Mental Health in the Margins
Mental health in corrections can’t be an afterthought. It can’t live in the margins. When we invest in mental wellness—for students and staff—we’re not just making people feel better. We’re creating safer environments. We’re improving outcomes. We’re building communities that don’t have to keep coming back through the revolving door.
What We Plant Today: Spring Lessons from Correctional Classrooms
Spring reminds us that growth is never instant. It’s a slow, steady push upward. A process. A promise.
Graduation Season, Without the Cap and Gown
From kindergarten to college, it’s a season of ceremonies, of endings and beginnings, and of well-earned celebration. But there’s another kind of graduation happening this time of year—one that won’t be posted on Instagram or announced in the family group chat.
This Mother's Day, Let's Remember the Mothers Behind Bars
This Mother’s Day, while many of us are celebrating with our families, let’s also hold space for the mothers behind bars—the ones reading bedtime stories over the phone, the ones missing their babies’ first steps, and the ones trying to heal.
Opera in Prison? Getting Inside with Your Program Idea
If you want to do work inside a jail or prison—if you want to bring your passion, your talent, your gift to people who are incarcerated—you have to understand this: the gate only opens when you follow the rules.
Expectations, Second Chances, and What They Really Mean
We throw around phrases like “second chances” and “fresh starts,” but what do they mean when put to the test?
☕ Sunday Morning Coffee: Passion Projects & Prison Classrooms
Nurturing passion is one of the most important gifts we can give a young person. And that’s true whether they're in a suburban high school, a GED program in jail, or a reentry support group in a halfway house.
Why Motivation and Engagement Are Essential in Correctional Education
Education is a proven pathway to opportunity, but for justice-impacted learners, staying motivated and engaged presents unique challenges. Technology can open the door to motivation, inspiration, and aspiration for these learners!
The Importance of a Work Community
Community isn’t just a noun—it’s something you do.
The Power of Naming
How Identifying Your Emotions Supports Wellbeing
Supporting Student Wellbeing
Every educator—whether in a traditional classroom or behind the walls of a correctional facility or at their dining room table—knows that student wellbeing is the foundation for meaningful learning.
Prison Labor: Exploitation or Opportunity?
Every so often, the topic of prison labor comes up in the national conversation, and it’s usually framed as one of two extremes: either a modern form of slavery or a valuable rehabilitative tool. Like most things in life (and in corrections), the reality is more complex. So, grab your coffee, and let’s take a balanced look at the pros and cons of incarcerated labor.
The Ripple Effect of Wellbeing
When we nurture wellbeing in ourselves, it extends outward—to our colleagues, our students, and our communities.
From the Classroom to the Cellblock: How Educators Can Collaborate with Correctional Systems
By sharing strategies, collaborating across systems, and advocating for policies that prioritize education over incarceration, educators can help reduce recidivism and create pathways for success.
How Teacher Perceptions Shape Student Outcomes
For students, particularly those from marginalized communities, the impact of these biases can be life-altering, affecting everything from disciplinary actions to academic success.
The Stories We Tell: How Society Shapes History to Serve Its Ideology
More often than not, the way we remember and teach history serves a very particular ideology, one that upholds systems of power and oppression.
Students with Disabilities: A Hidden Population in the School-to-Prison Pipeline
The school-to-prison pipeline disproportionately impacts students with disabilities, yet their experiences are often overlooked in discussions about educational inequities and justice reform.
Creating Trauma-Informed Classrooms to Dismantle the Pipeline
The Power of Words: Using Person-First Language in Carceral and Reentry Settings
Dyslexia Behind Bars
Sunday Morning Coffee: Did you know that nearly half of the incarcerated population may be living with dyslexia?