Over the past year, Higinbotham worked as a teacher for an English literature class for the recently incarcerated that was run by the nonprofit Common Good. The course also featured instruction by faculty members from four area colleges.
Excerpt:
]]>We found ourselves as part of a collaborative project in generosity, including the generosity of the students who became our peers and friends.
When you imagine a class for people who have been released from prison, you may envision five-paragraph essays and a watered-down overview of U.S. history. That couldn’t be farther from reality. The course offered a deep dive into primary sources and conversations that would set a high standard in any college classroom.
Every Tuesday evening, the atmosphere was exciting and communal. Knowledge emerged through social production, a conversation among peers as opposed to a sage-on-a-stage. This democratic process happens so dramatically that we mistook one student for a guest professor for weeks before realizing he had been recently incarcerated. It was not until the student mentioned that it would be a year until he’d be able to vote again that we realized he had been incarcerated.