NOVEMBRE 2004 – BREMEN

 Contributo dell’I.T.G. “PALLADIO” – TREVISO – ITALIA

 The Palladio School is currently running a five-year course in landsurveying and construction studies for  students aged 14-19 and for adults. A section of the adult course is run in the local prison of Treviso by a team of seven teachers who operate in the following areas: science, maths, drawing, Italian, history, English language, chemistry and physics. The prison itself is a male prison, the female prison is located in Venice.

At the moment there are ten male students enroled in the lower  two forms of the course; half of them come from the judiciary division of the prison establishment, half from the penal division. Normally the two groups should not mix in the prison structure, but they are allowed by the prison authority to be together in the neutral area of the classroom used for the Palladio course, provided that there are no records of bad behaviour shown by the inmates (for instance last year one of the inmate students was involved in a riot between an Albanian group and a North African group, so he wasn’t allowed to attend the lessons in the common room used for the course and received private tuition by the volunteering teachers instead of the teachers appointed for the regular course).

The common room used for the regular course is at the same time a room used for the visits from the inmates’ relatives three times a week. This means that it has not got the characteristics of a traditional classroom, we work on small tables, screwed to the floor with the chairs, there is one whiteboard and we have no possibility of using physics or chemistry labs, nor to have computer stations for any of the students.

The upper three forms of the construction course are run partly by the regularly appointed teachers from the Palladio School, partly by a group of teachers sent by the volunteering association.

The construction course is organized in modules, therefore is very flexible and gives the students the possibility of a customized pathway leading to the final diploma. Whoever proves pass skills and competences in certain subjects or part of the subject sillabi is credited for the contents of the program he is already acquainted with and is allowed to proceed to the next step of studies, thus accelerating his student’s career.

However it is sometimes difficult for the teachers to work in the lower form which groups together  two levels of students because it is necessary to organize class activities and explain topics which are on two different levels of preparation (for example English taught to complete beginners and at the same time to students at intermediate level).

Another difficulty comes from the fact that the students from the judiciary division never know how long they will remain in prison because they  still have to undergo the three stages of the regular trials guaranteed by the Italian law provisions, after which they will be condemned or  released.  So some of them wish to start the Palladio course of studies but may attend it for a few months only, because then they’ll leave the prison, and therefore the teachers who have begun with them a life project of rehabilitation will have to abandon it and will never  know if it will be completed  outside prison.

The third difficulty comes from the fact, and this is the third year the course has been held in the prison establishment, that, so far, there hasn’t been real cooperation between the prison educators, the psychologists, the prison officers in order to improve the treatment aspect of the prisoners, aimed at rehabilitating them. The course is tolerated only because the Italian law enforces actions and initiatives connected with the treatment of the prisoners that would otherwise be leading a passive life inside the prison walls without any perspective  of reintegration into working life or society when they leave the prison premises. We  teachers realize that for the wardens, the prison officers and the director the security aspect is undermined by the initiative of an educational project carried out within the prison establishment because the students must be checked every minute they attend the course, as well as the teachers who are always fully checked at the main entrance of the prison, having to leave there their mobile phones or any objects which might be considered as potential weapons.At the same time both teachers and students are constantly observed by a videocamera placed in the classroom.

Two years ago we started to gather in a mixed committee of prison authorities and educators, who discussed all matters theoretically for the benefit of the inmates, but with few practical results. There is a hope that this committee will be endowed with more decisional power in the future.

The fourth difficulty comes from the fact that many of the potential inmates wanting to enrol in the Palladio course are reluctant to do it because they have to choose between a working opportunity given to them by the prison authorities, so that they can earn their living (in fact they are only given the basic food in the prison, but no sums whatsoever for their personal needs) and between a study opportunity which means, among other things, sacrificing the normal daily activity of  physical exercise, which is a matter of course for  the prisoners in all  penitentiary institutions. Furthermore, the prison authorities boycott the students attending school courses by paying them long after they have finished the school year or not paying them at all, thus leaving them completely deprived of any means of subsistence, even if the Italian legislation fixes an alternative payment of wages for those who carry on the educational routes in prison instead of working.