The Banned Books That Create Us

I got a digital copy of the writer's guide that PEN America mails out recently. By digital copy, I mean they mailed a print letter to the gaping maw of the digital ingest chute for Florida Department of Corrections detainees, located in Tampa, FL; the ingest chute fed their letter to a scanner with optical character recognition to read the letter for words and phrases that are banned (like "get educated", "learn useful things to better yourself", or "smarter" (/s)); messages that are not flagged are then sent onward to the appropriate inbox so I can get it from my tablet or the dorm kiosk.

It's through that letter that I've found encouragement to broach a subject with the educational counselor here: I am tired of seeing grown men who do not even have the most basic of computer skills in a world that increasingly requires them for even menial jobs. I want to push for a course that teaches people how to use even a basic computer, how to type, etc.

My vocational class, Technology Support Services, is being used for that, but really is not designated for it -- we're intended to be a computer sciences class. Our curriculum, what little we have materials for, has been dumbed down to participation trophy level, hamstringing those who want advanced material in order to not alienate the absolute beginner.

Our root problem, however, is materials in general. Computers and Books, of which we students cannot even get the books ourselves from the outside with our people's money (thanks, FDC Literature Review Committee (/s)), are both sorely lacking.

Letters, in that same vein, are under active attack by the Department of Corrections. We use "digital mail" to enrich companies like Securus and ViaPath, being punished with exorbitant prices just to get what used to just arrive during a mail call on paper. We're feeding a colossal database, and perhaps even an AI model or twelve with samples of handwriting, with printed letters that strip privacy from mothers and sons, daughters and their children, fathers frequently held behind miles of wire... but this post isn't about that crime.

I want to propose the following:
I would like to see some space set aside for people who know nothing at all about computers, to come down once or twice a week and sit in front of a (perhaps donated) machine running Windows 11, Linux, or macOS, and learn how to use and navigate the system.
Class could cover basics, like here's how to... turn it on, turn it off, run a program/app, open a browser (and queries like 'wutz a browser, cuh??' get answered in Simple English), and teach them how to type.
Split beginners out of courses like our TSS course, which should be reserved for people who have these basic skills already and want to do more than learn computing basics -- it's a class that was supposed to be modeled on a college level computer sciences course, after all!

I would love to use a center like this to teach basic typing skills, and help beginners develop these by letting them type letters to home (a return to the typewriter days of old, effectively).

The best part of this is that the software requirements are zero-cost.
Linux distributions are largely free, and there are plenty of authors and organizations who have made their ebooks legally available for free. Bringing these resources together, a Computers 101 class could be built and offered, putting people in a position to get used to a computer without being drowned in the guts of the hardware and software sides simultaneously.
Meanwhile, it would also provide resources to the more advanced class, making it possible for that cohort to learn together and advance without being held back by less curious starters.

Not likely to happen.

With MTC running the show at this camp, getting staff to agree that a program of this sort should start would be like one person hitting jackpots for the US PowerBall and Mega Millions, the UK Set For Life, and the EU EuroMillions all in the same week. Your odds are so infinitesimally minute as to be nonexistent.
Maybe when their contract ends and the new company comes in, they'll see the logic of building the very creature I suggested, and provide the books and ebooks necessary to do so.

Until then, the banned books will continue to shape us, blinded to the knowledge that could advance us.