shouldn't necessarily be looking at other states for answers. we not only have the largest prison system in the world we have one of the highest recidivism rates in the world. so we're not doing a great job. so let's look around the world for other solutions. beautiful. anything that. well, thank you all so much for coming. thank you both. wonderful authors, justin brooks and ben austin. ben austin. i'll just say the names of their books. correction. and you might go to prison. even though you're innocent, the books are for sale. and both of them will be signing shortly at 11th. and congress in the tent. so thanks for joining us and come say hello hello. to.

our audience. but book tv's live coverage of the texas book festival in austin continues after this break. on about books, we delve into the latest news about, the publishing industry with interesting insight, interviews with publishing industry

experts. we'll also give you updates on current nonfiction authors and books. the latest book reviews. and we'll talk about the current nonfiction books featured on c-span's book, tv. and now a conversation with author and professor brooke allen, who teaches the humanities to inmates at a maximum security in upstate new york. she recently wrote a piece in the wall journal about her experience entitled college should be more like prison. so, brooke allen, what the bennington college prison education initiative and how did you get involved in this? well bard college started prison education program. it must be close to 20 years ago now. i think quite a long time. it was very successful. and my colleague at bennington, annabel davis, who's a and and teacher at bennington, decided that she thought, this is quite

fabulous and she would try to start a similar one at bennington. and so she contacted a prison, which is it's not that close. it's about an our from bennington in comstock new york and and after men's security prison and after a lot of jumping through hoops and filling forms and a lot of you know secure issues she was able to start the and i'm thinking that must be, i don't know, maybe close to ten years ago, seven or eight years ago, at least. and i got involved in it through her. she's somebody i admire and take her advice. and she thought i would love the teaching there, which in fact is true, is great. well, what were you teaching at bennington and what were you at the prison? at bennington. i taught literature and it's a small department, so we've had a very wide sort of range of things that we all tried to do. and i found sort of special having an 18th century style because that seemed be lacking at the college, and i thought it was gap. and when i moved on to the prison, i took some of that with me and annabelle said they

already literature teachers in north, but they needed something more. so i developed a series of classes called history of thought, and the first class i taught was on the enlightenment and the second class was on the renaissance. and i taught a class for advanced student students of romanticism. and then we've done sort of individual classes, like classes on adam smith, on tocqueville, on george orwell, and now i'm back to literature. teach your class and indian and pakistani fiction, which soon coming to an end and when you taught the enlightenment was the the the book that you used. we use a textbook. we did we did readings from the actual author. and it's quite, you know, and in that case, not particularly difficult, but because the enlightenment readers were writers were, were reading to be understood. so they're not trying to couch things and too many hidden metaphors. we started with john locke and hobbes in the obvious. we went on to montesquieu, we

read the spirit of laws, and then we read persian letters. we a lot of voltaire. we read rousseau, we read david hume. we read paine and the american founding fathers. and just a whole variety of people. and it was a huge hit in a couple of it. students actually said. why don't we read these things in high school? they're so important and we don't know them. so that was a great it a hit both at the college and at the at the prison. it is a deep material should all be reading in high school. so, brooke, the obvious question is what was it like teaching john locke to maximum security prisoners? and what did expect and what was he what was the actual reality? well, i expected that it might be difficult, i'm sure, but it fact, they were a easier to deal with and still are really than college students. they had had to make a big effort to get into the program, had to apply to bennington college at probably and be

deemed at a good enough level to get in and do their college level, not remedial and. so some of the students i had were sort of like ordinary college students, like young and untested. some of them were men in their fifties and sixties who had been sitting in the prison books for 30 years and, were very, very advanced and could do just fine. and any graduate program. so the classes tend to run the gamut between the sort of more basic college freshmen and people who would be in third year graduate program. and what was really great for me, and it continues to be, is that they help each other. there are some students who are very well-prepared. they go out of their way to help the people who are less well prepared and they're all exceeding highly motivated. they'll come into the classroom having done the reading two or three times before class, having taken a lot of notes, having things up insofar as they're able because they don't have access to the computer or the

internet, they're just a joy to work with. what i say, i don't know. i recommend who enjoys teaching to do this sort of work now. brooke allen, a recent wall street journal op, you lamented the future of the humanities. why will? i mean, for many, many reasons. the students of the college students, i think, have a radically decreased attention span and, you know, it is probably 75% comes from internet social media constantly being online. but in order to put the attention in that, you need to read, say, a book by like dickens richardson they don't seem to have that the prisoners do have that they're not online on there is this feeling of

