Title:
Inmates Find Hope in College Classes at San Quentin
Prison
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Last week we told you about a program that trains
women in prison to start their own businesses after
their release. Today we tell you about one of the
few prisons in America that offer college-level
classes: San Quentin State Prison in California.
Jody Lewen volunteered to teach in the college
program at San Quentin in nineteen ninety-nine. She
was a graduate student. The program had a small
group of volunteers and no money. But a year later
the director resigned. Ms. Lewen agreed to run the
program until a permanent director could be found.
"But once I started doing the work and got more
deeply involved ... I started to think more and more
about what this program could become."The Prison
University Project seeks to prepare men to lead
thoughtful and productive lives inside and outside
of prison. Twenty courses are offered each semester.
Classes offered this past semester included English,
math, United States history, and Russian and Soviet
history. Others included Asian-American theater,
Spanish, biology, sociology, philosophy and criminal
justice.Three hundred inmates take classes every
semester. They earn credits toward an associate of
arts degree in liberal arts from Patten University
in Oakland, California. Ms. Lewen says getting
teachers to volunteer is not difficult, although
some are nervous about their first trip to San
Quentin. She has recruited more than one hundred
fifty volunteers, including graduate students from
colleges and universities in the area. Charles
Spence hopes to earn parole from prison one day. He
needs a few more courses to receive his associate's
degree, and he wants to earn a master's degree in
psychology. He says, "This experience really has
changed my life. It has given me a lot of tools on
how to express myself. This program is really rare
in the prison setting, so we are really lucky to
have an opportunity to get an education, especially
with the way the economy is out there now."More than
one hundred prisoners have received an associate's
degree. Many more have continued their college
studies after their release. The project receives no
state or federal money. It operates with donations
from people and foundations. Jody Lewen wants to
keep expanding the college program at San Quentin.
There is a long waiting list of prisoners who want
to take classes.For VOA Special English, I'm Mario
Ritter. For more programs and activities for
learning English, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
