Back in April of 2000 the first MIM led University B.A.R.S. (Boston Activities for Revolutionary Schooling) class began. We needed a course to offer to get it started so I volunteered to teach a class called Revolutionary Poetry, because poetry is my specialty and I've noticed a lot of prisoners are writing political poetry. The class was advertised in MIM Notes and open to anyone who signed up by the deadline. MIM offered the class in hopes of gaining support for the U B.A.R.S. program so that we could start up other classes, and maybe someday be able to offer prisoners real college credited courses. It began in hopes of not only helping to provide prisoners with some of the educational opportunities they have been denied, but also to help educate the general public about one of the many systematically oppressive aspects of Amerika.
This type of mail correspondence course with incarcerated students has all the obstacles of working with prison mailroom bureaucracy and with the oppressive conditions behind bars. The obstacles the students in this class have had since it began are: sudden transfers, injuries, solitary confinement, possible censorship, and the confiscation of packets along with other personal goods. They have had to wait months between packets because I held off sending them either because I hadn't heard from a number of students due to the above reasons, or because of my own disorganization which led to the temporary loss of some of the students work. I apologize and fully admit to my part in stalling the course and will work harder to work more steadily and diligently to give these students the education they deserve.
Obviously there are problems in teaching a class to people on the inside from the outside. There is a level of discipline and long-term commitment needed both to teach and to be a student in such a class. But I think it is totally worth it. So far RAIL and MIM have sponsored two events about this course in hopes of raising funds and recruiting another instructor. At one event we did raise some money that helped pay for some of the postage and a new course is starting up this winter. It is now December and a couple of the poetry class students have just been sent lesson two and the rest are on lesson three. I hope the rest of the class will be more organized and uniform and I will do my part to ensure that it is. The importance of prisoner education is not to be underestimated, but since there is very little funding out there in the world of Amerikan bureaucracy for this type of program it is difficult to get people involved. MIM and RAIL need to educate people on the outside about the hypocrisy of the Injustice system in Amerika, as well as lead the struggle of those behind bars by providing them with the tools they need to combat their oppressors. We urge anyone interested in teaching a course, contact MIM or RAIL and help build the revolution through education.