Teaching Inside-Out

Katie D.

January 2, 2011 - 8:47 PM

I am thrilled to announce that tomorrow is my first day teaching an Inside-Out class. I'm working with Professor Ellen Scott to teach a sociology class entitled Institutional Inequalities and Individual Lives. Our class will be held at the Oregon State Penitentiary, with twelve inmates of the Penitentiary and twelve students from the University of Oregon through the Clark Honors College. The class will focus on ethnographies and social theories of institutionalized inequalities in society, and how these structures impact individual Americans. As part of the class, we will focus on how we, as individuals, have interacted with social structures and have felt the implications of institutional inequalities.

It's going to be an amazing class.

My first Inside-Out class freshman year totally changed my life. The conversations I had and the friendships I built with the other students in my class (inside and outside) led me to a completely new understanding of my options for school and the power of education. I discovered a deep interest in prison issues, as well as a renewed passion for all facets of social justice and issues of equality in the United States and in the world in general. And all of that was from a class about literature, so imagine my excitement for a class focused on social theory and structural inequalities!

I can't believe how lucky I am to be assisting in an Inside-Out classroom. This is the perfect culmination of my studies as an undergraduate, a beautiful compliment to my studies in conflict resolution, and the ideal follow-up to my undergraduate thesis. I'm sure this will be something I'll blog about at length for the rest of this term, and I would love to hear from anyone with questions or comments.

In the meantime, let me describe what will happen in class tomorrow.

The first week of each Inside-Out class, the inside and outside students meet separately with the instructors. The purpose of these separate meetings is to go over all the rules of the program and the correctional institution, and to talk honestly about any questions or concerns the students might have about participation in the class. Generally the outside students have concerns about entering a foreign environment, and sometimes express nervousness about safety in the classroom. The inside students are sometimes very nervous about interacting with outsiders (one member of our class has received no visits since his incarceration in 1989), and others might be nervous about completing coursework at a upper-division university level. The separate meetings allow space for these concerns to be voiced, as well as a through discussion of the rules (such as the policy of no contact outside of the classroom, and the regulations on wardrobe).

Tomorrow Professor Scott and I will drive to Salem to meet with the inside students (the outside students meet on Thursday). We will go through the security procedures at the prison, head up to the activities area, and hold our class for three hours. We will get to know the members of our classroom better, and introduce our course material. We will do everything we can to create an atmosphere of full participation and inclusion. We'll get ready to come up for the same time the following Monday, with a group of twelve university students with us, to start our term of classes together.

I imagine this class will be full of challenges, inspiration, and emotional demands. I'll have the chance to build working relationships with all the students in the classroom, which might later lead to involvement in alumni activities, from outside projects involving juvenile corrections to future educational programming in the Oregon State Penitentiary. And I'll have the chance to examine my own life experiences from the sociological perspective of a dialogue-driven class focused on the intersection of theory and experience.

Almost four years from my first experience as a freshman in Inside-Out, I'm returning to OSP as an instructor. I can't believe the symmetry of the experience, and the incredible blessing this work is in my life.

Here's to a new year! New work, new experiences. I can't wait to see what the future holds.