Friday, March 18, 1983
2
Daily Nebraskan
Continued from Page 1
Garnett Larson has definite ideas of
her own about the purpose of education,
particularly for inmates. She said classes
keep their intelligence alive, open them to
new ideas and make them use their minds
and give them other viewpoints.
"If you starve their intelligence, you
deprive them of their personhood long
before you deprive them of their bodies,"
she said, referring to some of the death
row inmates she teaches.
Larson has a master's degree in social
work and doctorate degrees in English
and philosophy. She retired from teaching
graduate courses in social work at UNL
and has taught inmates at the penitentiary
for more than four years.
Although she was never afraid to teach
inmates, Larson said, in the beginning she
did have mixed feelings about teaching on
death row because she opposes the death
penalty.
"I really didn't know what the impact
would be on me if one of my students
were to be executed, but I finally decided
that is my problem and not theirs," she
said.
Larson said Rice and other students
at the penitentiary are among the most
promising she has ever had.
"I appeal to a different side of them, I
don't see the criminal side," she said.
Having a different background than
most of her students has proved to be
quite useful, Larson said.
"There is a great culture difference
between us," she said. "We have enough
variety and common experiences between
us that we hold an interest for each other."
Classes she teaches are "intellectual
and personal exchanges," she said. Both
student and teacher develop understanding
and tolerance.
"I do not like 'parroting' ideas and they
don't either," she said. "They arc willing
to question and consider ideas, not simply
agree with them."
"It seems to me that even people who
cannot live on the outside should be pro
vided with the most positive life possible -wherever
they are. Just because they are
alive and they are people," she said.
Larson said she doesn't draw morals
or teach lessons from the literature she
uses for class. However, she said, when
reading students' work, she certainly
learns a lot.
Grading papers, isn't something she
enjoys now any more than when she
worked for Louise Pound as a "reader"
during her college days, Larson said. She
doesn't mind doing it, however, if the
paper contains some real ideas. Her
students never disappoint her, she said.
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Continued from Page 1
The first courses Paul Ihompson took
through the education program came
10 years after the last formal classes lie
had attended. Now he has 5 credit hours
toward an associate's degree in business
and would like to complete a bachelor s
in business administration.
"1 don't care how long it takes, even n
I'm 65 , I'm going to finish ," he S3id .
The education program has come a
long way, from using a caidboard model ot
a computer in math class five years ago to
teaching with an Apple II terminal today.
Dave Fowler, general studies chairman
of the correctional division of Southeast
College, attributes the success of the
program to its excellent teachers from
UNL and the corrections staff. Funds
supplied by the penitentiary add to the
quality of the program as well, he said.
The same rules. like academic
probation, apply to inmates as they do to
students outside. If a student repeatedly
fails courses. Fowler said , he is out of the
program.
What people may not realize is that
participating in the education program is
much like attending night classes at any
college, he said. Inmates are given the
opportunity to take classes after a day's
work and must pay for their tuition with
Pell grant funds, just as many other
students do.
Society will benefit more
"I think there is a need for prisons
and I have no doubts about this place as
a place of punishment - certainly that
occurs here," Fowler said. "The difference
is that society will benefit more from an
educated person coming out."
It is difficult, he said, to tell from
statistics what effect education has on
recidivism, the act of returning to prison
repeatedly.
The only fact generally agreed upon is
that men are less likely to return to prison
as they grow older, he said. Younger men
are most likely to return to prison, but
also are more likely to have academic
deficiencies and will enroll in
classes more frequently.
Because inmates have different
problems in adjusting to society, a
combination of programs along with the
education program helps their chances for
successful living, Fowler said.
The experiences of repeat offenders
seem to bear truth to that idea . Gary
Bohl.who is serving a three-year sentence
for check fraud, said he had been in prison
three times. He said ideas from several
programs have helped him to realize he
will not be coming back.
Bohl has completed his general studies
degree through the education program.
He said he could not get a good job
without more education.
when he is released in August,
Bohl said, he will begin classes at UNL.
He hopes to finish his bachelor of science
degree in geology.
"I think that people will look at my
education and accept it without saying,
'Well, you're an ex-con and we are not
going to give you a chance,' " he said.
Other inmates sometimes react
negatively to those who take classes, but
Bohl said it doesn't bother him.
"Oh yeah , you get it (negative
comments), but I just shrug my shoulders
and halfway feel sorry for them
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because maybe they are missing something
they could use," he said.
classes help remove him from the
"dinginess" of prison life and make him
draw on what he has learned to look at
tilings from a different perspective, he said.
"You can go out into the yard here and
listen to guys planning their next crime,"
Bold said. "But in the education program,
you can make a clean break with your
past."
Another inmate, Chico VVatkins, said
the only way to rehabilitate a criminal is
to do it mentally. Watkins has earned
associate degrees in business and general
studies through the program.
If inmates don't change the way they
view things, they become repeat offenders
and "make a future out of the past," he
said.
Watkins, who was convicted of burglary,
said he has been a repeat offender, but has
learned, through various programs, to
change his priorities. When released, he
would like to go into counseling work,
he said.
It is hard to keep contact with reality
while serving a sentence, Watkins said.
"It's just like being dead in here. You
can go out in the yard, look at the cars on
13th Street and watch them go by, while
you are in here, standing still."
More honest than television
Fdueation is the best contact with
reality that inmates can have, he said.lt
provides a moie honest picture than the
television or newspaper does and better
prepares them to join the world
outside.
"Since I've been in school, I can sec
something. Before, when I was just out in
the yard, I was not benefiting," Watkins
said. "In school, I benefit."
As one walks into the educational
building at the penitentiary, one sees a
poster that says "the road to anywhere
starts from where you are." The students
seem to agree.
Many students begin their class work
with a sociology course taught by Mike
Shaughnesy. In his class, a day's
discussion might range from Japanese
technology to work ethics and materialism
in the United States.
Shaughnesy, a teaching assistant in
educational psychology at UNL, has taught
in the prison education program for three
years. He said he has found that many of
his students at the penitentiary are more
highly motivated than their UNL
counterparts. If inmates can achieve good
greades through hard work and study , he
said, they realize they have potential.
The classes he teaches use a format
based on reality , Shaughnesy said. He said
he tries to show inmates how theorites
work and how they fit together.
"I often feel at the end of a night
teaching that I have learned more from
them than they have from me," he
said.
Dave Joy, a graduate student at UNL,
has taught accounting and related courses
at the penitentiary for three years.
The most fun , he said , is to see two of
his former students, now out of prison,
who have come to the university to finish
their degrees.
"I found in teaching there (at the
prison) that a lot of intelligent people
are there who are just looking for
motivation and a way to change," he said.
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