What a job

I'm not sure anyone would believe what my job was like if I told them. Even on film I suspect it would be surreal and people would say, "yeah that's Hollywood for you." I have 20 students all of them adult convicted male felony offenders, some for violent crimes, some for property crimes. No boy scouts here. Do I know what they are in for? Well, if I want to know I can find out with a phone call but for my purposes ( teaching) I don't need to know. My exception to that rule is if I am going to have them help me on a project that requires me to be there early when I'm locked up alone with a group of 4-6 or 7 at 4 AM then yes I want to know but for the most part no I don't care.

While only one of the mission statements of the department is to help reintegrate these men back into society, my theory is that is the most important one. Specific skills aren't nearly as needed by most of these guys as are social skills because believe me that they are lacking. If they are working on a project with someone and they think the person they are working with isn't trying or needs to do something differently do they ever TRY to have a calm discussion with their partner? Almost never. Instead they run to me, "Ms. Moore, Ms. Moore, I can't work with Billy Bob, he gets on my nerves or he is lazy or he won't do this or he can't do anything right or he has a booger on his lip." You get the idea. I say"Bubba, have you tried talking to Billy Bob?" "No, I just can't talk to him."

Yes, it is like they are socially retarded, so I mediate it seems most days in the hopes that when some of these men leave that they won't come back (recidivism rate is around 50% though) because they are so unable to cope with work partners that they beat somebody senseless at their first job post release.

Yes, my knives are chained and padlocked to the work tables. Hard to chase somebody around with a 250 pound stainless steel table attached to it.