"I've never felt any fear," says a young theology student who teaches basic education to inmates at the Atlanta Penitentiary. "I know that if circumstances changed, I could be in danger, but all my students have always been so courteous that I can't imagine being afraid."

John Speaks, a first year student at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, spends his mornings in classes at Emory. From about 12:30 to 9:30 p.m. he is inside what he calls a substitute for Alcatraz. He teaches four classes of prison inmates in the adult education program of the Atlanta and Fulton County Boards of Education.

Although he teaches the standard skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, he sees his role as largely one of counseling. His job, he believes, should be one of helping the men build up their own self-respect.

"The physical conditions there are not the best that could be desired, but the psychological conditions are horrible," Mr. Speaks commented. "Because the men have been treated like children all their lives, there's a real lack of personal and emotional dignity."

"For some of the inmates, even the rehabilitation program is a form of psychological violence," he believes. "It is ridiculous to say that the educational or rehabilitation programs will help these people get better jobs. I find it almost impossible to believe that a man who earns $50,000 selling drugs would want to work in a laundry or to repair automobiles, but these are the highest status jobs for which the prison can train them.

"Instead of taking the talents the men do have and directing them into ways of using these talents legally, the rehabilitation program appears to tell them that they've failed in not accepting a lower social status."

Mr. Speaks, who has a bachelor's degree in the history of Greek religion from Harvard, hopes eventual to enter a Ph.D. program in religion and to teach at the college level. Teaching at the penitentiary is "fascinating," he said.

"The whole situation there presents an opportunity for expanding our own ideas about what education is and what people can do," Mr. Speaks said. "Most people believe education must be absorbed in steps. You learn Roman numerals in the fourth grade and then read about Dick and Jane. But adults can reason better than children. They don't have to go through all the steps.

"The prison inmates are not idiots and they're not children. They have a great deal of experience and knowledge and could be introduced to things much more rapidly.

"What's needed for a successful education program is not more money or more gimmicks, but better intent. This is true, of course, outside the prison as well."

Mr. Speaks criticized the use of the general equivalency diploma as the standard of education in the prison. "It tests things like who was the second president of the United States. If they pass that test, then they're acclaimed educated by the standards of society.

"Standards like these don't aim at psychological or spiritual wholeness, and the prisoners see them as phony. Many of these men are psychologically damaged, but they have certain resources -- insights and feelings -- that make them very attractive people. I only hope I can help them build psychological wholeness.