TEACHERS IN THE JAİL

TEACHING IN JAIL

"HE WHO OPENS A SCHOOL DOOR, CLOSES A PRISON(V. H.)”

I'm a teacher in jail, and I have been teaching since 1990. I teach to male adults . I can say that it is a very deep experience specially because you come in contact with all sorts of people who have had their own past and fortunately are now looking for a new opportunity to start a better life. For this reason , teaching in jail is a completely different experience from teaching in a normal school with young students. First of all teachers must be motivated and skilled, not only in their own subjects, and also very human and open minded. As a matter of fact, when you teach in jail one of the most important thing is to motivate your students, developing personal skills, creativity and knowledge and also let them understand that culture can be the possible way to freedom. Many students are completely illiterate, they cannot write or even read, others, instead, have already studied but they want to refresh their knowledge and learn more. Education in jail plays an essential role in promoting the rehabilitation of prisoners by lowering the probability of repeating offenders. A jail teacher has to be more than a normal teacher even because the students want to feel very close to their teachers, considering them as members of their families. Of course teaching in prison isn't easy, also because you are missing lots of things such as school materials, computers, papers and, in addition to all, there are many bureaucratic problems which don't allow to work properly. Finally, I have to say that teaching in jail has always given me the possibility to improve my life's experiences and to realize that people should always be open minded in order to see very clearly what lies beyond the wall.