Learners in Prison
Strategic Design Fellow Judah Armani joined CfC in 2019 through a fellowship aimed at refining his design practice, particularly in the context of prison education. The fellowship allowed Judah to integrate with the Center’s team and contribute to our broader “systems of care” projects, particularly in the context of prison education. Armani’s design approach, which he developed over a decade of working with vulnerable populations, is rooted in creating aspirational and human-centered educational experiences.
Our work with Connecticut’s correctional system began serendipitously through connections formed during a visit to the US early in his fellowship. Armani and his team initially provided a specially adapted version of Aux magazine, which is part of the InHouse Records initiative in the UK. This effort established a relationship and revealed the specific challenges within the prison’s educational environment. Armani says design is a conversation across space, time and culture. The culture part is critical and the cultural expertise that CfC brought to the partnership allowed Armani to focus on the exchanges without worrying about miscommunication.
The core of this intervention was to transform the educational experience in prisons from one that assumes deficits to one that recognizes potential and future opportunities. Traditional prison education is often siloed and focused on behavior management, with little regard for the future applicability of the knowledge gained.
The project aimed to disrupt this by introducing a “lake of learning” approach, which integrates various subjects and competencies in a more fluid and collaborative manner. This approach also sought to instill a sense of future and purpose in the learners, even within the constraints of the prison system. The program culminated in a musical showcase that drew significant attention from prison officials, highlighting the potential for a more innovative and impactful educational model.
Looking ahead, Armani and Cook see opportunities to expand this work by bridging the gap between the “meaningless” education often provided in prisons and the “meaningful” education available in society. Their goal is to create a continuum that benefits inmates during incarceration and prepares them for successful reintegration. This project not only improves educational outcomes for inmates but also challenges broader perceptions about the role of education in the prison system.
“CfC showed me that there are others like me, and that a typical studio is not where I will find my tribe, but an unorthodox studio like CfC brings in different approaches, thinking and skills,” says Armani, “I had been exposed to too much design studio vanilla and had incorrectly assumed that all studios were vanilla.”