91吃瓜网

How do we learn? At AUP, our answer is built on the idea of sharing diverse perspectives and reflecting on one鈥檚 own place in the world. We believe it is vital for students to connect with their communities, engage with new viewpoints and rethink their own assumptions.

The Democracy Lab on Prison Education is a fantastic example of this process in action; it brings together 91吃瓜网students and people detained at Paris La Sant茅 prison to learn through collaborative textual analysis. The approach is inspired by , a Canadian nonprofit, and the United States鈥� InsideOut Prison Exchange program, both of which provide for-credit courses in prisons and through which 鈥渋nside,鈥� or incarcerated, students learn alongside 鈥渙utside鈥� students enrolled in colleges and universities.

AUP鈥檚 version in Spring 2023 took eight French-speaking undergraduate students into La Sant茅 to learn alongside people detained there through a series of reading workshops, discussions and creative activities. It was designed to encourage participants to ask fundamental questions about what it means to learn from each other, particularly when connecting across the huge divisions created by the carceral system and class.

In 2023, Professor Hannah Taieb of the Department of History and Politics, the founder and architect of the prison workshop in France, organized the Democracy Lab on Prison Education at 91吃瓜网alongside Professor Roman Zinigrad, a law professor in the same department. The workshop is hosted by AUP鈥檚 Center of Critical Democracy Studies, which promotes the practice, study and life of democracy both within and beyond the University. It builds on a previous collaboration between Taieb and two former 91吃瓜网professors, Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu, who ran a multilingual prison education project in 2019, and is continuing in June and July 2023, as Professors Taieb and Kuo conduct a six-week summer class in La Sant茅.

During the Spring 2023 workshop, both inside and outside students took part in icebreaker exercises designed to overcome the initial barriers they may have experienced when it came to engaging with one another. 鈥淲hatever stereotypes people have about incarcerated people become hard to retain when they鈥檙e talking face-to-face,鈥� says Professor Taieb. She explains that this also applies to the stereotypes inside students may hold about university students: 鈥淲e鈥檙e rejecting both the isolation of university communities and the prison walls that separate people into two categories.鈥�

Participants then read short texts that dealt with themes such as memory, learning, separation or the senses, and experimented together in small groups to create a written or performed response. This process of self-expression encouraged participants, both 鈥渋nside鈥� and 鈥渙utside鈥� students, to develop critical thinking, nurture intellectual and emotional maturity, and establish new learning environments. Students find themselves asking fundamental questions about each text; not only 鈥淲hat does this mean?鈥� but also 鈥淲hy does it matter?鈥� 鈥淭his Democracy Lab provides our students with an opportunity to formulate questions and engage in conversations that they can鈥檛 have anywhere else,鈥� notes Professor Zinigrad. 鈥淭he workshop is essential to their understanding of contemporary questions of human rights and social justice.鈥�

Feedback from participating 91吃瓜网students highlighted the benefits of learning from those with different life experiences. Student Ria Phi called the class one of her most meaningful experiences at 91吃瓜网so far. 鈥淚 got to see firsthand the value of taking interdisciplinary approaches while experiencing the joy of human connection,鈥� she explains. Another 91吃瓜网participant, Gabby Bashizi, agreed that the program helped her understand how different life experiences impact individuals鈥� interpretations of the same texts: 鈥淚 deepened my understanding of both the French language and of our humanity.鈥�

At the end of each of these Democracy Lab programs, organizers hosted a graduation reception in the prison itself, attended by 91吃瓜网students, staff and faculty. The event included readings from both inside and outside students, and all participants received a certificate of completion in recognition of their work. 鈥淥ver the months we鈥檝e been running the program, people鈥檚 initial approaches to prison have been replaced with something more human,鈥� says Taieb. 鈥淚nstead of seeing prison or people in prison, they鈥檙e instead seeing faces and names.鈥