Months ago, I was tempted to mention my attendance of the upcoming Correctional Educational Association’s Region I conference May 27-29 in Mystic, Conneck-Tea-Kit. I did not give into that temptation, because of certain correctional truisms, one of them being “Don’t Believe It ‘Til You See It.” But this week I was informed by Fiscal that, I will in fact be there, and this courtesy of the “Skill-Building Techniques for Stress Reduction” grant, now in its final Year 2 death-throes.
This conference idea, BTW, was suggested two years ago by Shelley Quezada, uber-Librarian and Consultant to the Underserved on the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. Shelley attends as many of our DOC librarian’s meetings as she can fit into her busy globe-trotting schedule.
She also is my liaison for this grant and, in many ways, has mentored me throughout this crazyquilt career. She knows I don’t attend conferences and suggested that a good use for some of this grant money would be to get me out & about. So muchas gracias, mi buena amiga.
Everyone in our Dept. approval path was enormously helpful in getting me there, and when that happens I have learned to count my blessings & wing a prayer of thanksgiving heavenward.
It doesn’t always work out, this bureaucracy business. Even when it does, sometimes it does so at a cost of so many compromises that it seems pointless to have requested anything in the first place. But corrections has helped me practice gratitude, and patience. I figure another 200 years and I’ll have it down.
I plan to participate in several workshops, including:
- “Teaching in Corrections as an Adjunct Professor”
- “Social Climate: What it Is and Why It Matters for the Incarcerated”
- “Disleksia: The Movie”
- “Changin’ Your Game Plan: How to Use Your Incarceration as a Steppingstone for Success,” and
- “Embracing Change in Adult Learning”
There will also be a tour of York Correctional Institution, Connecticut’s only female correctional facility. 
I think I’m looking forward most to that. It’s interesting, seeing how other States respond to the programming needs of inmates and the security concerns of the institution. I hope we visit their Library. I want to see how it measures up.
Mystic is kinda close to Niantic, a sleepy harbor that contains within its town limits one of the most jaw-dropping used bookstore empires on the East Coast, the increasingly inaccurately-named Book Barn.
What started out as books in a barn has grown throughout the village–almost cancerous-like–into four separate locations, and all within a span of 1.5 measly miles. One of my favorite places to be and, since the conference is in late May, it should be one of the few times when I get to visit the place in fair weather.
Take a look at their RealityTV Pilot.