LIFE LONG LESSONS; LIFE LONG LEARNERS

From this day forward the Puzzle Palace, a.k.a. Lansing, Michigan, says we can no longer have lifers in our classrooms; only the short-timers should be in school diligently working toward their high school equivalency diplomas. No GED, no parole. The legislators made that perfectly clear years ago—as clear as mud. Since then, there has been an increase in GED exemptions. Because of no fault of his own, so-and-so wasn’t able to get his GED and should be granted a parole. Hey, with a large state deficit, why should the taxpayers foot the bill for an expensive GED?—incarceration ain’t cheap you know. Then again, neither is the liability and risk involved with most ex-felons.

"They gotta cut me loose," Prisoner Lane once told me. He’d been enrolled in one of my afternoon GED classes, expending all his energy on ways not to cooperate. "I’m special ed, you better look it up," he added.

Not a problem. After having him sign a release of educational records, our school office discovered that he was placed in a Special Education classroom not because he had difficulty learning—he told me he was dyslexic—but for behavioral reasons. "What? Did you beat-up your teacher?" I asked. "There’s nothing special about you."

Then one day, and I’ll never forget it, Prisoner Lane came into my room with his parole papers. "I’m going home assssshoooole. You can’t make me do anything, so f---k you!"

Why argue? Instead, I wished him well.

Two weeks after that, my boss stormed into my room and demanded to know why Prisoner Lane wasn’t attending school. "He got his parole," I answered.

"No he did not!" he countered. "I’ve enrolled him in all seven of your classes. No GED, no parole."

The very next morning, Prisoner Lane approached me, "This is bullshit. They snatched my parole. You gotta help me."

He had a 5th grade reading level at the time, but I had never seen someone work as hard as Prisoner Lane. He worked as if his freedom depended on it, and … well … it did. There were some hiccups along the way. "What’s wrong with you?" I asked him.

"The police were at my momma’s house looking for me. They had a warrant for my arrest."

"Why?"

"Failure to report."

"Kind of hard reporting to your parole officer when you’re still here, isn’t it? I suppose you’ll have to straighten that out too."

After four months from his initial parole, Prisoner Lane earned his diploma and was granted his freedom. After two months of freedom, he caught a new case.