Forced to Learn: Community-based Correctional Education

Creating Activating Events for Transformative Learning in a Prison Classroom

“…Many educators working in prison education programs seek to help alter inmates’ frames of reference that contribute to their crippling life prospects, while providing instruction in required basic education, general equivalency diploma (GED), or optional college preparation. Scholars have suggested more could be understood about how transformative learning happens for marginalized adult learners (Daloz, 1999; Johnson-Bailey, 2012; Merriam, 2010; Mezirow, 2004; Mottern, Davis, & Ziegler, 2013; Taylor, 2007), particularly in settings that are difficult to study, such as inside the walls of a prison. Inmate students often bring a sense of failure from painful K–12 experiences, they and their teachers are under watch; their progress does not necessarily lead to further independence; their future is limited by the stigma of residing in a geographic community surrounded by walls and wire; and policy makers and voters often question the funding for inmates’ educational programs.…”