I'm a Teacher's Aide at My Prison. Here's What I Learned From My Toughest Student [themarsallproject.org]

By Thomas Koskovich, The Marshall Project, July 15, 2021

When I became a teachers’ aide for a basic adult education class here at New Jersey State Prison, I learned much more than I ever expected. I had already been incarcerated for nearly 10 years by then, and, as a mid-sized White guy, I survived those years by staying mostly under the radar.

Now I was taking on a job that basically called for people to focus their attention on me.

I was inexperienced, to say the least; I had not even taken a tutor training session yet. In fact, my only real qualification for the job was that I had passed my GED test two years earlier. Then, on my first day, I learned that the woman who had taught high school-level math when I took my GED courses was also new to the class.

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