March 12, 2022 10:30a
(WGTD)---Some UW-Parkside students are going to the state prison in Sturtevant for class.
While new to the Racine Correctional Institution, the learning concept, called The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, has been replicated in prisons around the country since the late 1990’s.
UW-Parkside Professor Jonathan Shailor launched the program locally last fall when he taught a for-credit communications course at the prison with ten incarcerated students and six students who normally would’ve been sitting in a classroom on campus. "The model is one in which both the inside students and the outside students are treated as equals--are given the same learning experience--it's an interactive learning experience," Shailor said on a recent edition of WGTD's Morning Show.
The class had some unique ground rules, Shailor noted. For one thing, the incarcerated students were prohibited from talking about the offenses that landed them in prison. "There are all kinds of reasons for not going there," he said, adding that the students are made to know each other only by their first names.
While Parkside professors have gone to the prison to teach courses within the walls on numerous occasions over the years, this was the first time that non-incarcerated students joined them. Shailor himself has led a popular Shakespeare acting class at the prison for many years.
Shailor said his communications class from last fall was universally praised by the participating students and prison officials alike. Shailor is teaching another cohort in the prison this semester.
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