Vignette: Denial of Love and the Birds of Desert Rose

Abstract

One of the office services classes we observed was taught by an experienced instructor who combined excellent management skills and modeled the kind of professional relationship inmate students would find from a supervisor in a contemporary office setting. She had designed the classroom to take advantage of office technology as a key facet of curriculum and included a good number of inmate student tutors for instructional support. The classroom was rectangular with computer stations lining three of the four walls. Each station provided enough space for two students, one of whom could be a student tutor. The interior space of the classroom contained a permanent rectangular table. Computer workstations with space for both student and tutor lined all four sides of the table.