My Year of Teaching
By Jason Kahler
This is not a lie: My interview for a job as an inmate tutor in the GED program at a federal prison was two questions long.
Question One. Can you do math? (Because you’re no good to me if you can’t do math.)
Question Two. What’s your spirit animal?
*
We practice essay-writing. “Write a response to this article about the lynching victims memorial opening soon. Does it make its argument about the importance of the memorial?”
My students are inmates, like me. They come from Chicago, West Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, also like me. On our uniforms, we wear numbers over our names, and the last three digits point to where we caught our cases. Chicago: 424, Indianapolis: 028, New Mexico: 051.
I circulate the way I learned to do as a student-teacher attending university. I remind the students to put their names and numbers at the top of their papers. Ohio: 061. After class, I collect the essays. One student has written three solid pages. He’ll need help with paragraph organization, I think. Another student writes only four reluctant lines, but the words are good. He needs confidence. A third writes in fat script, simple words misspelled. His odds of finishing his GED aren’t good, but I place a hand on his shoulder. We aren’t supposed to touch each other. It’s too intimate and too aggressive. Sex and power, always connected in the real world, dance a dance here in prison I still don’t understand. I’m not a psychologist, I’m just a teacher. Just an inmate. I place a hand on my student’s shoulder and smile. I put his paper on the bottom of the pile.
“We’ve got work to do,” I say. “But that’s OK. I’m not going anywhere for a little while.”
*
41 months. I will be here 41 months, give or take.
*
“We’ve got work to do,” I say. “But that’s OK. I’m not going anywhere for a little while.” My student smiles a smile that tells me he knows we’ve got work to do. The students all file out. I collect loose pencils and extra paper from the classroom tables. In the back, I find a copy of the article about the memorial to lynching victims. The text of the article, a full page, is scribbled out. The paper is shiny gray from pencil, a solid block of silver without brushstrokes, slick to my fingertips. Scratchy handwriting across the top reads, “Fuck this place, fuck everybody at Elkton.”
“My spirit animal is the ant,” I explained during my interview. There’s a story about it. As a high schooler in creative writing class, a visiting poet had each of us draw a card from a deck. Each card depicted an animal. The visiting poet spoke as she held out the cards to each of us. “Find the one that speaks to you. The one that vibrates.” The poet had always-amazed eyes and tall hair where, she said, she found her ideas. She walked around, and students each drew a card. Lion. Puma. Brown bear. The girl beside me, the girl who was then my girlfriend and eventually my wife then the mother of my children and now my ex-wife, she drew the egret card. The egret is a crane-like bird with a sharp, pointed beak that it drives into its prey like a spade.
I drew last. I drew the ant.
*
Years after I was a high school student, when I was a teacher in a high school writing classroom of my own, I repeated the same assignment. For it, I needed a deck of animal cards. I found a store that sold crystals, glossy books about the power of the spirit to change your life, dream catchers, and flute music CDs. I found a box of animal tarot cards. The cashier lady—a nice woman in a crepe peasant skirt—asked about my plans for the cards, so I explained the assignment and told the story of the ant. She nodded. A lady in line behind me tapped on my shoulder. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, “but I just have to know.”
I paid for the box of cards because commerce does not stop, not even for magic, and the lady in line behind me shuffled the deck. The air swirled with spidery yarns of incense. She shuffled the deck and held them out, spread in front of me.
“Remember,” she said, her voice mingling with a recording of wind chimes, “find the one that vibrates.”
This is not a lie: I drew the ant.
*
I write about ants a lot. I am writing about ants now.
*
I tell this story to my students here at FCI-Elkton, and I tell them this next part:
As a high school teacher, I’d share the story of the visiting poet, the ant, the New Age store, the ant again with my students. I’d shuffle the animal tarot cards as I spoke at the front of the class. In the New Age store, when we opened the box, we didn’t even know if the deck included an ant card. I’d stop shuffling, draw the top card. An ant. “The ant belongs to me,” I’d explain, and I would set that card aside.
