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On about books. We delve the latest news about the Publishing Industry with interesting insider interviews, Publishing Industry experts. Well also give you updates. Current nonfiction authors and books. The latest book reviews, and well talk about the current nonfree asian books featured on cspans book tv. And now a conversation with author and professor brooke allen, who teaches the humanities to inmates at a maxim month security prison in upstate york. She recently wrote a piece in the wall street journal about her entitled college be more like prison. So brooke allen what the Bennington College Prison Education initiative and how you get involved in this well bard started a Prison Education program. It must be close to 20 years ago now. I think quite a long time it was very successful and my colleague at bennington, annabel davis, whos a writer and and teacher at bennington decided that she thought this is quite fabulous and she would try to start a similar one at bennington. And so she contacted a which is its not that close its about an hour from bennington in comstock new york. And after minimum maximum security prison and after lot of jumping through hoops and filling out forms and a lot of, you know security issues, she was able to start the program and im thinking that must be, i dont know, maybe close to ten years ago, seven or eight years ago at least. And i got involved in it through her. Shes somebody i and take her advice and she said i would love teach you there which in fact is true is great. Well, what were you teaching bennington and what were you teaching the prison at bennington taught literature, and its a small department. So weve sat had a very wide sort of of things that we all tried to do. And i found myself sort of specializing in making sensory stuff because that seemed to be lacking at college. And i thought it was a gap. And when i moved on to the prison, i took some of that with me and annabelle said they already had literature teachers in north, but they needed something more broad. So i developed a series of classes called history of thought and the class i taught was on the enlightenment and the second class was on the renaissance class. And i taught a class for advanced students of romanticism. And now weve done sort of individual classes, like classes on adam smith, on tocqueville, on george orwell. And right now im back to literature teach, your class and indian and pakistani fiction, which is soon coming to an end. And when you taught the enlightenment, what was the the book that you used. We didnt use a textbook did we did readings from the actual authors and its quite, you know, and in that case, its not particularly difficult because the enlightenment readers were writers were were reading to be understood. So theyre not trying to couch things in too many hidden. We started with john locke and hobbes in the obvious places. We went on to montesquieu. We read the spirit of laws and we read letters. We read a lot of voltaire, we read rousseau, we read david hume, we read thomas paine and the american Founding Fathers and just a whole variety of people. It was a huge hit in. A couple of the students actually. Why dont we read these things in high . Theyre so important and we dont know them. So that was a great it was a hit both at the college and at the at the prison. It is a deep material should all be reading in high school so brooke allen the obvious question is what was it teaching john locke to maximum security prisoners and what did you expect and what was he what the actual reality . Well i expected that it might be a difficult sure but in fact, they were a lot easier to with and still are really than college students. They had had to make a big effort to get into the program had to apply to Bennington College effectively and be deemed at a good enough level to get in and do their College Level work not remedial and. So some of the students had were sort of like ordinary college students, quite young and untested. Some of them were men in their fifties and sixties whod been sitting the prison reading books for 30 years and were very very advanced and could do fine in any graduate program. So the classes tend to run the gamut between the sort of more basic College Freshmen and people who could be in third Year Graduate program. And what was really great me and it continues to be is that they help each other. If there are some students who are very prepared, they go out of their way to help the people are less well prepared and theyre all exceedingly motivated. Theyll come into the classroom having done the reading two or three times before class. Ive been taking a lot of notes, having looked things up insofar as theyre because they dont have access to the computer or the internet, theyre just joy to work with. What can i say . I dont know. I recommend anybody who enjoys teaching to do this sort of work. Now. Brooke allen and a recent wall street journal op ed, you lamented the future of the humanities. Why will i mean, for many, many reasons. The students of today, the college students, i think, have a radically decreased attention span. And, you know, it is probably 75 comes from internet, social media, constantly being online. But in order to put the attention in that, you need read, say, a book by like dickens richardson. They dont seem to have that anymore. The prisoners do have that because theyre not online on there is this feeling of things having to be you know applica able to modern life which is not really the humanities are about theres so many things getting in their way the prevalence of check think the new the new Artificial Intelligence we no idea where thats going to take but certainly the traditional way of of learning in college is going to be turned upside down. And again, i havent had to deal with that in the prison. They have no access to these things. They write their essays, the Old Fashioned in longhand on their they have enough access to research to help them, but not so much that theyre overwhelmed and theyre not being constantly distracted by sort of flashier things going on in their lives. What do you think prisoners are getting from the classics, from john locke from tocqueville, etc. . I think theyre getting exactly what i got in college in the 1970s, which is a expanded view of. The world and our relative small place in it. The idea that the Brilliant Ideas think we have are not that we all that people have been to all these places before and have