Sunday Post 11.1

This week's Thursday lesson has been the most uncertain one for me since the first time I started going. (One of the reasons was that I forgot to bring my passport and I did not realize that until we were arriving at the facility. Fortunately, I used my Bryn Mawr ID and they let me in.) Most of the reasons of my uneasiness came from my carelessness and I was not responsible enough during the lesson planning. I did not do enough research about the Vagina Monologue and therefore overlooked the controversies and criticisms toward it. And I just started preparing the lesson without questioning: Romie kindly suggested that we can talk about the Vagina Monologue but I did not ask for her previous experiences on discussing this with the women inside and which selections she picked from the original text. Furthermore, I did not even think about why we should bring this material up to the women. Even though in Tuesday Jody's class, I answered one of our classmates' question about the purpose of discussing the Vagina Monologue that I said the topics about sex, gender and identities are important not only on our college campus, but also for the incarcerated people and we should provide an opportunity for them to talk about it. I have to admit that I did not think about this before the original lesson planning was done. And I cannot imagine how circumscribed and even potentially offensive the discussions would be if we did not make any changes to the activities and reframe our lesson into a more open (to different voices) and gender inclusive one. I really appreciate my classmates as always being cautious and considerate in making the time for us and the women meaningful and comfortable. And I myself learned a lesson of how problematic it would be going into the facility bringing the materials and lesson plan without knowing why I am doing this specific topic. And the mindfulness and critical thinking from my classmates really awakened me.