Never Taught to Read

Shameful. It is absolutely shameful that the so-called “justice” system of Texas would sentence someone to death who cannot read or write.

There’s a guy over here by me who was never taught to read or write when he was out in the free world. This is a sad commentary on the educational system in our society. I think most people would readily agree that our government has a duty to ensure that our children are educated well. Good public education should be available to all children—tax-payer funded programs should ensure this.

How is it that a child can grow to adulthood without ever learning to read or write? How can this happen in the United States of America? I think people on the outside would be shocked if they knew how very many people in prison cannot read or write, or can barely do so. There are also many people who learned to read or write while in prison.

Guys who arrive in prison unable to read and write usually have a similar story: They grew up in poor neighborhoods and were raised in a broken family. Father dead or in prison. Mother mentally unstable, perhaps, addicted to drugs. Without family support, they were essentially raised by the streets. All of the aforementioned factors led to them getting in trouble in school.

Instead of evaluating the factors that led to a child acting out in school — and attempting to correct these factors — the school officials react with punishment, punishment and more punishment. Kids get labeled “problemed children” and get pushed into “special” classes or schools and many are sent to juvenile prison.

And what happens when kids are sent to juvenile? As the Texas Juvenile Detention Facility scandal has shown us, children in juvenile custody are routinely raped and used as sex slaves, beaten viciously and mentally tortured in various ways. When juvenile officials are engaged in such sick and depraved activity, I’m quite sure teaching children to read and write is the furthest thing from their minds.

Back to the guy who is over here by me: he’s not mentally retarded. He plain and simply was never taught to read. The general scenario I described above applies to him. In talking to the guy it’s obvious that no one ever really tried to teach him to read and write.

How can a person get a job if they can’t even fill out a job application? One can imagine how such a person can easily end up involved in criminal activity. Indeed, the guy over here by me who cannot read or write was sentenced to death for a robbery gone bad that ended in a murder. I don’t know all of the details of his case but I believe that he wasn’t even the actual shooter in the crime.

Was there not a single teacher who could have taken the time to help this guy learn to read and write? Shouldn’t there be community programs that ensure that every child becomes literate?

In order to understand a current situation it’s necessary to reflect on the past and discern the cause and effect relationship that led up to the situation in question. Done. If the situation at hand is problematic then it’s necessary to engage in actions that will change the situation.

Quick interjection: Another shameful thing—the neighbor of the guy who is illiterate tried to charge him for help with writing letters to his family and friends and help learning to read and write. An absolute, pitiful shame!

The whole of my Being exists in such calm “Prana” state that I very rarely get upset. The only time I do get upset is when I become aware of acts of extreme oppression. When I heard about this particular act of attempted exploitation I did get a bit perturbed. And to make matters worse the individual who tried to charge the other guy couldn’t read or write when he came to prison! Other guys in prison helped to teach him.

Well, I really shouldn’t be surprised, this type of thing is just another manifestation of the “getting down for myself” creed that most prisoners live by. A blade to the throat of such deplorable ideology! A call to purge such rampantly ego-centric beliefs from the mass collective psyche of the prison population! — That will indeed take much work.

In regards to the situation with the guy over here, this is what I’m going to do: I’m going to help him learn to read and write. When I was younger, I had a girlfriend who had a young daughter. My girlfriend and I helped teach her daughter how to read and write.

She had a good teacher who would send her home with what I guess could be called “family reading plans.” These “plans” were worksheets that me and my girlfriend would sign after we completed certain reading and writing exercises with her daughter.

At the time, I was going to college with the goal in mind of obtaining a degree in child psychology. Helping my girlfriend’s daughter learn to read and write was a wonderful experience. I was thinking of all this as I contemplated how I can go about helping the guy over here become literate. I don’t even really remember how me and my girlfriend went about helping her daughter learn to read and write…

Do I start with the alphabet? A-B-Cs? Do I point out pictures in magazines and explain how to write the words that correspond to the images? I don’t even know. But, I do know a few people on the outside who are social justice activist as well as teachers. I don’t know them personally but I do know of them and they know who I am. I’m going to drop them a letter to see if they can teach me how to help teach this guy to read.

R.

Date written: 8/8/09