T010: Education in Carceral Spaces

Offered online only for residential HGSE students. How do we do education in carceral spaces? What is the purpose/power of formal education? Given that human connection is generally contraband in jails and prisons, and education is about connection, what is our praxis? This course includes a practicum component and will be held in virtual conversation with students and leaders who are currently and formerly incarcerated. It will dive deeply into pedagogy, offer a comparative lens, and support students in developing a meaningful multidisciplinary project. We plan to zoom into carceral classrooms to listen and learn with people who are deeply familiar with cradle-to-cell trauma, systems of racialized punishment, and the possibility of the classroom as a kind of sacred/healing space. Our work will engage a range of disciplines including ethics, transformative pedagogy, neuroscience, and public policy. Some questions for consideration: What is mass incarceration and how does it relate to education? How do we conceptualize abolition? Can education as the practice of freedom (hooks, 1994) be realized inside policed classrooms? Please note that the two-credit version of this course focuses on praxis, while the four-credit version includes a practicum. Students who have already taken T010I are ineligible to enroll in T010.
 
This course fulfills the elective requirement of the Equity & Opportunity Foundations experience. Following the foundational learning in August Identity in Context courses, these electives build students’ historical and contemporary understanding, structural understanding, personal responsibility, and strategies for action.