What Prison Can Teach Us About School w/ Jennifer Berkshire

About this episode

The episode explores insights from prison rehabilitation programs and their implications for educational environments, featuring a conversation with Jennifer Berkshire.

Tomorrow, I'll be trading Iowa for a couple days in Los Angeles, where the HRP team will be presenting for the third year at LearningInspirEd's Student Power Summit. It's in LA this year in partnership with Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. The founder, Father Greg Boyle, is quoted on the Homeboy homepage saying, "We imagine a world without prisons, and then we try to create that world,". And I'm really looking forward to meeting and talking with the people there to learn more about how Homeboy works. A bit of a facetious question that sticks in my head is, in the high-stakes data-driven world of schooling, what piece of content or curriculum did these guys miss that would've made the difference? And more seriously, what is it about the environment at Homeboy Industries that schools can learn from? I'll have more on that when I get back. But until we build that world wi thout prisons, there will need to be programs for incarcerated people and people in transition from prison to public life, too. That's where this conversation with Jennifer Berkshire came about. Of course you know Jennifer from her years of hosting the Have You…

People in this episode

Guest: Jennifer Berkshire

Topics covered

• education
• prison reform
• school environment
• journalism
• policy
• gang rehabilitation

Keywords

• prison education
• Homeboy Industries
• school curriculum
• education policy
• gang rehabilitation
• journalism
• high-stakes schooling

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Homeboy Industries, Boston College Prison Education Program

Books & works: The Wolf At The Schoolhouse Door, The Education Wars

Places: Los Angeles, Iowa

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