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Transforming Learning through Transformative Justice
ZAHRA PATTERSON works with George School students Danica Joseph ’22, Dante Ndeta ’23, Chinedum (Chinny) Obinwa ’23, and Jeffrey Becton ’23.
Immersive, interdisciplinary, and impactful, Transformative Justice is another course made possible by George School’s Signature Academic Program. Taking advantage of the new seventerm schedule, the class meets all day every day for a term, providing students with an in-depth look at incarceration and its role in history, its impact on the modern world, and efforts to reform it.
Covering English as well as history, the class reveals how literature can be a lifeline for incarcerated people and how literary expression can be a vehicle for change. Students read the work of abolitionist poets and incarcerated writers to understand the interplay between history, politics, and literature.
As with other immersive courses, on-campus learning is enhanced by an experiential component. For ten days, spaced throughout the term, students participate in field trips to learn from organizations working to transform the justice system. Participants may work with the Youth Art & SelfEmpowerment project to learn about prison legislation and the effects of canvassing on voters, and with Books through Bars to understand the role education can play in rehabilitation and to organize a book drive. Students build informed and persuasive speaking skills and are encouraged to share their knowledge with their communities.
Back on campus, the final week is dedicated to research, reflection, and community-organizing projects that allow students to not only demonstrate what they have learned, but how their learning has motivated them to reshape society for the better. Simply put, Transformative Justice is unlike any course that has come before, and yet quintessentially George School.