things having to. you know applicable to modern life which is not really what the humanities are about. there's so many things getting in their way. the prevalence of tech i think the new the new artificial intelligence, we have no idea where that's going to take us. but certainly the traditional way of of learning in college is going be turned upside down. and again, i haven't had to deal with that in the prison. i have no access to these things. write their essays. the old fashioned way in longhand on their they have enough access to research materials to help them, but not so much that they're overwhelmed and they're not being constantly distracted by sort of flashier things going on in their lives. what do you think these prisoners are getting from the classics, from john locke from tocqueville, etc.? i think they're getting exactly what got in college in the

1970s, which is a an expanded view. the world and our relatively small place in it. the idea that the brilliant we think we have are not reinventions that we all that people have been to all these places before and have had very sophisticated and complex and interesting thoughts that we need to be aware of before we wade into the same waters philosophically intellectually, historically, you know, i think, i think the history of teaching is going to dig. history has gone down the toilet. don't know any young people who know any history. now at all. and you know how that comes back i'm not sure part of the problem i think is is the fact that school boards are locally influenced and there's no sort of generalized idea in this country sort of philosophy of what education is and what an educated, educated person looks

like. we don't agree on that. and that's a problem. what's a typical day teaching at the prison. oh, well, my classes, two and a half hours long. i drive 2 hours to get to the prison and i have to be a half hour in advance. so i, i get there at about six in the class. i mean, 30 last goes from 6 to 830. and then we leave again. and during that two and a half hours, it's something else that surprised. there's no lapse of attention. they all are fascinated throughout the whole class going to the bathroom without, you know, looking at the watch. it's really fascinating. i think it's, you know, by virtue of the fact that they're not doing that many interesting things in their lives and this is a high point for them. what's the process for you getting into the prison security there, a guard in there? are they allowed, etc. they're they're you have to go through a lot of security when you come in. you have to go through a metal detector on your search to make

sure not bringing in anything. you have to let them know ahead of time you are planning to bring. and then once you get into the classroom, we close the door and we're in the classroom by ourselves. but there's a guard in the hall who's usually there's three or four classes going on at the same time. there's one guard out there who's on who's there in case anything goes. nothing ever has, so far as i know, in our classes. do you a sense that these prisoners or these students have political opinions? oh, yes. and i would say that 80% of them are political liberals. and then you get the odd conservative and they all sort of give that a hard time. but in a in a good natured way there are no there are no ugly political in the classroom, which is another refreshing thing. and i feel that one thing that could be applied from the to the college classroom is that we could forgo political discussion, except in so far as

they were in the context of whatever it is we're reading. i if you're reading voltaire and you understand the political context, his time and what it meant to be a liberal, which he was, that is fair game. but then to start, you know, have a look at each other or the teacher is just not very productive and we don't get that in prison. in your op ed in, the wall street journal, you referred to reading some of these authors, some of these classics as time travel. what did you mean by that? well, that, too, is something i think we could apply to the college because right now in colleges, if you read a i mean, let's just take the most obvious example huck finn, everybody is talking about ad nauseum and. people choose to become offended at content of it in reading it, in 21st century context. if time travel to the 19th century and look at it again, you're going to have very different ideas. it takes a certain sensitivity

and on the part of the teacher and, a certain willingness on the part of the students, be humble and, realize that they do not. they're not they're in the classroom to sit on judgment on everybody in the lesson thousand years now is huck finn a book that you would teach at bennington? no, i have not told her. i, i don't specialize in american literature. i'm just just saying that because it's something that's always in the in the news. but for instance, i do teach david hume and david hume as an and dispensable philosopher for his period. you have to read david hume and then of he wrote an essay in which he said that he, you know, he thought that there was a hierarchy in intelligence among the races and we don't believe that anymore science has proved that that's incorrect. but this is not to say that we shouldn't read everything else that hume wrote, which is of the utmost importance.

