From Sports Reporter to Prison Teacher: What Ralph Jackman Wasn’t Prepared For

A reflection from Ralph Jackman, author of Detention.

For many years, I lived my childhood dream of being a sports reporter. My career took me from the ABC in Perth, to London and New York. Whether interviewing my cricketing heroes or being at the home of golf, St. Andrews, to report on Tiger Woods’ 2000 Open Championship triumph, I doubted whether work could get any better. But it did - when I went behind bars.  

After reaching my half century, I retrained as a high school teacher. I anticipated a job teaching history in a mainstream Melbourne school. But my first offer came from the school within the maximum-security Parkville Youth Justice Precinct. One student struggled to process my change of professions. ‘Hang on!’ he said. ‘You gave up watching sport to teach us?! And they reckon we’re f***** in the head.’  

When I started at Parkville I expected upturned desks, thrown chairs, verbal abuse and violent threats. There would be a bit of all of that. But it was the surprising moments that made the biggest impression: the time a 15-year-old car thief told me he wanted to learn to read, the student who took his campaign for a precinct library all the way to the Victorian Education Minister and the repeat offender whose poetry nearly moved me to tears. These young people, I quickly realised, weren’t irredeemably bad. They were like other teenagers, the main difference being that many of them had childhoods few of us could imagine.  

In the early months, I was a floundering fish out of water. My upbringing in the privileged bubble of Sydney’s Upper North Shore, not to mention two years of teacher training, hadn’t prepared me for Parkville’s unique challenges. But I slowly found my feet thanks to remarkable colleagues, including the courageous youth justice workers. While teaching at Parkville was immensely rewarding, I became increasingly aware of a broken system denying my students access to education and inflicting harm on them through practices such as isolation and solitary confinement. I faced a difficult choice - fight on their behalf or fall in line. My decision came at a high professional and personal cost.   

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Detention

by Ralph Jackman

A powerful and moving memoir about how the youth detention system is letting down our most desperate and damaged kids, and how one rookie teacher fought the system on their behalf. Explosive, heart-breaking, inspiring.

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