Wednesday, February 14, 2018

“Never in the history of calming down has someone calmed down by being told to calm down.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
14 February
When I thought of going to work as a teacher in a state prison my imagination, perhaps understanbably, went a little goofy. I was convinced that my book smarts wouldn’t stand a chance against all their street smarts. I vividly imagined myself standing at the board trying to explain how to add 7 and 4 without taking off your shoes and socks, and in the process get a very sharp pencil jammed into my carotid artery. This imaginative construct, of course, concluded with the very real possibility of my sinking to the floor in an ever-widening puddle of my own blood as I hit the garage-door alarm on my belt in the vain hope that the cops would waddle in from hither and yon to my defense.
Needless to say, nothing like that ever happened - eventually common sense kicked in and I concluded that I’d probably do just fine if I saw to it that my classroom was a fun place to be. That is, I started my teaching career with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with the following marching orders from me to me: “a laughing inmate isn't a stabbing inmate!”
Simple, isn’t it?


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