Building a Better Life out of Prison with Michael Santos Transformative Principal 068

I had the great opportunity to interview Michael Santos this week. He is a former convict who spent 26 years in prison for running drugs. He says he never touched the drugs, but organized other people to do it. Pretty amazing story.

Michael has a podcast out, now as well. He pipes it into the prison system to help people learn to change. You can learn a little bit more about Michael here: • PBS NewsHour (7-minute profile) • NBC Bay Area Proud (5-minute profile) • San Francisco Chronicle (Front-page profile)

We talk about the following:

How Michael became incarcerated.
How he had a change of heart.
Philosophy and Socrates.
Tweet: I needed a string to lead me out of the labyrinth. via @MichaelGSantos @TrnFrmPrincipal http://ctt.ec/B0z64+
Our system of corrections is designed to extinguish hope.
Michael’s 3 pronged plan:

Educate myself
Contribute to Society
Build a Support Network

Tweet: Every human being has the potential to become something amazing.
Students may see you and tune out the message because you are an authority figure.
Tweet: People thought they were insulting me by saying I wasn’t hard enough.
Using the socratic method.
Define the values students need.
Tweet: If they can define success, we can ask what we do to get you there.
There’s a path to a better life and it doesn’t happen by accident. Click to Tweet
Establishing values vs. defining values
Straight A Guide: Attitude, Aspiration, Action, Accountability, Awareness, Achievement, Appreciation
When people feel like they have no control, they are less likely to become the best they can be.
The Scandinavian system provides a panel to help acclimate the offender to society after a prison sentence.
We need an innovative disruptive approach to change things.
People want a better life, but don’t know how to get there.

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