Thursday, November 06, 2003

Growing up, I loved "Twilight Zone," the dark, witty 1960s TV show replete with bizarre, twisted endings.

As I write this week's column, a "Twilight Zone" episode comes to mind. A grouchy bespectacled man adores reading, but never has time. His family, job, day-to-day life is always in the way. Then, suddenly, he is the only person left on an Earth filled with books. (I don't quite remember, but the Good Guys and the Bad Guys must have, somewhat gently, done each other in.)

The man finds himself blissfully alone in a library. As he reaches for a book, whoosh, he knocks off his thick glasses. He moves, and you hear a crunch. Of course, he's stepped on his glasses. The man's world becomes a meaningless blur. In the closing shot, he sits on a chair and sobs.

Today, just up the road, that man's plight is multiplied by 1,350. In the maximum security New Jersey State Prison, three-fourths of the 1,800 inmates cannot read in any functional way. It's not that they've broken their glasses; they never had any in the first place. They've never learned to read. They live their stress-ridden, tedious, regimented lives unable to read newspapers, magazines, poetry, fiction, letters from their children, or their own court papers.

The value of education programs in prison is clearly enormous, both to prisoners and to society. Within a crowded prison, where frustration and anger are rampant, education gives inmates skills and attitudes to help them survive and function productively. On the outside, education raises the odds of success for released prisoners, defying the statistic that half of released prisoners are reincarcerated within three years.

Working from the inside, 18 years ago, N.J. State Prison inmates created a remarkable educational program to spread the art and joy of reading among their fellow inmates.

L.I.F.E - Learning Is For Everyone - is a literacy program for inmates and by inmates. Prisoners who are able to read teach those who want to learn in private one-on-one sessions. Currently, with the help of a few community volunteers, 45 inmate-tutors are at work, teaching inmate-students the power and beauty of the written word, guiding them toward high school equivalency degrees and giving them self-respect and confidence. L.I.F.E. has become a model and has produced a manual for duplicating the program in other prisons.

And someone has made a wonderful film about the program. If you get Cinemax, you may have seen it recently on television. If not, you now have your chance.

This Sunday evening, "How Do You Spell Murder?" is being shown at the Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau St., Princeton Borough. (Reservations are necessary.)

The film makers, Susan and Alan Raymond, will attend and talk about their work chronicling the L.I.F.E. program over a year, shooting tutoring sessions, interviewing participants and documenting student progress. They have to their credit many well-known documentaries, including Academy Award-winner "I Am a Promise: the Children of Stanton Elementary School," and Emmy Award-winner "Children of War."

If you remember back to 1971 and "An American Family," a forerunner of the current reality shows, it was the Raymonds who documented the Loud family for seven months.

The event is being hosted by the ABC Prison Literacy Program, a group of volunteers who have become involved in supporting L.I.F.E. through training, resource materials and supplies; special classes in poetry, writing and problem-solving; a graded-reading library; and workshops for tutor-inmates to recognize and address learning disabilities.

I've seen "How Do You Spell Murder" and was impressed, moved and shocked. In it, an inmate-student says he was held back five times in second grade and finally dropped out of school in eighth grade. Another spoke of his constant humiliation in school at not being able to learn. Both, it turns out, have serious learning disabilities, as do about a quarter of the prison population.

Sammy, an inmate-tutor who taught himself to read in prison, and an inmate-student appear in the movie. Sammy says, "Education is my way of tearing these walls down. This is my liberation. It's how I survive. I journey into other worlds through books, novels."

His student haltingly but correctly reads a long passage from his text book, and his face becomes radiant. Sammy looks very proud. They laugh and joke.

No "Twilight Zone" twisted endings at New Jersey State Prison!

For more information about the movie showing on Sunday, call (609) 924-0103. ABC Prison Literacy is looking for volunteers; check them out on www.abcliteracy.org. Learn more about the movie on www.howdoyouspellmurder.com.

NOTE: Mea Kaemmerlen lives in Plainsboro. E-mail: meakaem@aol.com