack of emotional intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence:
Bay Area teacher Kelli Riggs at Bret Harte Elementary asked prisoners to define emotional intelligence.
“It is breaking away from my institutionalization and how my dad influenced me on how I looked at masculinity,” Philip Melendez explained.
Melendez commented that once he broke away from his pre-conceived ideas and realized his “authentic self,” he focused on himself.
“A lot of emotional intelligence is slowing down your thought process,” Melendez said.
According to Adnan Khan, another component of emotional intelligence is understanding that anger is a secondary emotion.
“I’m figuring out where that anger comes from,” he said. “I’m able to identify the problem and deal with anger properly.”
Tommy Winfrey added that the concept of empathy helped him understand emotional intelligence.
“Once you can understand what is happening to other people, you can deal with them,” Winfrey said. “If you can understand yourself, you can understand other people.”
What Works:
David Inocencio, publisher of The Beat Within magazine, sends writings of encouragement from San Quentin inmates to juvenile hall offenders across the nation.
“I am just the messenger,” he said. “You guys are touching the lives of a lot of young people.”
Prisoner Jarred Elkins, 21, said a little bit of encouragement goes a long way. He said even though he had many problems at home, encouragement by a third-grade teacher had him doing his homework. He called for teachers to “dig deep into why kids have these behavioral problems.”