and i think my students at the prison get that they understand that there are classes taught the prison know. we try to we try to do a wide variety of and there have been some i think really interesting classes one on the nat turner rebellion. there has been one on the haitian revolution. and you know, neal this to say we do african-american literature and things like this, but we try to give a very very broad spectrum of. historical literature and philosophy and to really make the students understand that each book is a product of own time. it's a creature of its time. and that goes also for the books that people are writing right now. and to get that, you know, brooke, is the racial makeup of your class at the prison an important i'm not particularly no. we have a little bit of everything. the only time it's been problematic is because we have certain people who are quite there in english as a second

language and they struggle a bit. but there has not. i mean, it's of course, to have a very diverse population, which do by definition, we don't have to try for it. it just but there has been and witnessed any acrimony, political or otherwise, got one guy and who takes all of my classes, who's a sort of intellectual conservative. he reads, he reads things like the new criterion in the wall street journal and the other class members will give him a hard time. but it's all in very good spirit. and and we had one discussion monday about gun control because this sort of issue was something already came up in the enlightenment and. i was surprised to find that every single one of my students was passionately in favor of gun control. and i said, would you like to go further on that? and they said, well, you know, where most of us are here? because we were we had access guns when we were young and stupid and.

we don't want to be. it was that was crazy. so of course, we're in favor of gun control. so these things are interesting. professor allen are most of your students there for life? no. a certain proportion, i would say maybe a third of them are. and this has become a particular focus for us because we're trying to figure out, you know, what kind of education you can offer that is ongoing year after year or students who are passionately interested in that, who want to be it all the time. they they a lot of these guys have a way more than math credits to get a b.a. and we as an institution only allowed to give to the associate's degree. but some of these guys have enough credits for two boys. so how do you perceive was it was education that continues to interest and engage where they don't sort of have to go through the mechanisms of the college essay and all the things they've done many times before? this is of interest to us and we're we're working on different

ideas to try to make that happen. and it's smooth manner. have you been able to hold a graduation ceremony at all? yes, there was a graduation a few months ago for the associates, and i was not able to be there because. i had to be at a wedding, but i saw the photographs and i've never seen so many a happy faces ever. it was it was obviously terrific. what's response to when you grade and critique their papers? who's they're very they're very humble they i've never had anybody argue a grade on one of my guys who i have no doubt was a dangerous criminal and former life is a very much afraid of one of the teachers because he feels that she grades art. so, you know, it makes laugh. they all accept it. they understand limitations. they they're very philosophical about their position in the class and. there's an attitude, mutual respect. you know, they call me professor, i call them mr.

so-and-so. now, the the prison has said maybe it's not a good idea to say mr. in case somebody doesn't identify as a man. but the people that have have all said that they enjoy being called mr. and i do think it's one of the few moments of respect that get in their there. so it's very precious. now, brooke. ellen, i don't want to get you in trouble, but is it bennington is a rather institution in vermont, and you're teaching at a maximum prison. what's the difference between elite students maybe come from a different background than the men that you're teaching at prison. i think elite students and i'm i wouldn't say this about all bennington students because a great number of bennington students are on scholarships and have jobs and have to work. but for those who are just take it for granted that they will their college will be paid for. i you know, there's there's a lot of they don't make same

effort that the prisoners do. and i know that in community colleges and certain state institutions going to get, you know, prisoners who i mean i mean students who are like the prisoners in that they they very much value their what they're able to get there and they work hard for it. but it's true and i think it'll lead institutions a proportion a large proportion of students take a lot for granted and more and more and more i would say from my own experience and those of my friends, they feel like customers rather than people have to conform with a certain certain strictures when you read and talk about the founding fathers, what's the knowledge base of the men in the prison? it's higher than the ordinary undergraduate base? i would say these people do a lot of recreational reading on. but, you know, there's so many

things that we as americans citizens don't know. and i went to myself, i went to fairly elite schools and i got to the university of virginia, a ph.d. from columbia that i did not learn a lot of the sort of basic facts about enlightenment thought and the fact that our constitution is a enlightenment document on. so this is something we all need to pay attention to. i've taken the citizens ship test just out of curiosity, and that would seem to be a very basic a baseline that everybody should have when they come out high school. like for some reason, again, are the u.s. as a country doesn't agree on what an education educated person should know. this doesn't happen. and i remember a few years ago i think the governor of arizona said that he wanted high school graduates, he or she wanted the high school graduates to come out being able to pass the citizenship and everybody had a fit so that asking too much of students i don't understand it.

