2008 – 2009 The Third Year

The third year of Arts, Literacy, and The Classroom Community built upon the history, findings, and sustained success of the project. The project worked in both the Monroe County Jail and the Correctional Facility. The Third Year goals reaffirmed the initial goals of the project.

At both the Monroe County Jail and the Monroe Correctional Facility, the project-based, arts learning classroom component consisted of self-contained modular units, each with a self-contained curriculum designed to meet the needs of the transient population.

At the Monroe County Jail:

• Thirty-five days with writer, educator, scholar and Executive Director of The New York State Literary Center, Dale Davis. This included administration of ALCC at the site and facilitation of all programs.

• Ten days music, technology, and recording with musician and audio engineer, Jeremy DeGroat. This included planning and preparing, and recording.

• Ten days with Rochester actor and director, David Shakes.

At Monroe Correctional Facility:

• Twenty days with visual artist Margo Muto. This included planning and preparing the mural for exhibition.

• Ten with writer, educator, scholar and Executive Director of The New York State Literary Center, Dale Davis. This included a chapbook on the history of Rochester that was used as the subject matter for the mural. This, also, included administration of ALCC at the site and facilitation of all programs.

• Fifteen days with percussionist and still drum specialist, Ted Canning. This included planning.

• Five days music, technology, and recording with musician and audio engineer, Jeremy DeGroat. This included planning and recording.

The number of students / inmates completing the modules at each site varied, as the amount of time the students are in both the Monroe County Jail and the Monroe Correctional Facility is determined by the justice system, arrest, awaiting, trial, serving a sentence. Approximately 200 student / inmates participated in Art, Literacy, and the Classroom Community’s Third year. Average attendance for the student / inmates at Monroe County Jail was eight days per module. Sixteen students / inmates participated in twenty sessions at The Jimmy Santiago Baca Library, Writing, and Publishing Center. At Monroe Correctional Facility approximately thirty students / inmates participated in the modules.

• Students / inmates at Monroe County Jail worked with Dale Davis to produce portfolios of their work, individual books of their writing, and they created a play, “I Stand Here Before You.” David Shakes cast, rehearsed, and directed the play performed by students / inmates on July 30, 2009. “I Stand Here Before You” was recorded for the website.

• The writing of Students / Inmates at Monroe County Jail was featured on the national Prison Arts Coalition web site http://www.nyslc.org/jimmysantiagoyr3.htm

• Students / Inmates in ALCC were visited by RCSD Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard and wrote in response to his asking them what an ideal school would look like to them. The writing can be found on http://www.nyslc.org/studentinmate0809.htm

• Students / Inmates in ALCC shared their reflections on their home schools with Marilynn Patterson-Grant, RCSD Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Leaning, when she visited the program.

• Students / inmates at Monroe Correctional Facility worked with visual artist Margo Muto to design and create a mural, Who Made Rochester, A Historical Mural, reflecting the history of the Rochester http://www.nyslc.org/rockmural.htm. The mural is hung in the conference room of Monroe Correctional Facility. Amy Kirby Post, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Howard Wilson Coles, and Mildred Johnson are depicted in the mural. Students / inmates and teachers worked with Dale Davis on a publication to accompany the mural so that the ideas in the mural may become part of the instructional program at Monroe Correctional Facility.

• Students / inmates at Monroe Correctional Facility worked with percussionist and steel drum specialist Ted Canning to rehearse and record their playing as part of a drumming ensemble. The students / inmates can be heard http://www.nyslc.org/steeldrumband3yr.htm

• A festival cut of Second Verse: The Rebirth of Poetry http://www.2ndversefilm.com/, directed and produced by Carl D. Brown of San Francisco, was donated by the director / producer for a screening for students / inmates at both Monroe County Jail and Monroe Correctional Facility with an invitation to the students / inmates to write about the film.

• Arts, Literacy, and the Classroom Community was featured at the 2009 NYS Association of Incarcerated Education Programs (NYSAIEP) conference and at Young Audiences of Western New York’s Art Abilities conference. 

The Professional Development Component for artists and teachers consisted of:

• Professor James Vacca, Chair, Department of Special Education and Literacy C.W. Post College, consultant to District 79, Alternative Schools and Programs in New York City, and among his publications is “Educated Prisoners Are Less Likely To Return to Prison” in the Journal of Correctional Education, presented an in-service session.

• The Project team met with Mark Smith, YouthReach Program Manager, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Director of the Creative Transitions Initiative, a project of the Hampshire Educational Collective in partnership with the Massachusetts Division of Youth Services and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The Creative Transitions Initiative develops tools, protocols, and relationships necessary to integrate the arts and cultural opportunities within the systems across Massachusetts.

The Research Component 

• The theme of this year’s New York State Association of Incarcerated Education Programs conference in May of 2009 was “The Arts, Literacy, and Correctional Education” expanding upon the findings of Arts, Literacy, and The Classroom Community and The New York State Arts In Correctional Education Network.  

• The project team studied Arthur L. Costa’s and Bena Kallick’s Discovering and Exploring Habits of Mind (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2000) for its applicability in correctional education.

• Participated in the design of a study in partnership with Island Academy, Rikers Island and Passages Academy on Negotiating Student Learning, Incidents, And Recidivism: A Critical Look At Arts Learning Within Multiple Incarcerated Facilities.