NOTICE: I AM NOT A HYDE REPRESENTATIVE AND DO NOT SPEAK FOR HYDE. THE FOLLOWING IS SIMPLY MY PERSONAL OPINION. SINCE THE SUBJECT MATTER IS VERY COMPLEX, WHAT I WRITE WILL BE NECESSARILY INCOMPLETE!
Dear Potential Hyde Parents:
Based on my experiences at Hyde as a student, intern and aliumni, I am an unabashed Hyde Fan. Realizing it is not worth my time to respond ad naseaum to every statement made on this website, I thought I would write my peace (sic) and leave you to make your own informed opinion.
1. THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION YOU WILL EVER MAKE, is a decision that you make over and over, every day, and that is how to best care for your child. I commend you for getting to this site and for putting the most possible effort you can into making yourself the best parent possible and making the smartest, most imformed, most humane, most loving decisions you can for your child.
2. IMHO, THIS WEBSITE HAS A DOMINANTLY NEGATIVE BIAS. This website is full of people with a lot of mixed motives. Fundamentally, this is not a website for people to come and express pro's and con's, this is primarily a website for people who either (a) did not have a good experience at Hyde, or (b) have no relationship to Hyde, but have a political agenda about all schools they believe could be Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform schools. What you will not get here is a lot of the people who are Hyde supporters, NOR an ability to determine relative numbers.
3. RESULT OF WEBSITE BIAS - THE CON. I do not discount some of the things said on this side by families who went to Hyde, but my experience is that the results are fairly skewed. People who had a good experience with something typically don't spend a lot of time looking for a place to go rave about it. They send in their annual alumni contributions, they read school newsletters, and they remember their experience with the full range of emotions that it meant to them.
4. RESULT OF WEBSITE BIAS - THE NUMBERS. One of the questions you must face then, is whether you are reading the views of a vocal minority, or something more systemic. Many on this website will presume to answer that for you. I don't really know the answer quantitatively, I simply have my own long-term experience with Hyde that says there a LOT of people for whom Hyde was profound and life-transforming. I know that Hyde has been somewhat contraversial, but has generally received aplomb in the national press, that many of Hyde's alum have gone on to be leaders in society (business, politics, etc.) and for what its worth, the children of a good number of rich and famous have and are attending Hyde.
5. MOTIVES OF PARTICIPANTS. As a result of the inherent and structural bias and nature of the beast, it may seem like a large number of people are dissatisfied. Truth is, since almost everyone here is anonymous, it is hard to determine numbers, have a meaningful discussion, or ascertain bias. Clearly, some just want a place to blow off steam about their experiences at Hyde. I support that. Some are out to change the world, and I support that as well, but I would caution you to take any comment of an anonymous participant with a grain of salt (and mine too for that matter)!
6. HYDE IS HARD. I don't think Hyde is for everyone, and if you are looking for a fix it school and are not willing to look at yourself and grow as part of the process, Hyde is probably not for you.
7. THEORY. I think some of the posters on this website may have encountered some level of abuse. And on some level, that happens at every school, public/private/alternative. Right or wrong, I also think that many of the most angry and vocal simply never got it. By it I mean, they never understand the "whys" of Hyde's process in any deep soulful way, and certainly never embraced its principles. As you might be aware, the human psche is a heavily defended creature, and people will go to great lengths to have to avoid taking a real look at themselves, their family, their lives and then tell the truth about it. Some here don't even see this as important or anyone else's business. And some of these people self-confess to blaming Hyde for their station in life 30 years later. That alone should, IMHO, give you pause. And if you do a search for my posts on this site, you will see discussions where others make fairly outrageous claims, that so far have turned out to be bald-faced lies. This should also give you pause enough to realize that angry people do no always tell the truth (nor do brainwashed people as no doubt I will be accused of being), so as there might be clear motivations for any pro or con comment to be either an exaggeration or outright fabrication, you must decide veracity for yourself!
