When One of "Your Kids" is Locked Up

Since I've written Literally Unbelievable, I often get really uncomfortable with people thinking that I'm a really wonderful, caring, selfless person... all the time. I'm really not. I definitely love my students and former students, and I'm passionate about giving them a better chance at life, education... everything.

But of course, I'm still human. I still get frustrated with kids. I still get impatient and try not to yell and feel lazy, just like everyone else.

So I thought I'd share my process of making appointments to visit my former student, "Jorge," in prison. When I'm not in the process of making the appointment, I'm very excited to see him! I think about how wonderful it will be to catch up, how excited I am to be able to give his grandma the chance to see him, and what a relief it must be for him to get out of the cell and have visitors. I will admit, I do sometimes feel a little self-congratulatory and maybe grateful that I have the chance not only to see someone I care about, but also to maybe show the world how wonderful I am.

Then I have to make the appointment. Last time, I had to call over SEVENTY times before I could get through. This time, I made the appointments on the computer and had to make several different accounts before it can work, get photos of the IDs of everyone I'm bringing, make sure everything matched, wait while their website went down again... and again, and finally get the appointment confirmed.

Next, I did the math on the timing. The latest appointment I could get was 11:00 am, which means we all have to meet by 7 am at the latest. My wonderful friend Mitali is driving us and I'm picking up Jorge's grandmother, so I have to pick her up around 6:30 am. On a Saturday. I'll spend eight hours in a car on Saturday, and the rest of the time inside a prison.

At this point, it's pretty hard to be self-congratulatory because I kind of want to blow off the whole thing and sleep in on a Saturday instead.

Until I called Jorge's Abuela. Tenemos una cita para 7 abril. As soon as I told her that, I could hear, over the phone, her relief. She let out a long sigh and said, Gracias a Dios. Thanks be to God.

She raised this kid, to the best of her ability, for most of his life. She doesn't drive, she doesn't read and write, and she doesn't speak English. She has no control over when she can see Jorge.

And suddenly... that four hours each way on the road didn't seem that horrible anymore.

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A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class.

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other prison but I still

A New Prison, Part 1

My former student, friend, and co-author was moved to a new prison during COVID. We (myself, Mitali, and his Abuela) have visited a couple of times via the video visit functionality they set up, but we've also been trying to visit in person, ever since in-person visits were allowed again. After four of them being canceled (sometimes we were told why, sometimes not), we finally got a visit. I was super nervous about this visit. (I felt better when Mitali mentioned that she was also, because she is an inherently positive and optimistic person!) I am not proud of this, but there was a large part of me that was hoping that the visit would be canceled, just like the previous four were. I felt a little better when someone I know messaged me privately to tell me that they had had very good experiences visiting a family member in that prison. But I still didn't sleep well at all that night, worrying about the guards, the many things that could go wrong, and the projected 111-degree hea

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