Technology for Incarcerated Juvenile Students
Buenos dias everyone! It’s been a crazy week for me, slammed with lots of fun work and some time for socializing with friends and family. How was your week?
One of the most fun events for me this week was presenting to juvenile justice educators across the country. This seminar series, sponsored by APDS, makes my heart sing. In all the talk about prisons and prison reforms and CJ reforms, we frequently miss the opportunity to talk about the travesty of how many young people (and in some states, I mean really, really, young) who are incarcerated in the U.S. Educators who work in these spaces are truly heroes (the ones doing it right, anyway).
One of the ways we can enhance the experience of incarcerated youth is to normalize their school experience as much as possible; offer an educational experience that’s as commensurate with their non-incarcerated peers as possible. This experience has to include technology. And…wait for it cuz I know you know it’s coming…technology that doesn’t cost them to use it. The reason I’m a huge fan of APDS is that first of all it’s a great product that provides a vast array of educational opportunities delivered in a way that’s secure (aka secure wifi so that no one’s hanging out on the internet without guidance so correctional facilities can operate within their parameters), but also because all of the wonderful offerings on that tablet are at NO COST to the student. If you aren’t familiar with this world, don’t be fooled when a prison says they provide education via “tablets.” The quality of the “education” provided doesn’t pass muster and on top of that, incarcerated individuals have to pay for the tablet or at least for the use of it.
Rant over.
In addition to secure mobile learning devices, we should have computer labs in every school that connect to the internet, just like schools in the free world, so that students learn importance concepts like original sources and how to research. We should be teaching these students digital citizenship, how to look for jobs, how to find colleges, how to build spreadsheets, how to use Word and Google Docs and Power Point and all the skills they’re going to need when they go home and try to find meaningful employment or get into school or return to their public school where everyone else has surpassed them if they weren’t given the necessary instruction during their confinement.
How do you navigate the free world without technology? You don’t.
Providing technology instruction to incarcerated juveniles is crucial. Here are some of the key benefits:
Career opportunities: Technology is a rapidly growing field, and providing incarcerated juveniles with instruction in technology can help prepare them for future career opportunities. By learning valuable technical skills, these young people increase their chances of finding meaningful employment with a sustainable living wage upon release.
Improved education outcomes: Many incarcerated youth have not had access to quality education prior to their incarceration. Providing technology instruction can help them gain new knowledge and skills, which can improve their overall education outcomes. The level of engagement that technology can bring to instruction, especially in a carceral setting, can be the first experience these students have with engaging instruction. All it takes is a creative, dedicated teacher to introduce how technology can be used responsibly and to open up a world of learning opportunities.
Improved mental health: Incarcerated juveniles often experience mental health challenges, such as depression and anxiety. Learning new skills and engaging in constructive activities via technology can help improve their mental health and overall well-being. I have had students tell me that having access to a learning platform and being able to communicate with teachers and staff saved their life at points when they felt at their lowest. Giving students something productive to fill their class time and also their “leisure” time (if there is such a thing in prison) is a win for everyone (including security staff and MH providers).
Improved social skills: Teaching digital citizenship is imperative. This instruction provides young people with the tools they need to clean up their social media act before looking for employment, present themselves more professionally, and at least give them the awareness of the pitfalls that come with texting, DM’ing, posting comments, etc. Using a learning platform that allows them to communicate with teachers and staff also gives us the opportunity to work collaboratively and engage in positive social interactions that are monitored and available for teaching and reteaching digital citizenship skills. This can help them develop valuable social skills that can be beneficial in all areas of their lives.
Reduced recidivism: Providing technology and digital citizenship instruction can also help reduce recidivism rates for even our youngest students. An e-learning platform opens the door to CTE course work and certification, GED attainment, postsecondary education credentialing, and if you use a platform like APDS, you can use a classroom virtual app that connects them to employment experts, allows them to interview for jobs, provides real-time instruction, and connects them with their reentry team. When they learn new skills, earn certifications, and gain confidence in their abilities, they’re more likely to be successful in school post-release and find employment, and less likely to reoffend and return to the criminal justice system.
Teaching technical skills is important, and equally important is teaching prosocial behaviors. Technology is a vehicle for both. Will these students test the boundaries? Duh. They’re kids. Of course they will. If you work in a public school or have children or were a child once, isn’t that part of the job of a kid? Testing boundaries? In a carceral setting, we set the boundaries, teach the behaviors, and put safety rails in place, but what we shouldn’t do is say that we aren’t smart enough to figure all that out and resort to providing nothing for the sake of “safety and security.”
Oops. I did say rant over, then digressed. At least they were rants with sort of different topics. :)
Get tech in the hands of our youngest students behind bars and in detention centers and sitting in disciplinary schools so that they learn better and learn to DO better.
* she sips her coffee and exhales *
I hope you have a week full of crazy fun and productivity and meaning. Happy Sunday folks!
