Navigation trail

• Home page
• Prison teacher: Grace

Prison teacher: Grace

This Case Study belongs to Adult education lecturer.

Grace has worked as a curriculum art leader for the last two years in a prison education department. She originally studied for her degree at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and had a varied career pathway prior to obtaining her current post.

Before taking up my present job, I was doing a combination of freelance work in community education and part-time employment with a young offenders group. I mainly worked with adults with learning difficulties and young people on YOP schemes. Until now, I’ve never been able to earn my income entirely in art-related roles and have often had to top this up with part-time casual employment, such as bar work and as a cinema projectionist. I’ve never really planned my career, but have just let things happen and found that life’s course has sent me in certain directions.

In the final year of my fine art degree, I specialised in illustrative drawing for film animation and initially went on to work in a London film laboratory where I learnt the skills of the trade. Through my mentor at the film lab, I was also put in contact with a former graduate, which led to the offer of work on a part-time basis as her technical assistant. This involved installing her films in galleries, sometimes on the continent and liaising between her and her representative London and New York galleries regarding the processing of new films or further print copies for the purposes of exhibition internationally. This gave me another perspective as I saw the commercial side of the top end contemporary art market. In addition, I was involved as a volunteer with the homelessness charity Centrepoint in Trafalgar Square and got a lot out of my work there. I helped out with the drop-in art centre and once a week in the afternoon we visited the National Gallery, one of the guides would take us round to view a new painting each week.

For a variety of reasons I chose to leave London and to move further over into the South East of England. I continued working in Adult Education, but as I particularly enjoyed working with young offenders, decided to make a speculative approach to the head of the education unit at my local prison. I was invited for an informal interview, which led to an offer of work. Most prison education is now provided through agencies such as A4e (Action for Employment) , whose policy is to advertise all vacancies internally and externally in the local press and through national web-sites. The majority of prison education is still provided by colleges.

What I enjoy most about working in the prison environment is the good team spirit in the education department, which is essential in this sort of setting. Each day is different and highly stimulating. What I find most daunting is the need to work within the tight codes of conduct that are essential to ensure prison security.

As for the next few years – who knows? I’ve never set myself career goals and tend to go with the flow, but I don’t have any particular wish to look for work outside of the field of prison education. I view it as a long-term career path as I hold some deep core values in rehabilitation of an individual through education. Never before I have felt so fulfilled by an employment role, while still retaining an essential sense of personal creativity. Within my field of art, I feel privileged to be in a position where I can draw out learners’ creativity and directly witness the changes. Remember that these are students who have mostly suffered negative experiences of formal education, missed out on education through their youth or always viewed themselves as failures when it comes to education.

Case Study sourced by Hilary R Whorrall of University of Sheffield, 21 August 2009.