PLATO, SOPHOCLES INSPIRE DIALOGUE ON RECOVERY FROM DRUGS, PRISON

Stanford Professors Share Lessons In Philosophy To A Dozen Women In Redwood
City Residential Program

On a recent Tuesday evening, a dozen women gathered in a circle to talk
about Plato and wonder aloud: Why be good?

Enrolled in a philosophy class taught by Stanford University professors,
the women were reading and discussing Plato's "Republic," which sparked a
debate on why anyone would do the right thing if, hypothetically, there
were no repercussions if you didn't.

When the class ended, the women returned to life's more mundane questions,
such as how and when they'll leave the small, well-kept house in Redwood
City where they live as they try to get off drugs and mend their lives
after prison stays. They wondered if they'd get their children back from
Child Protective Services, if their husbands would take them back and if
they would be able to take themselves back to a drug-free, legal life.

Most of their days at Hope House are filled with 12-step recovery programs
and classes in parenting and anger management. But last spring, once a
week, these women stretched a mental muscle most have never used, delving
into ancient texts and modern masterpieces of philosophy and social justice.

For the women -- a diverse group of races and ages -- philosophy was
something they approached reluctantly but eventually embraced as a
component to their recovery as practical as computer skills or job training.

"The class helps me look at things better now," said Leela
Kennedy-Crawford, 31, who is at Hope House for six months because she used
to do cocaine and smoke pot and supported her habit by shoplifting.

"Now I ask, why would I want to go to where people are selling drugs? It
made me play the whole tape out. It made me ask those questions. You can
philosophize about everything in life because everything is a 'what if?' "

Teaching philosophy to the economically and socially disadvantaged is a
relatively new trend that caught the eye of Debra Satz, director of
Stanford's interdisciplinary program called Ethics and Society, and one of
the two teachers of the class.

"I wanted to show that the humanities mean something," she said.
"Philosophy is not just an exotic, esoteric exercise. It does liberate
people, and it contributes to the way people live. Philosophy does best
when it confronts real-world circumstances."

Each week, from April to June, the class met in the living room at Hope
House, tackling Plato, Sophocles, Martin Luther King Jr., and Peter Singer,
who urges Americans to forgo all luxuries to help the poor in developing
nations.

The works have made the women think about the world beyond themselves.

"I've always worked on impulse -- you know, use the drugs right away," said
Carol Galvin, 44, whose baby, Gabriel, was taken away from her at birth
because he tested positive for methamphetamine. She has since won him back,
and he lives with her at Hope House. "This has been very, very beneficial
to recovery, because it helped me not to be so impulsive."

Satz and Robert Reich, the other professor teaching the class, have learned
a lot as well by watching the women apply philosophy to achingly real-life
problems and by listening to personal stories of homelessness, violence and
drug addiction. The women's lives, so radically different from those of
typical Stanford students, affect how they approach the works they read.

Several readings made the class consider under what circumstances they
would go out of their way to help someone else. Take homeless drunks
lolling on a railroad track, with a train approaching, Reich said. What
would you sacrifice to save them? he asked.

Student Angel Almanza, 48, said she empathized with the men because she was
homeless for 18 years and often resorted to drinking because it eased her
constant neediness and loneliness.

"I cried every night wishing someone would help me," she said.

While discussing Singer's "Rich and Poor," the women became very animated,
trying to figure out ways to level the world's playing field, so everyone
has adequate food and shelter.

This reaction surprised Satz.

"Most of my students at Stanford say this can't be right," Satz told the
class. Stanford students typically find ways to poke holes in Singer's
reasoning because it makes them uncomfortable, she said.

Satz was inspired to teach philosophy at Hope House by New York writer Earl
Shorris, who in 1995 created the Bard College Clemente Course in the
Humanities, providing low-income people in Manhattan with free
college-level courses in the humanities. The Bard program now has more than
a dozen sites around the country, and professors, like Satz, are creating
spinoffs elsewhere.

The Stanford class was free for the students and included photocopied
reading material and a certificate of completion at the end. The class
earned credit that will be recognized at community colleges.

The women struggled with the writing assignments, usually two-page papers
on the reading, so Stanford brought in writing tutors who worked with the
students individually. The tutors gave the students some basic information
on writing a paper, and a lot of reassurance.

Kennedy-Crawford said it was a hurdle just to write about abstract
thoughts, as opposed to personal feelings. Many women, as part of their
recovery, keep diaries.

"I can do feelings but thinking is more difficult," she said. "I can't
think right now."

But she is learning.

"I was always in that quote 'special ed' class," Kennedy-Crawford
continued. "So I worried that my writing was not going to make sense. But
the tutor boosted my confidence and took out of my mind that thought,
'You're in special ed. You're not going to be able to do this.' "

On the last day of class, Reich, Satz and Nicole Sanchez, associate
director for Satz's Stanford program who organized the details of the
course, took the women to Fontana's in Menlo Park for a celebratory dinner.

The women, who normally wear T-shirts and sneakers to class, donned dresses
and wore makeup and did their hair. Between courses, they received
certificates of completion.

Everyone oohed and aahed over the certificates, in hard folders just like a
diploma, each printed with the student's name.

Olga Gaeta, 22, who never made it past the eighth grade, cried softly when
she received hers.

Several Stanford professors have volunteered to teach the class, which will
begin again in the fall and run on a quarter system. The Rev. Scotty
McLennan, Stanford's dean of religious life, will teach the class next
winter. And Sanchez would like to organize more classes and make this
project her full-time job.

"What we really need is funding," Satz said. "We're on a shoestring."

As for the women of Hope House, several have expressed interest in
returning to school.

"I think having Stanford professors is a real boost," said
Kennedy-Crawford. "I'm up there with college-fied folks. It makes me feel I
can go back and get that education. I'm going to start doing things the
'normies' do."