TOPICS: PRISON EDUCATION in Spring 2025 (PO3091D)

This innovative class brings AUP students into a shared educational and creative space with people detained at La Santé prison in Paris.

After one introductory class at AUP and a prison-organized training session, eight AUP students will spend the semester sharing readings, discussions, and creative activities with an equal number of detainees. Readings will be selected based on the themes emerging from the interactions between the particular participants in the class. In the past, authors studied have included Malcolm X, Bachir Kerroumi, Rigoberta Menchu, Azouz Begag, Jimmy Santiago Baca, W.S. Merwin, Alison Bechdel, Paulo Freire, and Franz Kafka.

In each class session, students and detainees will read together as a group, then in small mixed groups, develop creative ways to exchange ideas and reactions. Circle pedagogy, deep listening, and other egalitarian approaches are used to make the learning experience mutual. In the last three or four sessions of the class, students and detainees will put together a collaborative final project, which will be presented in a celebratory event, attended by guests from AUP and the prison.

This class emerges from a collaboration between AUP and the cultural activities department of the Centre Pénitentiaire Paris La Santé, a newly-renovated remand prison in the 14th district of Paris. Detained participants, who primarily speak French (but also other languages), will learn alongside AUP participants, who primarily speak English (but also other languages). Classes will occur principally in French, and AUP students must have an intermediate conversational French level to participate (B2 or higher).

Interested students are asked to fill out this application: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdzCdSTG3bt2iqLZv8UpDtscWRwl5K4.... The cut-off date for applying is November 30, according to prison requirements. However, we encourage interested students to fill out the application questionnaire as soon as