Advancing Corrections Journal - Edition #6 - Innovation in Education - Voices from the Front Line (ACJ6-A004)

This paper offers a qualitative review of the authors’ experience co-teaching their first Walls to Bridges (W2B) course in Ontario, Canada. W2B is an educational program where post-secondary courses are taught inside correctional facilities; the student cohort consists of equal numbers of ‘inside’ students (prisoners) and ‘outside’ university students. The authors use inside and outside student journals as qualitative data to provide compelling testimonials of the benefits of this innovative educational initiative and to showcase the students’ voices. This article describes the importance of mobilizing Indigenous circle pedagogy to structure the course, which is exceptionally important in the Canadian context; the significance of recognizing the diverse voices in the circle; and the role of empathic listening and expressive speech to facilitating critical circle dialogue. We begin by outlining some of the main institutional barriers that need to be overcome to successfully run a W2B course and conclude with a review of some of the main benefits of this program for students and correctional staff alike – including, combatting inmate and staff stereotypes/codes, strengthening staff-prisoner relationships, increasing the inmate’s social and cultural capital by way of university level education, and building bridges between the prison and the community by way of institutional partnerships between the university and corrections and inside and outside student connection.

 

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