WGBH Journal; Teachers In MCI Framingham

An important feeling feeling like a separate person separate from water separate from who from other people from ones only live or people people that you're close to especially being a poor woman. A lot of times you're considered baggage or or else. Caretaker and and you aren't considered separate. And if you're a woman who's with a parent you are considered separate. And. Convenience. And if everybody thinks of you as. An object that's going to give them what they want. Either way either to take care of them or to make some money or whatever to supply drugs. There's no reason why you should think of yourself as separate. So I designed a lot of my teaching around

almost everyone I work with keeps a journal. And I really try to convey that even if nobody else reads it besides the woman who writes in it or if I read what she wants to show me it's still important and. Just having feelings and putting them down is important. A number of the officers I've talked to have commented that that the women in their cottages like discipline like rules would you agree with that statement. Sometimes. I think for one thing everybody likes to know what's going to happen. And if there are no rules at all which is sometimes like this that you don't know if you do this this will happen. It's more the way if you have a good attitude or if you're if you're sweet versus if you're silent.

Which which are really things. A lot of the women are so that they'd rather have somebody who has his style and police as they put it. And follows the rules. So you know what to expect. And I think that's true and I also think that it's true that some women who come in. And never been treated by adults and have been passed from the hand of one man to another. And. And aren't childlike and that's something that's kind of hard to say but I think it's true and feel more comfortable with rules. And I think there are also a lot of women who would feel more comfortable with a lot more autonomy and freedom. Have you worked with the women that you would consider childlike. How have you worked with them. I mean there are there are women who come to me and said When are we going to do today. What do you want me to do what should I do.

And I try not to allow that to happen. And I said OK we're going to do this fill you know fill out these blanks and and learn these words and get this right. I kind of force people to think for themselves and say well what do you want to do and not to go. And that's something a lot of women have never thought in their entire lives what do I want to do. That's also something that the educational system not just in prisons but everywhere. It doesn't prepare people to think independently. It really doesn't. And. It's much easier in a way to have directions that you can follow them and it's over and you have to get a hundred. Then they have to really think. And that's true that's true school. I mean I think most some of the women I've I've taught haven't had much school and sometimes they tend to be much freer and more creative in school.

School can really close in on someone. And it's. It's the bad experiences and school will come to me and say I can't write. I don't know how to. So the first thing I'll do is try to disprove. And sometimes it takes a long time. I was working with a woman over a period of years. Who was very committed to me totally passive and. When we were. First all she would listen to me and questions about it she really wouldn't do anything else and then we read plays and I had her read some of the parts in the play and place and she would write a line and then I would write. And I would take a part and she would take a part. And by the end of the time I was working with her she was writing her own place and when she didn't need to write in my office but instead came running in saying

look what I wrote last night. That's the kind of thing that makes you want to keep working and it makes me feel like framing imprisoned creative writing teacher Andrea Lowenstein tomorrow night in the last of the women inside series prison superintendent Jack Bates comments on the experience of being a man heading a women's institution for GBH journal I mean the sands. On another edition of GBH journalist week we had a report which examined some of the legislation enacted to guarantee the rights of handicapped persons the focus of much of this legislation is in the area of education there in the states such as Massachusetts a good deal of

money is appropriated for children with special needs. But education is only one issue around which the handicapped was fight to protect their rights. A service such as public transportation which many of us take for granted is almost totally inaccessible to people with handicaps. Yesterday in Boston as well as in other cities across the country handicapped people gathered at public transportation stations to rally for the implementation of facilities suited to their needs. Maureen Keller was there and prepared this report. A. Woman. With the. Equipment that I am with a demonstration sponsored by various handicapped rights organizations in the Boston area took place yesterday. The focus of which was the issue of public

