Like Most Massachusetts correctional Librarians, I teach prisoners a cognitive-thinking seminar called ABLE MINDS.

At present I’m trying to get published an article I wrote on our five years using Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

We’ve been teaching Cindy Blinn’s ABLE MINDS program at Norfolk since 2005. That’s a long time.

We’ll talk about:

• Books that we’ve used
• How many inmates have successfully completed the Course
• What THINK FIRST and ABLE MINDS actually stand for
• Who Dr. Cynthia Blinn is
• What “earned good conduct credit” means
• The differences between the introductory and advanced presentations we give
• What it’s like working with an inmate course assistant
• How hard it is to get a laptop & digital projector approved bought & received to do a simple PowerPoint presentation
• What the Program actually means to the prisoners who learn to apply the THINK FIRST mechanism
• …and a bunch of other stuff.

Right now, I need to get some serious shut-eye.