had very sophisticated and complex and interesting thoughts. We need to be aware of before we wade the same waters philosophically, intellectually, historically. You know, i, i think the history of teaching is going to teaching. History has gone down the toilet. Dont know any young people who know any history. Now at all. And you know how that comes back. Im not sure. Part of the problem i think is, is the fact that School Boards are locally influenced and theres no sort of generalized in this country sort of a philosophy of what education is and an educated, educated person looks like we dont agree on that. And thats a problem. Whats a typical day teaching at the prison . Well well, my class is two and a half hours long. I drive 2 hours to get to the prison, and i have to there a half hour in advance. I, i get there at about six to the class. I mean, 530 last goes from 6 to 830 and then we all leave again and during that two and a half hours, its Something Else that surprised me there is no lapse of attention. They all are fascinated throughout the whole class without going to the bathroom, you know, looking at the watch its really fascinating. I its, you know, by virtue of the fact that theyre not that many interesting things in their lives and this is a high point for them. Whats the process you getting into the prison security there . A guard in there, are they pencils, etc. . Do you have to go through lot of security when you come in . You have to go through a metal detector on your search to make sure youre not bringing in anything. You have to let them know ahead of time what you are planning to bring. And then once you get into the classroom, we close the door and were in the classroom by. But theres a guard in the hall who is usually theres three or four classes going on at the same time. Theres one guard out there whos whos there in case anything goes wrong. Nothing ever has, so far as i know in our classes. Do you get a sense that these prisoners, these students have opinions. Oh, yes. And i would say that. 80 of them are political. And then, you, the odd conservative, and they all sort of give that guy a hard time. But in a in a good natured way, there are no there are no ugly political fights. The classroom, which is another refreshing thing. And i feel that one thing that could be applied from the prison to, the college classroom, is that we could forgo political discussion except in so far as they were in the context of whatever it is were reading. I mean if youre reading voltaire and you understand the political context of his time and what it meant to be a liberal, which he was, that is fair game. But then to start, you know, have look at each other or at the teacher, just not very productive and dont get that in the prison in your op ed in the wall street journal referred to reading some of these authors, some of these classics as time travel. What did you mean by that . Well, that, too, is something i think we apply to the college classroom, because right now, colleges, if you read a i mean, lets just take the most obvious example. Huck finn, everybody is talking about this ad nauseum and People Choose to become offended at the content of in reading it in the 21st century context. If you try and travel to the 19th century and, look at it again, youre going to have very different ideas. But it takes a certain sensitivity tack on the part of the teacher and a certain willingness on the part of the students to be humble and that they do not theyre not theyre the classroom to sit on judgment on everybody in the lesson thousand years now is huck finn book that you would teach at bennington . No, i have not taught up there. I dont, i dont specialize in american literature. Im just im just saying that because its something thats always in the news. But for i do teach david hume and david hume is an indispensable philosopher for his period. You have to read david hume and then, of course, he wrote an essay in which he said that, you know, he thought there was a hierarchy in intelligence among the races and we dont believe that anymore. Science has proved that thats incorrect. But this is not to say that we Read Everything else that david hume wrote, which is of the utmost importance and i think my students at the prison get they understand that there are classes toward the prison. You know we try to we try to do a wide variety of classes. And there have been some, i think, really interesting one on the turner rebellion. There has been one on the haitian revolution. You know, needless to say, we do african literature and things like that, but we try give a very, very Broad Spectrum of a historical literature and philosophy and to really make the students understand that each book is a product of its own time, its a creature of its time, and that goes also for the books that people are writing right now. And to get that now, brooke allen is the racial makeup of your class at the prison important not particularly . No. We have a little bit of everything on the only time its been problematic because we have certain people who are not quite there in english as a second language and they struggle a bit but there has not. I mean its helpful of course, to have a very diverse population, which we by definition we dont have to try for it. It just happens. But there has been and not witnessed any acrimony on political or otherwise. Ive got one guy and who takes all of my classes whos a sort of intellectual conservative. He reads he reads things like the new in the wall street journal and other cast members will give a hard time, but its all in very good spirit and laughing. And we had one discussion monday about gun control. This sort of issue was that already came up in the enlightenment. And i was surprised to find that every single one of my students was passionately in favor of gun control. And i said, would you like to, you know, go on that . And they said, well, you know where most of us are here, because we were we had access to guns. We were young and stupid. And we dont want to be it was that was crazy. So of course were in favor of gun control. So these things are interesting. Professor allen, or most of your students out there for life know a certain proportion i would say maybe a third of them are and this become a particular focus for us because trying to figure out, you know what kind education you can offer that is ongoing year after year for these students who are passionately interested in that, who want be doing it all the time, they they a lot of these