Lee Perlman, a lecturer in MIT’s Experimental Study Group (ESG), has been teaching behind prison walls for more than 40 years in an effort to improve the educational opportunities available to incarcerated people and to foster empathy among his MIT students.
In 2018, Perlman cofounded the Educational Justice Institute (TEJI) at MIT, where he now teaches philosophy and other courses in an “inside-out” format, with a mix of MIT students and incarcerated learners.
TEJI also serves as a convener for people from multiple sectors to collaborate on improving opportunities for incarcerated learners and on preparing them for success after their release.
“There’s hard data that there’s nothing that works like education to cut recidivism, to change the atmosphere within a prison so prisons become less violent places,” says Perlman.