On teaching.........................

      Second, my father had taught English and writing at San Quentin during the 1950s and 1960s.  He published stories in The New Yorker about his students and then wrote a biography of San Quentin.   I grew up hearing and reading about his students and the place itself.  He did not bog down in complex moral and ethical matters - victim's rights, recidivism.  He just taught the prisoners to read good books, to speak good English, and to write.  My father treated them with respect and kindness, his main philosophical and spiritual position being:  Don't be an asshole.

-Anne Lamott,  Small Victories:  Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace