Reviewed by Frances Sawyer.
The creator of the book, Couldn’t Keep it to Myself, Wally Lamb,
was a high school English teacher who was also a writer of novels. In 1999
Lamb was asked by the York Correctional Institution’s librarian to come and
speak to the women prisoners about writing. Several women had either
committed or attempted suicide and the prison was in a state of despair. It
was thought that writing might help the prison community. Upon Lamb’s first
visit, one of the inmates asked optimistically, “You coming back?” Lamb told
them to write about any subject with a two page minimum length, and that
piece of writing would be their ticket into the first writing workshop he
would teach at the prison.
Lamb worked at the prison as the instructor of weekly writing workshops
for three years. He said, “The workshop sessions have been a journey rich
with laughter, tears, heart-stopping leaps of faith, and miraculous personal
victories” (5). Lamb also tells about how he has come to know his students
“not merely as the substance abusers, gang members, thieves, and killers
they have been but also as the complex and creative works in progress they
are” (16).
The book begins with the first nineteen pages as an introduction to the
creation, by Wally Lamb. Lamb explains his presence in the prison and how he
began teaching weekly writing workshops to women at York Correctional
Institution. At first it was very trying for Lamb to get these women to open
up in their personal written pieces. They were afraid to tell their stories,
as many of their lives were filled with childhood horrors. However, ten very
personal works, by ten talented inmates, follow this short introduction. It
is amazing how detailed, descriptive, and creative each story is. I found
this book difficult to put down, as I was drawn in to each woman’s life.
Following the ten short stories is a conclusion written by another teacher
at the York Correctional Institution, Dale Griffith. Griffith speaks about
how rewarding her job as a writing teacher at the prison is, as she has been
teaching there since 1994. Griffith remarks about prison inmates, “It’s
tempting to slap a label on an inmate and lock her up, rather than look
beneath the surface of her conviction to the complexities that shaped her
for prison” (343).
In 1993 Brenda Medina was only 17 years old when she was incarcerated. Her
story really hit home for me. It made me realize that because of one tiny
wrong choice that Brenda made (with her naïve mind of a child) her mistakes
quickly snowballed into a hard-core crime that caused her to be handed a
25-year prison sentence. “The key area of the teenage brain is the frontal
lobe, which is responsible for judgment and planning” (Teen Brain Exposed).
This frontal lobe of the teenage brain is not even fully developed yet in a
young person, but Brenda will be punished for her immature decision for the
next 25 years.
Brenda began a teenage relationship with a boy named Manny. Later, Brenda
found out that Manny was in a gang, although she didn’t really understand
the extent of the activities in which gang members participated. Because of
her teenage crush on Manny, Brenda began hanging out with a “rough” crowd,
gang members with which Manny was affiliated. One day, Brenda was talked
into becoming one of “the sisters,” meaning one of the female gang members.
As part of her initiation to the gang, she was asked, along with three other
already-gang members, to “jump” a neighbor woman who was very disapproving
of the gang. At the time of the beating, one of the gang’s “sister’s” took
out a gun and killed the victim. All four of the girls were charged with
first-degree homicide.
Now, because of a stupid and naïve decision that Brenda made when she was 17
years old, she will be in prison until she is 42 years old; forced to grow
up in this environment, not allowed and not given the chance to live a
normal life until she is middle-aged. How will she be expected to live a
“normal” life then, how will she even know what a “normal” life is?
In a quote from Monthly Review, titled “Teaching in Prison,” the U.S. prison
system is discussed by Monica Frolander,
If prisons were places people who have committed serious crimes were sent to
pay a debt to society, and to be rehabilitated to return to society as
healthy members of it, then at least the following things would be true.
First, people who had not committed serious crimes would not be in prison at
all. Drug users and persons with mental illnesses would receive treatment
and would live in their communities, either at home or in safe and
hospitable facilities run as public entities. Those who had committed minor
criminal offences, such as shoplifting, would be given non-prison sentences
involving counseling and community service. As much as possible, communities
would be involved in both setting the penalties and organizing and
participating in the treatment.
Along with idea of humane prisons, the article also discusses that people
in prison should be provided with and expected to make use of training and
education. For people who are not literate, there should be schooling.
Education should be provided for inmates in order to prepare them for
meaningful work and allow them to gain a “clear understanding of the social
and physical world” (“Teaching in Prison”). For example, the inmate Brenda
Medina referred to previously, would have absolutely no skill needed to
survive educationally and socially outside of prison upon her release at the
age of 42, as she entered prison when she was 17.
“According to a 1997 report from The Center on Crime, Communities & Culture,
illiteracy among the nearly 100,000 juvenile prisoners in the United States
is very high,” and in “adult prisons, the situation is similar: Nineteen
percent of adult inmates are completely illiterate, and 40% are functionally
illiterate, which means, for example, that they would be unable to write a
letter explaining a billing error” (“Teaching in Prison”).
Brenda Medina needs education while she is in prison, in order to have at
least a chance in society upon her release in 2018. However, in prisons
across the U.S. “education programs have been or are being eliminated” (“My
Life as a Prison Teacher”). One reason for the “decimation of education
programs, is a new ‘lock em up and throw away the key’ sentiment that has
swept across the land” (“My Life as a Prison Teacher”). The only problem is
that most prisoners get released at some point. In order to allow them the
chance at being quality participants in society, they need education and
training that according to Gordon, is slowly being taken away in the prison
systems.
As far as Wally Lamb’s book being useful to English teachers, I can see a
few benefits. I don’t think I would use this book outright in teaching
lessons, but for a teacher’s personal insight into “troubled kids’” minds
and lives, there are many lessons to be learned or lessons that Lamb brings
to the table. For example, one inmate in Lamb’s book says, “What I hope is
that people reading this book will bear in mind that we are human beings
first, inmates second” (Lamb 209). In my opinion, the lesson that can be
learned here is that all students should be given ‘the benefit of the doubt’
in that, no matter what category they’ve been stereotyped under in the past,
they deserve a chance now; they should not be suppressed for the rest of
their lives, specifically not for the rest of their academic career.
Another lesson that can be learned is that teaching people to express
themselves through writing is important. When Dale Griffith published some
of the women prisoners’ stories, the women felt proud of their
accomplishments, “Storytelling teaches or reteaches us empathy because the
capacity for empathy is often lost in extreme situations, restoring empathy
in survivors is essential. Writing is one important way to accomplish this”
(Lamb 346). Writing their stories and sharing them with others permitted the
women inmates to be more accepting of themselves, and it allowed them to
deal with their past experiences. Most times writing is a very personal
experience. Teaching it effectively is like educating someone without that
person realizing that they are being given a life-long gift. Dale Griffith
speaks of writing as somewhat of a revelation for the inmates,
“Revision does more than improve the writer’s work; it teaches patience as
well, a quality that’s especially useful in prison. The women learn over
time that good writing, like a good life, requires effort and forbearance.
It requires courage, too, but yields rewards as well. Writing seems to
provide a means of self-forgiveness, and when the writer grants herself such
a reprieve, healing begins. It’s hard to tell the truth---almost as hard as
holding it in” (Lamb 349).
Nancy Birkla, one of York’s prisoners, reveals, “One day I figured out a
dying little girl lived inside of me, so I threw her a lifeline in the form
of paper and pen…. we finally are able to call each other ‘friend.’ The
world seems more beautiful because of it” (Lamb 141).
All English teachers should know that scientific researchers “have measured
and testified to the emotional and physical benefits of the written word”
(Lamb 346). Supposedly when cancer and AIDS patients kept daily journals,
they lived longer. Symptoms of asthma and hypertension can be lessened with
autobiographical writing. And, as noted previously in this essay, recovery
program participants will succeed and will be more likely to move on to more
productive lives (Lamb 346). If these studies on writing do not prove its
benefits within human life, I don’t know what will.
Couldn’t Keep it to Myself would have been more useful to me if I
were planning on teaching in a correctional institution. However, before
reading this book, I was unaware that a position like this even existed in
prisons. Although I’m not seriously considering it as part of my future, I
can see that it would be highly rewarding. The writing classes that Dale
Griffith taught were voluntary for the inmates. She said that most students
in her classes were, “motivated, polite, and hopeful” (Lamb 339). This
attitude shown by prison inmates in a classroom environment is usually not
the normal attitude shown by students in a high school classroom. The
“students” in Griffith’s class wanted to be there, and therefore, were open
to learning. As a result, eventually they learned how writing enhanced their
lives.
One thing I noticed about each of the ten inmates’ stories, although I had a
difficult time putting the book down, I felt that there was a certain
familiarity in the writing style from story to story. It didn’t differ very
much. None of the inmates used any kind of “vernacular” or much slang at
all. At the end of the book, I reflected on how well the inmates’ stories
were written, but how similar they were in style to the introduction of the
book by Wally Lamb, and the conclusion of the book by Dale Griffith. If I
hadn’t realized up front that Lamb and Griffith weren’t prison inmates, then
the writings of the intro and the conclusion as opposed to the ten inmates’
stories would have been indistinguishable. Therefore, I feel that the
writing style throughout the book was unrealistic, and either highly edited
by Lamb and Griffith, or that the writing style of Lamb and Griffith really
rubbed off on their students. I had expected and I would have liked to have
seen more variation between writing styles of the inmates.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. Although I did learn some good lessons about
teaching in general, I don’t find this book very useful to teachers
regarding application techniques. However, it is an entertaining read that
will open ones’ eyes to a “silenced” side of society that often times is
purposely not spoken of. Much of society is unaware of the dehumanization
that takes place in the U.S. prison systems. The thing is, these prisoners
are more than just the label “inmates,” they are human.
Works Cited
Frolander, Monica. “Teaching in Prison.” July 2001.
<http://www.findarticles.comlcf_0/ml123/3_53/77150235/print.jhtml>
Gordon, Robert Ellis. “My Life as a Prison Teacher.” March 2001. <http://www.prisonactivist.org/pipermail/prisonact-list/2001-March/003601.html>
Lamb, Wally. Couldn’t Keep it to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York
Correctional Institution. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
“Teen Brain Exposed.” Education News. the age.com.au 2 Oct. 2006 <http://www.theage.com/au/news/education-news/teen-brain-exposed/2006/09/30/1159337347823>
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