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DeNeal Ericksen, Union Grove
10/15/2009 11:24:36 AM
“If you want to change the world, start with yourself.”
The words dance over the pages of a four-inch thick scrapbook, sprawled open on a table. They are a firm reminder that every person can make a difference. And you can be sure the scrapbook’s keeper, DeNeal Ericksen, does indeed live by those words.
Ericksen – Wisconsin’s Correctional Education Teacher of the Year – experienced a whirlwind summer, during which she was recognized nationally for her advocacy and efforts as a teacher to women who are incarcerated. It’s one of many honors bestowed upon her during her career, and ranks right up there with how she felt when a former student inmate named her baby daughter DeNeal.
As a teacher at the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Union Grove, she faces some of the greatest challenges an educator can encounter. “But it also can have some of the most amazing rewards,” said Ericksen.
A letter from a former student, framed in the album, talks about the impact this teacher has made, saying in part, “…words aren’t enough to describe her true beauty and the wonderful gifts she gives so many women.”
For Ericksen, like Wisconsin educators who work in all types of settings, her profession encompasses so much more than standing in front of a classroom. In addition to being an instructor, she is an advocate, an innovator, a realist when she needs to be, but overwhelmingly an optimist. She’s a teacher who cares.
Ericksen knows that for all students, connecting lessons with life is essential. This is especially true for students in prison, those who bring to the classroom all kinds of social and emotional baggage that can prevent them from envisioning a brighter future for themselves and their families.
That’s why Ericksen champions efforts and seeks grant funding to increase the programs available for women. It is through these programs that a student may begin to see her education as the path to a better life, Ericksen said.
Students also learn the importance of being good parents. Through MotherRead and parenting courses at Ellsworth, women – many of whom are young mothers who themselves were raised in dysfunctional family settings – learn how to understand, communicate with their children, and be better moms. This is hands-on education, and it’s key to breaking the cycles of poverty, abuse and incarceration.
“A lot of my students will be released and have to be single parents. It’s important that we are teaching women how to read to their children,” Ericksen said.
As a mother of two, Ericksen knows the value in recording her students’ progress. That’s why she clips and saves classroom memories in her scrapbooks as steadfastly as a mother might.
She paused, and then read a phrase from another page, “Love knows no boundaries even within prison walls.”
She touched a photograph of a student reading to two young children on the floor. “This was the first time she read to her children,” Ericksen said. “She brought tears to our eyes. Before, she didn’t know how to read.”
The entire staff gets involved in the education of students, whether through the English as a Second Language program, the National Education Association’s Read Across America, or the development of a community garden. And nationally known artists and authors have become involved, too, after Ericksen has approached them. In fact, the sale of an authors’ quilt – featuring dozens of signatures from writers such as Jennifer Chiaverini, Jane Hamilton, Paul Fleischman, James Patterson, Bill Cosby and Judy Blume – benefitted area programs like Cops & Kids and the Racine Literacy Council.
Ericksen’s students have learned from their teacher about selflessness, and about speaking for those who are voiceless. And guided by Ericksen, the students remember the victims whom they have wronged. “We don’t forget the victims. Ever,” Ericksen said. The women raise money to support initiatives to stop child abuse and help families living in poverty. Programs with the Racine library system are also supported. Women make craft and clothing items, donating them to local homeless shelters and neonatal hospital units. “It’s important to donate to causes these women can identify with,” she said. “It makes them feel better to give to the community.”
Ericksen said she’s an advocate for education within the correctional system because that has the best return on investment in financial terms, and more importantly, in human terms. As cuts across all areas of state funding are occurring, she said, teaching positions are fewer while the number of inmates remains the same or increases. As a result, she and other educators often open their own pocketbooks to buy supplies, and Ericksen has stepped up her efforts to collect donations in order to help maintain programs.
“What’s going to happen if these programs are lost? I know we won’t reach them all, but if we reach one, the cost of education pays off for a lifetime,” she said. “And our communities benefit.”
Ericksen said she plans to stay in the field of correctional education for a long time, because she’s convinced that education matters – for all students. In that way, she explained, she has a lot in common with teachers who work in more traditional settings. “We all want the best for our students. We want them to succeed. We want them to have a chance.
“I know that I can help my students change for the better. I believe they can do it,” she continued. “I tell them, ‘I’ll teach you everything I know, but you have to make it happen.’ It takes them to decide they can succeed. They are worthy of it.”
What is the Correctional Education Association?
DeNeal Ericksen is past Wisconsin chapter president of the CEA, and current Region III assistant director, of the Correctional Education Association, a national professional organization for educators employed in the criminal and/or juvenile justice setting. The CEA provides opportunities for networking and continuing education, keeping Ericksen and other teachers motivated in their goal to provide meaningful educational opportunities for students. “The CEA is an outlet for reducing the stress and frustration we all go through teaching in such a different environment,” she said.
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