*
I stacked the deck and didn’t shuffle the top card, which I made sure was the ant.
Sometimes, magic needs a little help.
*
When my students here at the prison are ready to take their exams, I give them a pep talk. I was a lacrosse coach while I was a high school teacher. The pep talk always feels familiar. Focus. Go with what you know. Execution. Hydration. The exam is on the computer, multiple choice and an essay. I remind them to eliminate obviously wrong choices quickly, because any time spent mulling over bad answers is wasted time. We call it the Mr. Duncan Rule. Duncan sits in the front. Of obviously wrong answers, he says, “You got a wrong answer”—hand smack—“just throw that shit out.” I’ve adopted the Mr. Duncan Rule across all my classes.
*
Duncan was a gang member of some renown. His front teeth are gold. He says, “English is hard. My English is fucked up.” A month ago, Duncan passed his Math exam. The Math tutor is tall, white, red-headed—the exact physical opposite of Duncan. When the Math tutor speaks, Minnesota leaks through his voice. Minnesota: 041. He is studying to become a pastor when he leaves. Sometimes he reads me his practice sermons. I am a congregation of one. He speaks with elongated long-o-sounds. In his sermons, he discusses love, marriage, responsibility. They are full of Bible verses. He’s my neighbor in the housing unit. When Duncan passed his Math exam a month ago, he hugged the Math tutor. Duncan had never hugged a white man before.
*
We aren’t supposed to touch each other. No fighting. No relationships. There are rules. Keep a respectful distance between people and everyone stays safe, nothing is taken, nothing is given.
Intimacy and aggression. Sex and power. The staff never shake our hands.
*
Shoemaker likes to brag about his drug operation, importing synthetic cannabis analogues from China. In class, he flips through his dictionary five or six times an hour. A white goatee gives his shaved head an abrupt point, like a spade. He is wiry and short, though his arms seem long enough for a much taller man. Vowel sounds find the sky from under the back of his tongue.
Shoemaker calls the other English tutor “Fat Ass” as a nickname. As for me, one time he called me “Swifty.” He thought I’d moved too quickly to retrieve my tea from the desk. “That was fast, there,” he said. “We’re gonna call you Swifty. Swifty, swifty.”
“Mr. Shoemaker,” I said, “this is not a contest you want to begin. You are ill-equipped.”
Later, the other tutor tells me, “That’s the first time Shoemaker’s ever been quiet.”
*
Today, Shoemaker asks me the date, so he can write it on his paper. “Why don’t you write it in the corner of the board every day?” he suggests.
“Like a real classroom?” I ask.
“Like a real classroom,” he agrees.
*
Shoemaker plans to get a job aboard a ship transporting “anything” up and down the Mississippi River. He wants to bounce from east to west shore, raising hell, never staying too long in one spot, with any luck frustrating his probation officer the entire time.
In prison, he plays bocce ball. He plays well.
*
Another student, T-Money, is scheduled for his exam this week. He’s worried about typing his essay. I tell him if he writes like he does for our practice essays, he’ll be fine. We don’t practice typing much. The classroom computers are unreliable. They don’t connect to the server or the software has expired or the keyboards don’t work or the keyboards have had their cords cut to make cell phone chargers. All the electric pencil sharpeners are locked in storage because a power cord was cut from one. Guard-used chewing tobacco is scavenged from trash and made into cigarettes. Food is steamed in mop buckets and garbage bags. I tell T-Money he’s ready for the exam. He’s never been in the same room as an iPhone.
*
Duncan skips English sometimes to hang out in Math class, even though he’s passed his exam.
“If you go to Math one more time, I’m reporting you to Psychology.” I tell him. “No one in their right mind goes to Math class if he doesn’t need to.”
*
I teach Poetry Writing, too, in the Adult Continuing Education program. In ACE classes, inmates teach other inmates topics based on expertise they claim to have. The classes don’t require much proof of credentials, just the willingness to complete a simple form and show up to class on time. The business classes are popular: Investing, Business Writing, Starting an LLC. Guys fill the rooms for those classes. The staff member in charge of ACE once told prospective ACE teachers, “Teach something business. They love that.”
