Prisons and Pupils

"It always baffles me when I see the statistics that people are willing to spend so much on a child once they become a prisoner, but we’re not willing to invest in that child’s education when they were a pupil."

"We’re spending, on average, three times more for prison than for public-school pupils. That’s the dumbest investment policy. It doesn’t make us safer. It’s created a new private industry, called Corrections Corporation of America. It’s the new slavery. It came out of the drug laws and it really is something we’re going to have to confront, but I don’t see enough people up in arms about that. We need to be. The literacy level at Mississippi prisons? Fifth grade. Can’t read, what are you going to do? If you’ve got a conviction rap, what are you going to do? It’s a real crisis."

-Marian Wright Edelman, world-renowned author and activist, has spent most of her life fighting against systemic injustices and serving our nation’s most underprivileged children

Interview from the LennyLetter

Writing and Teaching

"I hate teaching as much as I love teaching, and I love teaching immensely. But who am I to teach writing? 
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Teaching is the first job I actually care — too much? — about.
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“What if you could just show up?” my therapist asked me when I was complaining about the lackadaisical teenagers in a writing course I was teaching.

“What if you didn’t have to teach them anything?”

“What if you could still be learning and teach at the same time?” she asked.
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On the Amtrak back to Hudson, I pull my students’ pages out of my backpack, sip my wine on ice, and escape into the tragic comfort of their unhappy endings. I draw tiny red hearts above the sentences I love."

-Chloe Caldwell, Major Dramatic Question