Teaching Resilience Through Russian Literature

When Lisa* applied to my course, “Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature, and Leadership,” in which University of Virginia students lead discussions about Russian literature with incarcerated youth at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, she and I both had high hopes for her success in the class. Her application was impressive.

A highly intelligent, passionate, socially conscious UVa student who had participated in national reconciliation efforts in post-genocide Rwanda and spent time studying social conflict in Jerusalem, Lisa was seeking a class that would stretch her intellectually and emotionally, as well as feed her passion for social justice. Her one apprehension, she admitted, was that the Beaumont residents might reject her attempts to connect with them.

But if she was able to build bonds of mutual understanding with perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda and Arab youth supporters of the Intifada in Israel, then surely she could find common ground with the young incarcerated men at Beaumont.

Or so she thought. As did I.

It turns out we were both wrong.

“Failure is instructive”

And yet if, as the educational philosopher John Dewey said, “failure is instructive,” then Lisa’s experience in Books Behind Bars — and her…