Voice to the voiceless

One recent rainy morning, about a dozen students at Table Mountain School took a break from their daily English class routine to read passages from a short packet titled “The Writing Exchange.” The high-school-age students, both male and female, each politely volunteered to read sections, with the group pausing between some to engage in discussion led by instructor Scott Bailey.

There were some laughs over particular turns of phrase, and after one story a girl announced, “I can relate to that.” For the most part, it seemed like a classroom that could be found at any area high school.

But rather than looking out their windows and seeing falling rain, the Table Mountain students could see only the white walls of Eagle Pod, the housing unit at Butte County Juvenile Hall in Oroville where they are currently incarcerated.

And what these young students were reading and writing was distinctly different than the subject matter of your average high-school composition class: harrowing first-person snapshots of abuse, addiction, homelessness, loss and heartbreak. Many of the stories detail young people’s descent to rock bottom, hope for redemption, and frustration at their past failures.

The Writing Exchange is the brainchild of Bailey, who serves as a special-education instructor for Table Mountain. Bailey said he was inspired to start the program through his long association with the Long Beach-based Freedom Writers Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Erin Gruwell in 1997 to inspire underprivileged and at-risk youth through writing.

Each month, Bailey collects submissions from the students, and selections are chosen to be published anonymously on The Writing Exchange webpage at www.writeyourtruth.blogspot.com. Initially, the exchange was just between the Butte County facility’s three housing units (called Condor and Falcon pods, in addition to Eagle), but now includes juvenile halls in Fresno and Sacramento counties and, most recently, Lassen County. The site also collects artwork, with that component overseen by Macy Joachim, a fellow Table Mountain instructor.

Bailey explained that the pieces are published anonymously to allow the students to be completely open and honest. He’s been overseeing and witnessing the many benefits of The Writing Exchange since 2006.

“It gives them a chance to vent, and to purge some of those difficult experiences in their lives,” he said. “They really get a kick out of the fact that it’s published and that other people in other juvenile halls get to read it.”

Bailey also said it helps the incarcerated youth connect with others when they read about shared experiences, and process why they are incarcerated and what they would like to do differently when they are freed. It also gives them valuable writing skills, which The Writing Exchange contributors have used to make a splash on the local literary scene: For several years running, Table Mountain students have placed in the CN&R’s annual Fiction 59 and Poetry 99 contests.

“We started having a pizza party for any pod that had a winner,” Bailey said. “Last year, we took three of the six slots for high-school-age submissions [in Fiction 59]—one from each pod—so everyone got pizza.

“It’s also a nice switch for them to write fiction, because when they write for the exchange they pour their personal experiences and pain into it, so fiction can be fun and teaches them more about writing.”

The program fits perfectly with the juvenile hall’s educational component, which is designed to ensure that time spent in the hall isn’t lost altogether. The program is always expanding and improving, and last year—for the first time—produced enough graduates to garner a special ceremony, complete with cake and family visitors.

For some of the students at Table Mountain, The Writing Exchange is a rare bright spot in the face of bleak circumstances, a fact that sank in with Bailey’s words as we left the classroom.

“Some of those kids will be out of here in a week, and some of them will be here for a very long time,” he said. “A few could be tried as adults and spend the rest of their lives incarcerated.”