transportation what these groups feel is at stake is the trans bus program a bus program which would allow individuals in wheelchairs and other handicapping constraints the opportunity to get out of their homes while the handicapped can now pay for private service through van companies. The costs are so exorbitant the few use them. The rally started at the Ashmont station. The only station with access for the handicapped on the red line. The demonstrators a combination of people in wheelchairs on crutches deaf or with guide dogs rode the line to have it with a rally underground about their plight. I talked with Donald Young in Meg coacher from Boston self-help about the rally. Could you tell me what the purpose of the demonstration is today. Well the purpose is to demonstrate the foolishness of the assertion that people who are handicapped. Either would not use mass transportation where it made assessable to that or that in its use

they would represent a danger to themselves or to other people and that in fact there are millions of Americans with various levels of disability who would in fact use transportation if it were available. The efforts of the efforts of the Congress to take away chip away at 5 0 4 by attempting to negate the transportation aspects of SS ability is the essential issue that we're trying to express ourselves on and address ourselves to. If we lose trans bus then you know perhaps we can lose assess ability to hospitals next door to libraries or to schools and we think it's important to be seen to let other people to talk with us. And to say that there's nothing essentially different about me except that I don't dance very well.

Could you explain specifically about the trans bus program and what exactly that means to people that are handicapped in the Boston area. You know trans bus is a new design bus which is ramped it has a low floor widen doors transpose will benefit all of the ridership in the Greater Boston Community anyone who uses it. It's going to provide a smoother ride and a shorter trip time. But in particular it's going to benefit those of us who can't use the current buses trains bus was assured by Congress and reinforced by the Department of Transportation mandate a year ago and now Congress is trying to take it away from us which is the reason we're rallying today. This is come about because of heavy lobbying from General Motors General Motors has invested heavily in a high floor bus and they want to have a lot of years to get their high floor bus out so they can make the profits that they want to make

off of that. They did agree that transport was a good model. Two years ago and they assured the secretary of transportation that they could make the trans Bess and then they invested in a different direction so they've been lobbying heavily against it. Why do the handicapped need to get around the unemployment rate of disabled people is about 50 percent. Those of us who are already employed about 50 percent of those who are employed make less than $2000 because we can't we can't get two different employment opportunities we can't get out to recreational opportunities we can't socialize we can't we can't even get to medical appointments unless we make a 24 hour advance notice appointment with the ride the MTA has done some efforts in this area they have a limited dial a ride system for some parts of Boston but there is no way that a separate system will ever be able to give us the services equivalent to a fully accessible system.

David fiver sees the public transportation system this way. If I were always confined to a chair there would be three stations at which I could get on and all the orange line and they are one stop apart so I could get on one station ride the one get all of our guests go to the side and ride back. That's the total amount I could use it because here at ASH gone I can get on an ash want. There's no place I can get off until I come back to Asheville. And so it's just simply as a as a citizen. To the extent that a public service is paid for by tax monies as a citizen I have the right to have. Access to that if it is a public service and and friends with the Ts are here public service right. I've had many people comment to me about. How good they think Boston is because they think the TV does go to a number of places including the bus system. The whole team the whole team does go to number places and. These are able bodied hours week sometimes gone TAAB is temporarily able bodied persons.

One thing is that everybody sooner or later will become a handicapped person. Maybe just a few minutes before he or she dies of a massive heart attack. But most people will for a substantial length of time be a handicapped person so what we're talking about doesn't just involve a few people it's going to involve everybody eventually and right now involves at least a fourth of the population so we're not talking about just a small number. We talk about handicapped persons. I think we're getting ready to. Move out. The rally then proceeded to have it square. For many of the handicapped it was their first experience on the day. And although the non-handicapped individuals would argue that the system has many problems for the handicapped it was an exhilarating feeling of independence.

I would never miss this opportunity really. I. Wanted to be in the subway to experience it. Since I've. Been a paraplegic. Since early childhood I've never had that experience. I think. I think. Today it. Is. Sort of a symbolic thing. To show that disabled people. Want. To be able to use public transportation. They want to have. To access to transportation to go to jobs to be able to. Contribute to the economy. Rather than. Real true disability. Of access. This is Maureen Kelleher.