guys have way more than enough credits to get a b. A. And we as an institution are only allowed to give to the associates degree. But some of these guys have enough credits for two boys. So how do you with with education, the continuous interest engage them where they dont sort have to go through the of the College Essay and all the things theyve done many before so this is of interest to us and were working on different ideas to try to make that happen in a smooth manner. Have you been able to hold a graduate ceremony at all . Yes. Was a Graduation Ceremony a few months ago for the associate students and. I was not able to be there because i had to be at a wedding but i saw the photographs and ive never seen so many happy faces ever. It was it was obviously terrific. Whats their response to when you grade and critique their papers . Theyre theyre very humble. They ive never had anybody argue a grade on one of my guys who i have no doubt was a dangerous in a former life is a very much afraid of one of the teachers because if people say that she grades or so you know it makes me think they all except that they understand their limitations they theyre very philosophical their in the class and theres a an attitude of mutual you know they call me professor and i call them mr. Now the the prison said maybe its not a good to say. Mr. In case somebody doesnt identify as a man but people that i have have all said that they enjoy called mr. And i do think its you one of the few moments of respect that get in their there so its very precious now brooke allen i dont want get you in trouble but is it bening tennis a rather elite institution in vermont and youre teaching at a maximum security prison . Whats the between the elite students who maybe come from a different background than the men that youre teaching at the prison i think elite students and im i wouldnt say this about all bennington students because a great number of bennington students are on scholarships and have jobs and have to work but for those who are just take it for granted that they will their college will be paid for i think you know theres theres a lot of they dont make the same effort that the prisoners do. And i know that in communities, colleges and certain state institutes, youre going to get, you know, prisoners who i mean, students who are like the prisoners that they they very much value their what theyre able to get there. And they work for it. But its true that and i think itll lead institutions a proportion a large proportion of students take a lot for and more and more and more i would say from my own experiences and those of my friends, they feel like customers rather than people who have to conform with a certain a certain strictures. When you read and talk about the Founding Fathers, whats the knowledge of the men in the prison its higher than the ordinary undergraduate base i would say these people do a lot of recreation well reading. But you theres so many things that we as american citizens dont know and i went to on myself i went to fairly elite schools and i the university of virginia and i ph. D. From columbia that i did not own learning a lot of the sort of basic facts, enlightenment thought and the fact that our constitution and the enlightenment document. So this is something we all need to Pay Attention to ive taken the citizens ship test. Just out of curiosity. And that would seem to be a very basic on a that everybody should have when they come out of High School Like for some reason again are the u. S. A country doesnt agree on what an education educated person should know this doesnt happen. And i remember a few years ago, i think the governor of arizona said that he wanted High School Graduates he or she wanted High School Graduates to come out being, able to pass the citizenship test and had a foot or so that were asking too much of students. I dont understand it. How many students in your class. Ive had everything from 5 to 16. The class has shrunk after covid because there was social distancing and and now theres more teachers. So the classes are so much smaller, usually between five and ten. And what are teaching this semester . Im in a class i taught at the college two or three times before, which is on indian pakistani fiction. And thats a lot of fun because a part of the world that on the prisons students know nothing about and they came in the other day saying thank you, thank you for introducing to these fabulous authors and this history and culture of this part of the world. We knew nothing about. So so we had a good time in the class. And theres wonderful, wonderful coming out of the subcontinent now. And really for the last 200 years that everybody ought to be aware of. And what is a platonic method of teaching that you use . Well, youre really this discussion. I mean, i had nothing against lecture classes. And in fact, i they were my favorite classes in college. And they provide a but the bennington philosophy is more a small class discussion based where youre not telling your eliciting from students. And then when you elicit something that seems crazy, you try to get them to refine their thoughts by asking further questions. And of course, the smaller the class, the better it works on. Thats thats kind of the philosophy of the college and we continued to follow that in, in our class at the prison though i do teach on survey classes and its Something Like the enlightenment would be a survey class strictly from, say, the 1660s to 1790. And, and they get the context. Its desirable to survey class, but at the same time youre having very close discussions with individual students and small groups. Brooke allen the title of your wall street journal editorial. Our op ed was college should b more like prison. Was that your title was definitely not title and i got a certain amount of flack it but you know the editorial writers editors they want people to they want eyes on page and i think they succeeded really well that and there certainly are aspects of the college that i wish could be like the prison i wish it were more and were more tolerant, wish it were more peaceful. I wish there were no poems and computers in the classroom. Theres so many things id like to see, similar to what the kind of class have in the prison. Brooke allen former Bennington College professor who works on that institutions Prison Education initiative. We appreciate your time on good morning. Thank you for coming. Im doug. Its my honor to be here with

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