Katie's Story

Katie Tyler

“When policymakers discuss prison reform and speak of the opportunities that societies miss due to mass incarceration, I don't think they consider the lost potential of creativity, entrepreneurship, and social and familial bonds.”

Petey Greene was an integral part of my educational experience. I began volunteering my freshman year and every semester after. 

I worked with a student who didn't know basic multiplication. I can't begin to imagine the barriers that someone must face throughout his life without this skill. Other students were more advanced. I tutored a student who would ask me at the end of each session about the most interesting thing I had learned in my classes over the past week. 

I appreciated all of Princeton's educational enrichment activities on a new level after those sessions and I gained an appreciation for what it means to be free. One student excitedly told me that he was going to be released from prison soon. By soon, he meant a year. I now pay attention to all of the daily privileges and smaller pieces of joy I experience. I am not in prison—because, as a white woman who grew up in suburban New York, I had a significantly lower chance of imprisonment, unlike most of the students I tutored.

My perspective on why people would seek a GED changed. I had assumed that most people wanted a degree so they could find a higher paying job. I was fascinated by the diversity of their motivations. Some students wanted to start their own businesses—such as tattoo parlors and food trucks. Some wanted to build stronger relationships with their children by helping them with their homework. When policymakers discuss prison reform and speak of the opportunities that societies miss due to mass incarceration, I don't think they consider the lost potential of creativity, entrepreneurship, and social and familial bonds.

I currently work for an NGO that focuses in poverty alleviation in Morocco. I aspire to eventually start an initiative that works on generating economic and educational opportunities for marginalized people after the Syria war settles, and my Petey Greene experience will certainly influence many of my career choices then.

I hope that my tutoring experience benefited the students I worked with. It certainly benefited me.