. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P A R O L E . C A L L

It’s Monday and the week begins. While walking around the class I notice Shawna is lying face down on the floor to the right of her chair. I run to her and shake her shoulders lightly. “Are you okay?” I implore. She turns her head and says, “Yes, I was just looking for a nut that rolled underneath my desk.”

Then Manny comes in saying he has sad news. His sister’s boyfriend stabbed her six times and killed her seven-year-old son. She survived with minor wounds and the other seven children escaped unharmed. This horror story may be unimaginable to us but for my parolee population, it is part of everyday life. I encouraged Manny to find others he could talk to in the community.

Before the day was over Joe told us how he worked at a local dairy farm during the day while still in prison. He explained in detail how he inseminated the cows and delivered calves. He told us how dairies operate around the clock. His favorite part of the job was taking care of the calves, setting up their formula and watching them grow.

My students give me so much to think about. I often think — what do I teach them? I aspire to teach the value of an open mind and heart. I  hope I teach them that education is a way out of poverty, drugs and violence.

I’m not sure why I keep posting pictures of cake when this blog is supposed to be about parolees. I returned to work today after a glorious 7 days off.

Today at the rehab was what we call ‘donations day.’  That means all kinds of weird near or out of date food items donated from markets and agencies show up in the community kitchen. Once a truckload of soda was dropped off and everyone got a couple liters. It was like your Italian uncle hijacked a truck and gave it to the criminals. Today saw a flurry of Christmas cookies from local markets. One student handed me a dozen cupcakes topped with green and red sprinkles. I started to hand them out till I saw the discard date of some time last September. “Here, you guys decide,”  I said handing them the goods. Kitchen workers, parolees who work volunteering in the kitchen, are the first to spot donations. They are always so sweet, bringing me first choice of out of date yogurt and stale animal crackers. As a rule I never eat donations and I try to bring my lunch. There is free fruit and water available around the clock. I should try to honor this in my 2010 diet.

Blog is an anagram for glob. That’s how I am feeling about this process. Who is my audience? Internet savvy parolees looking around for social services who stumble upon my site because they are trying to find out how to obtain cheap calling cards? I read some other globs for inspiration. Many post someone they admire, a sort of you are nobody till you know this somebody column. I’m not sure but I think you might be interested in knowing about an obscure teacher, Piper Prezant, who helped thousands of parolees re-enter society. Piper is the author of this glob. Piper once handwrote a gossip rag about celebrities and distributed it on her block; it mainly featured Liza Minelli. She was 12 and there were no subsequent editions.

It always takes longer than you think to set up your class for a substitute teacher. I substitute taught for years and i would always tell the students I am not a substitute like saccharin is a sugar substitute, I am an alternative like honey. This reminds me of a substitute teacher that came to my elementary school class. Instead of teaching us math he told us all about the honey bee hives he kept and passed around samples of honeycomb dripping with honey for us to taste. We were riveted to his words and I never forgot how interesting that day was. When a teacher returns to find out her students loved the sub it’s bittersweet. One must teach the curriculum but a sub can do pretty much whatever they want.