I teach Poetry Writing because it’s something I would have done in the real world, and bringing the real world into prison makes the days go faster. I teach Poetry Writing because I believe poetry is most powerful where it’s least expected. Teaching poetry reminds me to write my own. No one clamors for poetry, but we get our fair share of students. They can write about prison if they want, but they usually don’t. Instead, they write about home. The most powerful poems are specific, about names and places they know better than anyone. Illinois: 026.
For models and inspiration, each class I bring example poems. Of these, the poem with the biggest impact is “Howl.”
I wasn’t allowed to teach “Howl” when I taught high school. My principal was right to tell me no. That principal was amazing. He gave teachers and students room to try new things. He once said, “I want to see teachers excited when they leave at the end of the day because they feel so motivated, and students leaving exhausted because they worked so hard.” He died a few years ago. He was the best boss I ever had. I think about him often. I imagine he’d be disappointed about where I am, but he’d also tell me I’ll be all right. He always saw things in me I didn’t see in myself.
*
My boss in prison, the second-best boss I’ve ever had, warns me to stay away from the rest of the staff as much as possible. She doesn’t say why. It adds to the mystery and continuous sense of danger in the prison, but though she won’t specifically talk badly about other staff, she won’t let us stumble into conflict, either. New York: 055.
My boss will retire one month after I leave. I joke that when I leave, I’ll keep the door propped open.
*
I’d been teaching in the prison for six months when one day a new student saw me writing on the board and assumed I was in charge of something. I wear khaki, too, I explained, but I’d help him find where he belonged. We went to the big staff office. My boss had a desk there. So did the man in charge of ACE classes. That day, they were gone. I stood at the open door and knocked on the door frame. A staff member spun in her chair to face us—a staff member I didn’t recognize.
This is not a lie: “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “My name is Jason. I work as a tutor. This gentleman is new here, and we’re trying to find out where he belongs.”
“First of all,” she said, “I don’t call inmates by their first names. What’s your last name?”
In prison, guys have nicknames they adopted either by choice or by force. Tone. T-Money. Pops. Gramps. Crowbar, Tank Top, Chickenwing. Other guys go by their last names. My prison name is Jason. It’s my name, the one my parents chose. The one I use for introductions by default.
My boss called me into the office the next day.
“Jesus, God,” she said. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t know who she was,” I explained. “She’s been on leave since I got here.”
“Well, she’s back. Stay away from her.”
I promised I would.
*
“First of all,” she said, “I don’t call inmates by their first names. What’s your last name?”
This is not a lie: I thought about what answer to give. I thought about the power of names, the right to self-naming. It must have taken forever, though it’s hard to say, the way time works in prison, the way time works in those small moments you don’t realize will affect your whole life. We think big moments are important: weddings, graduations, deaths and births. We plan for these moments even when they begin unplanned. But the effects of small moments, flat-footed unprepared moments—forgetting your keys, buying a dog, following a computer link, writing a check, answering a door, answering a question—linger. I hear their echoes now.
“Kahler,” I said. “My last name is Kahler.” She looked up and down both of us, standing straight in our khakis, the time I was most aware of my prison uniform.
“Well, he’s not one of mine,” she said. “I don’t know who he belongs to.”
*
The next-next day, my boss called me into the office again. She was upset. Still. Or once more. I couldn’t tell, and we’d had a smooth 24 hours.
“Jesus God,” she said.
“What?” I asked. She gave me a look. The other staff member, the mean one, was still at it. Complaining. Announcing her intentions to have me fired. “I didn’t even see her yesterday,” I said.
“She’s still mad at you. She says she’s out to get you.”
“Out to get me? Those were her words?” I asked.
“Exactly those.”