how many students in your class? i've had everything. from 5 to 16. it the class has shrunk after covid because there was social distancing and and now there's more teachers. so the classes are so much smaller, usually between five and ten. and what are you teaching this semester? i'm really a class. i taught at the college two or three times before, which is on indian and pakistani fiction. and that's a lot of fun because it's part of the world that that the prison students know nothing about. and they came in the other day saying, thank you, thank you for introduce enough to these fabulous authors and this history and culture of this part of the world. we knew nothing about. so so we had a good time in the class and there's wonderful writers coming out of the right now and really for the last 100 years that everybody ought to be aware of. and what is the platonic method of teaching that you use?

well you're really this discussion. i mean, i had nothing against lecture and in fact, i they were my favorite classes in college and they provide a framework. but the bennington philosophy is a small class discussion based where not telling your eliciting from the students and when you elicit something that seems crazy, you try to get them to refine their thoughts by asking them further questions on. of course, the smaller the class, the better works on. that's that's kind of the philosophy of the college and we continue to follow that in in our class at the prison even though i do teach on survey classes and it's something the enlightenment would be a survey class strictly say the 1660s to 70, 90 and on and they get the context. it's desirable a survey class

but at the same time having very close discussions with individuals and small groups. brooke allen the title your wall street journal editorial or op ed was college should be like prison. was that your title? was definitely not my title. and i've got a certain amount of flack for it. but you know the editorial writers editors, they want people they want eyes on page. and i think they succeeded really well in and there certainly are aspects of the college that i wish could be more like the prison. i wish it were more and were more tolerant. i wish it were more peaceful. i there were no phones and computers in the classroom. there's so many things i'd like to see similar to what the kind of class we have in the prison. brooke allen, former bennington college who works on that institute women's prison education initiative. we appreciate your time on booktv. thank you. bye bye.

we're currently in a break. events at this year's texas book festival. we'll be back shortly with more live coverage. in the past 25 years, book tv has been on the air over 1300 weekends, covered nearly hundred book festivals and, featured 22,000 authors, including this event and his doctor, dr. benjamin waterhouse, who'd been a friend of the family for years, and who the head of the harvard medical school, wrote a wonderful letter to john quincy adams, who was then president of the united states, and he this. but we, as was his material frame his mind was still

enthroned. if you read that, you go way back, way, way to the summer of 1756, when john adams, 20 years old. 1756, 20 years short of the summer of 1776. and he was teaching school in worcester, massachusetts, which was then the frontier. keep in mind that in that time, two thirds of all of massachusetts were still forest. two thirds of pennsylvania were still, for us, the largest building in all of america. nassau hall at princeton. civilization was just a little grim along sub wealth of european civilization. american western civilization, just a little grim along the coast, only about 50 miles deep. it was a vastly different not just from the present, but from europe. and here he was out with what he

thought was the the frontier teaching in a one room schoolhouse was miserable. he knew he didn't want to be a schoolteacher and his father had thought he would be a minister. that's how he got his why he got his scholarship to harvard. but he decided he didn't want to be a minister. he wasn't cut out for that. he decided he wanted to be an attorney, a lawyer, and to get public life. and on the night of august 22nd, a sunday after having attended church all day, which was to be a lifelong habit for john adams, he went out under the stars. so inspired by the sermon he said and also in a state of euphoria and would also seem by a feeling of relief that his decision not to become a minister was at last resolved and he wrote of the glorious

shows of nature and the intense sensation of pleasure they beholding the night sky, the amazing concave of heaven, sprinkled and glittering with stars. he was thrown, he wrote into a kind of transport and knew that such wonders were the gifts of. god. expressions of god's love. but the greatest gift of all he was certain was the gift of an inquiring mind. he would become a lawyer. but of all the provisions he god has made for the gratification of our senses are much inferior to the provision. the wonderful provision that he has made for the gratification of nobler powers of intelligence

and reason he has given us reason to find out the truth and the real design and true end of our existence. it will be hard, he wrote, meaning studies that were still ahead of him. but the point is now determined. i shall have the liberty to think for myself. did you know that almighty thousand plus hours of book tv programs is available online just? visit book tv dot org to watch full programs on your favorite authors. our live coverage, the texas book festival, continues.

and.

i. do noon everyone, but thanks joining us in this cold austin afternoon and welcome to the 28th annual texas book festival. we're about to start this wonderful panel. so please silence your cell phones and make sure you send