Pushing back/pushing forward: embracing the margins to build non-punitive learning environments in Canadian correctional facilities

Abstract

Educators who work in carceral settings must conform to institutional restrictions, while simultaneously responding to students' learning needs and imprisoned realities. As a teacher, this meant aiming to create a non-punitive environment in a physical space built for retaliation. It also meant confronting the various disciplinary and gatekeeping practices in higher education. Because prison educators exist on the margins of carceral and education systems, I was able to utilize my unique position of “not quite” belonging to either to push back on both. Drawing on my experiences as a teacher and administrator in a government-funded, college-operated program inside Canadian correctional facilities, I will first reflect on the purpose of education in prison. Next, I use adult education theories to explain the inadequacies of existing educational practices within the prison environment, and explore resistance we encountered as we challenged both educational and carceral institutions. Throughout, I will reflect on how I navigated these systems to improve student success access to education.