Challenges of teaching in prisons without technological resources (opinion)

It was the last day of the semester, and I was assigned to the classroom to administer the final exam. This comprehensive exam, worth 20 percent of the grade, was something my students and I had been reviewing for weeks. They were ready and I was ready. I looked at the clock; they should arrive any minute. I sat down with a bunch of tests to wait. Then I waited and waited.

That would be a strange situation for a normal college, but this was no normal college. It was a Utah state prison. You never know what it will be like there from day to day or hour to hour. So, as I was sitting there wondering how I could shorten this timed trial, an officer came to the door. “There was an IMS incident,” he told me. “They don’t come.”

“Wait,” I answered, “I’m not coming.” at all?”

“No.” Then he walked back.

I followed him down the hall. “But it’s the last test. It’s a big part of the distance. What should I do?”

The officer did not answer, but kindly allowed me to call David Bokovoy, director of the prison education program at Salt Lake Community College. His response was an attitude I’ve found you should always adopt when teaching at a prison college: “You have to adapt.”

On a typical campus, an emergency such as an IMS incident may involve a college-wide text, email or other form of mass communication. And then, as an instructor, you’re going to go around and give an online test or some sort of different job. But there is no class building in prison, without email or any kind of digital communication. I wouldn’t see those students again that semester, and I ended up throwing in the towel and changing the weight of some assignments.

College instructors and administrators are increasingly using technology tools in the classroom—a trend that has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic. But in some places, like prison, those tools are not available. How can higher education help overcome the digital divide in an environment without digital resources?

This question is becoming more urgent as more colleges offer prison education programs. The US Department of Education has expanded access to federal Pell Grants for students who are incarcerated or incarcerated. That program has resulted in many students enrolling across the country. It also expanded Salt Lake Community College’s prison education program to one of the largest in the country, serving more than 400 students by the spring semester of 2024. With that increase and more students, communication and technology become more important. Many college functions—registration, advising, monitoring, grading and more—rely on technology. My college’s prison academic staff and faculty members have had to be creative in all of those areas.

I do not face the difficult and sometimes tedious task of registering. I am an adjunct faculty member who teaches business. But like other workers, I had to find new workarounds. I don’t know when an incident like the one I described earlier will happen in prison. It has happened several times: I show up, get in, go through six different gates, stop—and no one comes.

Here are five ways that I and other faculty members have had to adapt to a non-technical or low-level environment.

Prepare to teach offline. While both education administrators and prison administrators want to reduce recidivism and help, they have competing priorities. Security is number 1 for prison staff. That means hardware, with all sharp edges, must be guarded. It also means that it is locked and only accessible with a key or badge.

As a teacher you don’t always know from day to day if you will have any technology to use in your classroom. This past semester, the unit I taught in had many classrooms—and only four laptops. Sometimes those laptops were gone when I arrived, used by other prison volunteers. And not all laptops are connected to the Internet, so you had to save any approved stuff on a flash drive beforehand. That meant no last-minute videos or self-searching on Google. You should have come in prepared to teach with a projector or white board.

What I have found helpful is to put together an outline notebook ahead of time, notes, references, figures, facts and more. If I walk into a classroom without a laptop, a cable problem or something, I can quickly move around without screens.

Adjust the class structure. Every college teacher knows that they will receive regular messages from their students. Whether it’s emails, messages through a learning management system or texts, they communicate with their students digitally. Not so in a secure environment in Lockdown.

The pastor can speak to himself in the prison, but there are no working hours for the students to attend. The notes are depressing, if not forbidding. That means that any communication with students can only be done in two ways: during class or through written feedback about assignments.

I learned early on to build in question time, homework support and one-on-one time with students in each class. I dedicate the first half hour of my class to this session. That also helps with other problems in prison. I have found over the years of teaching that my students rarely show up when class is supposed to start. It’s not their fault. At one point, a problem arose in the women’s wing that eventually led to a sprinkler system. Sometimes, a prison employee is late or unavailable to escort students to class. Having time at the beginning of class gives everyone a moment to catch up, breathe and change.

Provide a written response. “It’s hard to teach in a state prison,” David Hubert, a learning development advocate at my college and another Utah state prison teacher, told me. “Limited access to technology is a pain in my neck.” I feel his pain, and so do the students. They have to write everything by hand, which can be a problem for students with disabilities. Hubert found a workaround, however, with a pilot this past semester.

“I bought decades-old battery-operated word processors and—with the help of my son—I fixed them up and got the department of corrections to approve them for use in my classroom,” he continued. “They don’t have Wi-Fi and have to connect to my laptop to transfer the text of their assignments, which I then print in my office and give feedback. Then they organize their work and move on to a polished draft—something that was impossible with handwritten work … Actually, for less than the cost of a laptop that I type on, I have a class set of translators, and my students really. I enjoyed being able to use them in ‘real world’ writing work.”

Not being able to type and have access to a word processor means preparing assignments. This can be especially difficult for some writing or English professors. Hubert found another option. My practice in class was adjusting the length of assignments – and building my hand strength throughout my written response. For teachers who write regularly, you quickly learn that writing involves a different set of muscles!

Schedule assignments and tests. Educators in secure areas will need to make some changes. Research assignments are possible; there are libraries and books available in the institutions. But access to those resources can be transparent. Not all students have the same level of access rights to certain areas of the prison. And even then, the library may not have the text of what they need or only multiple copies of the titles, and the output can be limited. That means professors must prepare any research-based assignments, and if they assign a book, they will need to get prior approval to deliver a class set.

The business class I was teaching was made up of open educational resources that were all available online but not in a textbook. So I created a book for my classes, supported by my college’s equitable and inclusive teaching practices. My goal was to include everything a student would need in one book—including project rubrics, introduction pages, a table of contents, and all class assignments. That way, students could study and work in advance when they were not allowed in the classroom.

Correction is required

It has been an honor and a pleasure to teach at the Utah State Prison. But it really requires a sense of openness and flexibility, a willingness to change habits and be thoughtful. David Hubert wrote reflecting on my college, “I have learned to keep my prejudices in check when I start teaching my students. I came away with certain preconceived notions about what they would be like: shy, disruptive, apathetic, uninterested and unwilling to work. I was wrong. In general, my students are interested, respectful, inquisitive and hardworking.”

I have had to adjust my own views about students in prison. And I’ve had to adjust my thinking about technology. One was that students would have more access to a tablet or laptop. I was wrong about that. The other was that I would need a lot of expertise—I was wrong again. I adjusted, as did Hubert and another colleague, who taught an ESL class next to me and brought picture books from the library instead of using a laptop.

Our incarcerated students will have to adjust, too—not just to the uncertainty and stress of prison, but outside, too. Their education will be of great help in this change. While these students may not have access to technology internally, it will soon, and surprisingly, be available externally. One of my students this semester was recently released. I asked him before he left what he was going to do first, and he said, “Get the phone.” And soon after that, he visited our campus and got an email address.