From Dragonfly: The Size of Your World

On Wednesdays and Fridays, I don't meet up with Freckles for breakfast. I don't care enough about bananas to wait in a line that long. So, I eat my breakfast in the news/sports room (today was pop tarts and V8 - not a lot of choices from commissary). I always try to watch CNN on the news television, so I can try and see what is happening in the world. For example, today I learned about Obama shaking hands with Castro, a family mourning the shooting death of their child by campus police at a Texas university, and a bad weather system heading to the Northeastern U.S. However, when others are in the news room, they don't want to watch CNN, they will watch local news or a morning show.

I was thinking about "why" they don't want to watch national/international news. I think it is because of perspective. Depending on how long you've been locked up, the world beyond prison becomes much less relevant (unless it is congress changing mandatory minimums or something like that). Instead, it is inmate.com that is the most important news of the day. Who is dating who? Who is fighting who? Who went to the SHU? Who got shots (in trouble) last night? Who got caught doing what with whom? Who will be the next daytime C.O. in the unit? That is their relevant news.

Of course, I'm not talking all inmates, but many cannot connect to a world they have never seen. Some of these inmates have been locked up since their late teens. Prior to that, they may never have traveled out of their small town or city, much less state. For some, Conair is the first airplane they were ever on. For others, they never had the opportunity to go past 7th grade and simply don't have the words or perspective to consider the world beyond their existence.

In GED classes, we realized that we cannot teach social studies - especially the political cartoon unit - without giving the students a perspective that is assumed they have. If the students don't know what happened with President Roosevelt, how can they interpret a political cartoon about him? So, we have to take a large step back and give them the underlying information that GED study book writers assume they have.

I watch the national and international news, because I know that what happens in the world affects me - perhaps not directly, but always indirectly. I also know that by next summer, I will be a part of that world again. When the Philippines recently saw devastation, only Nurse and I would want to see the news about it. We both know people living there. I remember I was once on a cruise ship for 7 days with a friend, when I was in my young 20's. During the time we took the cruise, having too much "fun" to pay attention to the news, we came home to two deaths - one of a Kennedy and the other was Sonny Bono. Everyone was walking about football on skis, and we had no "perspective" to understand the conversation. That's exactly what it is like for many people in prison. I imagine that the longer I am inside these fences, the less the world beyond will matter. When survival, shock, and stress are at their maximum, one can only concentrate on getting through each day. When I leave here, everyone will be talking about some new technology that they are using, and I will need to catch up. I will need to catch up on a lot. At least, I am trying to maintain some sense of the world beyond prison, with what national/international news I can get.