Yesterday's edition of The Boston Globe carried an article which stated that violence has nearly been averted at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport because of its near violence had nothing to do with international terrorism. Instead it involved hundreds stranded and frustrated travelers unable to get a return flight to the United States. This commotion is all about a cut rate air fare offered by an American Airlines. Roundtrip ticket from Boston to Amsterdam for one hundred forty five dollars. The response to this fare has been so tremendous that the airline has not been able to accommodate

all ticket holders. The special low fare ends tomorrow. People are not only stranded in Amsterdam. There are those in Boston. Boston's Logan Airport trying to leave even Dukat went over to Logan and talked with some of the stranded travelers and put together this report. This is the sound of Logan Airport scan amp terminal at 7:30 p.m. the departure time of what Pan Am is called the cheapest flight to Europe at 8:00 the next morning the same waiting area is dead silent. But there are still about 40 people there lying in sleeping bags on the floor. These people are among hundreds of ticket holders who did not make the 7:30 departure the night before

or probably for several nights previously. Many of spit up to a week living in the terminal which they now call the PanAm motel. They just don't have the money to stay in town at a real hotel or hostel while waiting their turn to depart. In terms of dollars and cents spent on airfare the PanAm deal is in fact a real bargain. Ninety nine dollars to fly over to Europe. If you fly by July 14th and only another $50 to return to the U.S. so long as it's before July 30 first. But because of the thousands of interested travelers by the end of the first week that the fare was in effect Pan Am found its terminal absolutely mobbed with standby passengers. So the system was changed. Ticket holders were asked to appear in person at the airport terminal to receive a control number. After that they were free to leave until the day that their number was called for departure PanAm had hoped that most would wait their turn outside the terminal. A recorded message was installed so that by making one call

a day passengers could be advised of their status on the waiting list. For Boston residents even a week's wait under these conditions is not really inconvenient in the comfort of home surroundings. However many travelers who bought their tickets in Los Angeles or New York were not informed of the long wait. And once they appeared in Boston to receive a control number they could not afford to return home. They found themselves spending limited vacation time and harder and funds in and around Boston rather than on the other side of the Atlantic to travel are still in sleeping bags give the secant we are together and have to wait two or three days for a plane. Would you come to New York City. We couldn't afford to go home so we've been sleeping in the airport for the last week with the open like it's been terrible. What have you done. Gone to the beach. We spent a lot of money too much money more than we thought we should

have with one of them really get it. What kind of money to spend what have you been doing. What is the cost. We're going to food transportation drink we've been having a good time so I think yes we woke up and we realized that we were going to have to stay here two more days we thought we were going to be a little yesterday. I think that's really from to say we've been here a really long time. So you're going to get out of here today. I mean we're going to stay inside the airport all day that we have to get out. We are going to have to leave the airport and it's really been horrible it's the worst experience I've ever been through. You know the people are here until like 2:00 3:00 in the morning and they come here at 8 o'clock in the morning then we queue up. It's really it's really been working creaming people and people going out on flights coming you know flights to

here in the restaurants and coffee shops they've been really you know mean to us also for no reason at all. I said that's expensive. If you've been even here to even the airport you know very rarely. And here you know you want it but it costs money to get out of here. So you know. Take subways back and forth. It's been a we spend about $100 each which we never planned on doing at all you know expenses are cut in half for your wife to be coming home. Ridiculous. Regardless of the entertainment planned each day at 9:00 a.m. all the terminal guests plus others staying around town gather for the roll call of departing control numbers. Everybody hopes for their own number to be called but if not they're also glad when their friends turns come up. Many passengers fear the same situation will occur in Amsterdam when the time comes to

return to the states. They say they'll apply for controllers immediately upon arrival. Some disgruntled travelers also have expressed interest in buying the return tickets from another airline such as later so as to be certain that they will be able to return on schedule. For National Public Radio this is Vivienne ducat in Boston.