III ÉPOCA: ERASMUS+ IPEP Adult School Jaén.Perseverance is the key to all successes. Prison Education Project.

Perseverance is the key to all successes 

Getting to this day, 12^th January, with our Erasmus+ homework well done, has meant, more than an act of faith, a willful act of perseverance. The great Victor Hugo could not have expressed it better, because without perseverance nothing is achieved. 

Today, I mention the great author of 'Les Miserables' when, after dozens and dozens of working meetings of a very large group of professionals from 10 different countries, we have been able to give the nihil obstat to the definitive programmes of our Erasmus+ Week  activities that we trust will undoubtedly mean, a before and after in the academic life of the Provincial Institute of Permanent Education of Jaén, commonly known as IPEP of Jaén. A long, very long, at times exhausting, even herculean, path that kicked off back in November 2021, when the weird idea of ​​organizing an Erasmus+ project began to take shape among some members of the staff of this adult education center. 

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Today, two long years have gone by and we can proudly raise our heads, despite the many regrets along the way, to officially announce that during the month of February 2024, specifically, between the 5th and the 10th, our institute will be transformed for a few brief - but surely really intense - days into a true European debate forum, a melting pot of knowledge coming not only from various places in our beloved Spain, but from beyond the Pyrenees, since we will have colleagues, teachers who are experts in both adult education and education with prisoners, from cold and beautiful places like Norway or Sweden, or closer and warmer, such as Portugal, our enviable neighbor that is often mistakenly ignored and from which we must learn so much, or from the mountainous Austria, or the changing and thriving Poland. 

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Also living stealthy lives there in the hidden stages of this pioneering project we can find great such great people who have supported the IPEP Adult School of Jaén and this hectic Erasmus+ adventure from the first moment, passionate professionals who have given us very good advice, who have guided us on the right path to follow, who have opened doors for us that otherwise would have been completely inaccessible for us. 

Rethinking educational practices for adults, prison students and young offenders.

They are men and women whose life and professional trajectories turn out to be exceptional, teachers from France, Scotland, England, Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. Surely, I must have forgotten some others. For these upcoming days of February, the institute has organized, with the help of the CEP of Jaén -Teacher Training School-, without whom we would not have been able to set up absolutely anything, anything at all, two very comprehensive and innovative academic activities, since we are sure that we are pioneers in this field of knowing and doing. The first activity has been designed to try to answer a truly simple question: who taught me to be a teacher in a penitentiary center? And in a center for supervised minors? Nobody.

Juana y Manuel, grandes entre los grandes. Foto de @mmolpor

 

Prisons and juvenile centers live as if they were two islands totally alien to the world of the vast majority of citizens, two islets almost unknown to the overwhelming majority of our society, which more often than not seems not to want to know too much about them. 'If those people are sent there, they must have done something', some people say, as if this nonsense sentence could justify the best or worst behavior of those who must ensure their social reintegration. For most of the people are absolutely unaware that in the Jaén Penitentiary Center, there exists, for example, an impressive Therapeutic Educational Unit, commonly as UTE, which ensures, with a degree of professionalism and human affection worthy of praise, to ensure that its inmates can study, can learn, can advance in their process of personal formation. 

Let them study. Let them study. Let them study.

These professionals who give their all and their hearts there in that unit represent the best of our society, by the way.  And that is where, among other organizations and institutions, the IPEP Adult School of Jaén comes in, since we offer Baccalaureate studies to all inmates who, as one of them says, are capable of 'breaking with the temptation of spending a day in the sun in the patio', as if the latter were the sirens of the famous Odyssey. 

Foto de @Beatriz Cabrera Pino, one of the greatest  artists in Jaén

To respond to this lack of knowledge and teacher training, we decided to organize a training course, with the help of the CEP Teacher Training School that, at least, allows future prison teachers to be updated on the reality they will encounter. It is sad to recognize that, today, none of the people who teach in this type of centers have received (or will) didactic and contextual preparation during their training stage, that is, Teaching, Master of Teacher Training, or Bachelor's Degrees, Degrees, etc. 

And of course, one day it's your 'turn' to go there to 'teach'. That's a different kettle of fish.

The second activity, in which dozens of people have practically given their all, has taken the form of a congress. And regional, in order to achieve the maximum possible impact of the debates, ideas, suggestions, proposals, criticisms, etc. that arise from it. This will therefore be the 1st Regional Congresson Adult Education, juvenile offenders and penitentiary centers, at least, in Andalusia, although we believe that it may be in all of Spain.  It commands too much respect to even read the name of the aforementioned activity. Those who follow us from time to time may remember that we named our Erasmus+ project something like ‘Rethinking educational practices...’ which is exactly what we intend to carry out on February 9 and 10. 

‘ERASMUS+ ADULT AND PRISON EDUCATION WEEK’

The IPEP Permanent Education Institute of Jaén opted, with great risk and, from my humble personal point of view, with great success, to begin a period of reflection on our own work, on how we can offer a better educational response to our students and about what should be the priorities that should guide us at all times, especially in the penitentiary environment and with minors detained in centers under judicial protection. 

Two islets at the mercy of the mermaids.

Promotional video of Jaén Paradise

Therefore, in this adventure of change, of analysis, of trying to give the system a kick worthy of a Modric, or a Benzema, to see what happens, we have had from the first moment the participation and help of the Ministry of Education, of Justice, with various representatives of Penitentiary Institutions and the Jaén Penitentiary Center, with professors who have been tutors for the UNED in the provincial prison for more than 30 years, with experts from the university world, and with the most important thing: with the opinion of our students.

@mmolpor Erasmus+ Team Work (just a bit of it)

You are all invited to be part of this journey that requires the effort of many rowers, under the supervision of a great helmsman, a Team of Erasmus+ Teachers who are real stars, made up of more than 20 committed teachers who, throughout these two years of galleys, have contributed their invaluable help in one way or another, either with wise advice, or with a word of encouragement, innit, Pilar? 

Information regarding these activities, as well as the necessary forms to register, can be found already on the Jaén CEP Teacher Training School website. As everyone who knows me is aware of my passion for aviation, I want to end these lines with a few words from one of the great pioneers of the art of flying, Amelia Earhart, a restless, rebellious, persevering woman, an exemplary woman, a nonconformist who took the world by storm and ventured without return across the great ocean aboard a simple Electra airplane, leaving after its disappearance a mark not yet forgotten: ‘The most effective way to do something is by doing it’.

Manuel Molina Porlán.

Erasmus+ project coordinator.

IPEP ADULT SCHOOL JAÉN