Urgency in a Slow System: Teaching with Intention Behind the Fence

Happy Sunday morning! I hope you’re enjoying a hot cup of coffee in a cool spot on this summer day. I tried to sit on the back porch as usual, but I couldn’t do it. Too muggy. But coming from someone who was born and raised in a virtual desert, I’m not that mad about it. Rain is good. It makes everything new and green and fresh and it slows down the day, just a little bit. And slow days are good. But it got me to thinking about when slow is not that great.

Correctional educators live in a strange kind of time warp.

On the one hand, the system moves at a glacial pace. Forms take weeks. Tech approvals take months. Policies change only after the stars align and three different departments sign off. A supply order you made in February? It might arrive by September—if it makes it past security.

But on the other hand? Everything is urgent.

Because your students might be gone tomorrow.

They might be transferred. Released. Reclassified. Put in seg. Caught in a situation that puts them back on restriction and out of your classroom indefinitely. Sometimes you hear about it ahead of time. Most of the time, you don’t.

That paper you handed out today might be the last lesson you ever teach them.

That reality can either make you frantic… or intentional.

For most correctional educators I know, it’s both.

You feel the pressure—get them ready before they go, make the time count, teach something useful, help them believe in themselves, don’t waste a minute—but you’re also held back by the drag of bureaucracy, custody schedules, and classroom disruptions you don’t control.

So how do we teach with urgency in a place that moves so slowly?

We get clear on what matters most.

We stop assuming we have time.
We don’t delay the hard conversations.
We offer relevance over routine.
We give skills over seat time.
We don’t wait for the “perfect” lesson—we teach this lesson, today, like it could be the one that sticks.

I’ve seen teachers in carceral classrooms scrap a textbook plan on the spot to teach resumé writing when a student unexpectedly makes parole. I’ve watched instructors pack a binder full of printed materials for a student being transferred to a facility without education programming. I’ve seen teachers race against the clock to help a student finish a GED module before release—knowing full well it may be the difference between a job and a setback on the outside.

This kind of urgency isn’t panicked. It’s purposeful. It’s not about rushing—it’s about recognizing that we’re not promised tomorrow in these settings, so we teach with our eyes wide open today.

We build lessons that double as life tools.
We write feedback like we’re writing to someone who might need those words in a cell tonight.
We celebrate small wins immediately—because there might not be a “later.”

And through it all, we make peace with the system’s slowness by staying committed to our students’ momentum.

Yes, it’s hard. The tension is real.
But this is the work: planting fast-growing seeds in slow-moving soil.
And every once in a while, something blooms right in front of you—unexpected, beautiful, and worth every ounce of effort.

So keep teaching like it matters.
Because it does.

Until next Sunday, cheers! ☕