Abstract
Taking students to a local prison for a field trip is an effective way to engage students on issues central to democratic citizenship. Even if some students opt out of the voluntary prison visit, a field trip to a prison creates a vibrant learning environment where students can share their experience with other classmates as well as reflect on their experiences with authority figures. The visit to the prison also disrupts power relationships between student/instructor because all prison field-trip participants are inmates for a day. This chapter puts into question the authority, hierarchy and knowledge nexus via experiential learning and constitutes a contribution to a general theory of radical political theory pedagogy as the practice of equality.
An earlier version of “Teaching Political Theory at a Prison in South Texas” appeared in PS: Political Science and Politics 47 (2014): 518–522.
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Notes
- 1.
See Mariya Y. Omelicheva and Olga Avdeyeva, “Teaching with Lecture or Debate? Testing the Effectiveness of Traditional Versus Active Learning Methods of Instruction,” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (2008): 603–607.
- 2.
See John Halliday, “Political Liberalism and Citizenship Education: Towards Curriculum Reform,” British Journal of Educational Studies 47 (1999): 34–55. See also Raymond J. Wlodkowski, Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching All Adults (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).
- 3.
For data on this as well as other themes pertaining to mass incarceration in the U.S., see Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2012); Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003); Baz Dreisinger, Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World (New York: Other Press, 2016); Marie Gottschalk, Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015); Todd R. Clear, Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Katherine Beckett, Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
- 4.
I thank Renée Heberle for a conversation pertaining to these issues.
- 5.
While I was an instructor at a satellite campus at CUC, I arranged a field trip with my students to the prison complex located in Lompoc, California.
- 6.
See Louis Volante, “Teaching to the Test: What Every Educator and Policy-Maker Should Know,” Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy 35 (2004): 1–7. Teaching to the test limits the ability of teachers to address the specific educational needs of their students, arguably kills the imagination and takes the joy out of learning.
- 7.
Richard Arum and Josipa Roska, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
- 8.
See Jessica Lavariega-Monforti and Adam McGlynn, “Aquí Estamos? A Survey of Latino Portrayal in Introductory U.S. Government and Politics Textbooks,” PS: Political Science and Politics 43 (2010): 309–316.
- 9.
Marcos Pizarro, Chicanas and Chicanos in School: Racial Profiling, Identity Battles, and Empowerment (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005).
- 10.
J. Peter Euben, Corrupting Youth: Political Education, Democratic Culture and Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 186.
- 11.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 134.
- 12.
Richard Shaull, “Foreword,” in Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 34.
- 13.
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 83.
- 14.
Marcos Pizarro, Chicanas and Chicanos in School: Racial Profiling, Identity Battles, and Empowerment (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), p. 1.
- 15.
Pew Research Center Report, April 7, 2009.
- 16.
See Pizarro, Chicanas and Chicanos in School, 2005.
- 17.
For an example of how to speak with people from radically different locations and with experiences alien to one’s own, see Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (New York: Free Press, 2010).
- 18.
See Michel Foucault, “Prison Talk,” in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings, 1972–1977, ed. Colin Gordon, trans. Gordon et al. (New York: Pantheon, 1980).
- 19.
See John Halliday, “Political Liberalism and Citizenship Education: Towards Curriculum Reform,” British Journal of Educational Studies 47 (1999): 34–55; see also Raymond J. Wlodkowski, Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching All Adults (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).
- 20.
See Texas Department of Criminal Justice website. This data pertains to the 2011 prison visit.
- 21.
See Morgan C. Grefe, “Making Prison History Matter: Field Trips and Lessons for History and Civics,” Connecticut History 47 (2008): 132–136.
- 22.
See Candace C. Archer and Melissa K. Miller, “Prioritizing Active Learning: An Exploration of Gateway Courses in Political Science,” PS: Political Science and Politics 44 (2011): 429–434. See also Miguel Cantellas, “Pop Culture in the Classroom: American Idol, Karl Marx, and Alexis de Tocqueville,” PS: Political Science and Politics 43 (2010): 561–573; Tyrone C. Howard, “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Ingredients for Critical Teacher Reflection,” Theory into Practice 42 (2003): 195–202; Gloria Ladson-Billings, “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy,” American Educational Research Journal 32 (1995): 465–491; and Raymond J. Wlodkowski, Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching All Adults (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).
- 23.
See Dana Villa, Socratic Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
- 24.
For education as a social justice practice, see Marcos Pizarro, Chicanas and Chicanos in School, 2005, p. 266.
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Sokoloff, W.W. (2020). Teaching Political Theory at a Prison in South Texas. In: Political Science Pedagogy. Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23831-5_4
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