In prison, you get told to do things, and there isn’t usually a lot of explanation. Because information can be weaponized, you don’t often learn the reasons behind rules or decisions. I had heard that some staff members lash out at inmates based on offenses, drug use, sexuality, race, and any other of a whole list of potential grievances, real or imagined. Mean guards were mean because someone had been mean to them. They wanted to hurt people the way they’d been hurt. Others were mean because no one had been mean to them. They didn’t know how it felt.
“What is she, a 1950’s comic book villain?” I asked.
“Just stay away from her,” my boss said.
I promised I would. Again. Still.
*
I told my boss, too, about the moment before I gave my last name.
“I almost introduced myself as Dr. Kahler,” I said.
“Jesus God,” my boss said. “She would have put you in the SHU for sure.”
The SHU is the Segregated Housing Unit. It’s where you go when you’re in trouble. The hole. The box. The pocket. Jail Jail. The bucket. Today, Dub Dub was escorted to the SHU for having a garbage bag full of prison wine in his locker. He kept it near an envelope of family photos.
*
When I got here to Elkton, I made sure inmates didn’t call me “doctor.” I’m terrible with blood. Not that kind of doctor. A guy on my unit called me “Doc.” He’s from Michigan, too. We know the same street names. The guy who calls me “Doc,” we call him “Toodles.”
*
As a child, I used sugar water to lure ants into plastic film canisters. Too much water and the ants would drown. Too little and they wouldn’t work.
An inmate in the unit hears I was an English professor after I was a high school teacher, and he asks me to edit a legal motion he’s writing. I agree to help. We use mailing stamps as currency, and the other inmate asks me how many stamps I’ll charge for editing. I tell him I don’t charge for stuff like that. He smiles broadly. White, Perfect teeth.
“I got something you need,” he says, “you let me know and it’s yours.”
He bumps his fist into mine in appreciation. Aggression. Power. Intimacy. We aren’t supposed to touch each other.
*
A different friend in the housing unit warns me about including staff in my work. Maybe people could get in trouble. He and I talk about religion a lot, too. He’s a Quaker. He also teaches in the ACE program. I took his Calculus class.
This is not a lie: I got a C. Though my friend denies it, I think he gave me extra credit for my drawing of a spaceman shooting rockets off the moon.
*
Question One. Can you do Math?
Answer One. It depends on who you ask.
*
If this essay gets anyone but me in trouble, I’ll tell people I made it all up. In prison, everyone assumes we’re liars.
And we are, each of us, to some degree or another. Lying about your charge usually gets you beaten up. Lying about your gang can get you killed. Lying about who is waiting for you at home might make each day a little easier, because you can forget or you can remember and your dreams don’t jerk you awake. Staff assume we lie, I think, because it’s safer: they check for weapons with more attentiveness, keep eyes open for trouble, pretend no one worries about if our shoes fit. It’s easier to work in the dark when you’re the only one with a flashlight.
The calculus works like this: if anyone says I am lying about lying, then they admit, at least sometimes, that we tell the truth.
*
When my students pass their English exams, I shake their hands. They shake back. Intimacy. Power. We aren’t supposed to touch each other, but we do.
*
During one of our phone calls, my children ask about my students. What are these men like? What does class look like? I explain: from the hallway window, our class looks like any other class. School is school.
When I am in the classroom, I am not in prison.
T-Money smiles when he sees me in the yard. An older man, he’s been in prison a long time. All of his top teeth have been pulled. He yells at me, “My teacher!” loud enough, I think, to be heard all the way home.
I think about home one day while sitting alone in our classroom. On a blue folder I write “Kahler’s Students Notes” and slide their papers in.
This is not a lie: To my right, an ant explores its way across the table’s hard surface. The ant has traveled through the bricks and blocks, the glass, the bars. Given time, anything can get in, anything can get out. Chicago. Florida. Pennsylvania. Michigan: 039.
About the author
Jason Kahler is a teacher, writer, and researcher from Southeast Michigan. His scholarship and creative work have appeared in Analog, Seneca Review, College English, the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, the Stonecoast Review, and other publications. His poem “Walls, Stars, Eyes, Walls” earned a Best of the Net nomination. You’re welcome to tweet him @JasonKahler3.