8. THE TEST. Here is a really simple test for you. For any claim here that really bothers you, call Hyde and see what they have to say. Go up and stay at the school for a few days and talk to random people and see what they have to say. Ask to speak to someone on 2-4. Ask about any scandal you want. If you are answered openly and honestly then you got your answer, but trust that you will know what's honest and what isn't without having to take the word of an anonymous poster. Here is my belief: The truly abusive schools are closed societies. They will not let you in to observe anything closely, and will pretend to give you reason why. NEVER TRUST YOUR CHILD TO ANY SCHOOL THAT WON'T LET YOU SEE EVERY PIECE OF IT, AND IF THAT INCLUDES HYDE, SO BE IT, BUT I DON'T THINK IT DOES. The point is, don't take anyone's word that it will or won't, just go ask! If you don't like what you see and they can't explain it to your satisfaction, then again, its probably not for you.
9. MAJOR HYDE PROBLEMS (ALLEGED AND OTHERWISE).
a. Faculty Turnover. This is a real issue, but its not necessarily a scandal. I don't know the real numbers, not sure anyone here does, and you should ask for those. But in the same way Hyde is tough for students and families, it is tough for faculty. It requires a commitment way above and beyond the usual teacher, probably for less pay (at least per hour), and like some families where there is not a good fit, I am sure some staff are selected only to discover its not a good fit.
b. Academics. I don't have a sense of how Hyde really ranks currently. I do see the annual list of where the graduates are going to college....and the list is long and the college selection seems applicably broad-based. Hyde probably isn't an Ivy League feeder, but (if I recall correctly) has maybe a few each year who achieve that as well.
c. One-Size-Fits-All Approach. I get a little confused by this comment. Pretty much every school has this, include public and prep. I think this comment more appropriately translates into, this school operates on a certain belief system I didn't like or don't agree with. For sure there are schools with basically no structure (free schools), and schools where you can get one-on-one guidance and support for your child ($$$$$), but otherwise, in the realm of financial reason, you will be forced to choose a school with a bias. And that bias will be applied across the board. Its the only cost effective way to run a school. It really comes down to, what are the rules and expectations for me as a parent, and for my child as a student, and do they fit my own vision.
d. FIX-MY-TEEN-INDUSTRY. Some on this site will tell you that Hyde fits into the fix my teen industry. I disagree. To the extent that is someone's perception, I think they are wrong about Hyde--and a good reason they failed there is because the family wouldn't grow with the teen. Personally, I was rejected from admittance to Hyde because my family was not ready to grow with me. I saw this happen in a number of cases, and part of the reason the interview is so intensive is that Hyde will not just accept anyone, so they are evaluating the entire family in the interview process to see if the conditions needed for collective change are present. IMHO, the real fix-my-teen industry wants your money, puts the child into harsh conditions to make them grow up and then presents the finished product back to the parents for approval. (Read some of the posts on the Seed forum to this effect.)
e. HYDE'S TOUGH LOVE. On the topic of tough love, and whether it works for all, I would say, lets first define what we are talking about, and to agree that of course, no one program works for everyone. On the first part, what seems to happen in many families is that they set standards of acceptable behavior outside of which certain behaviors will incur certain consequences. When pressed, however, many parents are not will to step up and implement those consquences when the child test these boundaries, resulting in the child believing boundaries don't need to be respected. For me "tough love" is just a unphemism for, we Hyde school require of both ourselves and you the parents to live up to our own and your own stated consequences with the child, however hard that may be.
f. Scandals. This one seems a bit amazing to me. The only reason why a lot of information about Hyde is public is because much more than most institutions which I have experienced in my life, they air their dirty laundry. Every school and I would argue every person has it, its just whether or not they hold it in or let it out. Hyde may not always achieve this, but (again IMHO) they sincerely try to hold themselves to the same standards as the students and resond accordingly. Many will take issue with this, but the evidence should speak for itself.
g. LGATs. One member on this list will simply regurgitate how HYDE's process uses LGATs and how those have been completely discredited. From wikipedia: "Large Group Awareness Training or LGAT is a mechanism for promoting awareness change and rapid, thorough commitment to a cause or idea. LGATs tend to be brief but intense sessions of a few hours or days in which, ideally, participants adopt the message of the 'training' promptly and enthusiastically. Historically, LGAT origins trace back, at least in part, to the encounter group movement of the 1960s. Current examples of LGAT programs would include Landmark Education, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Lifespring, Tony Robbins seminars, etc."
This definition certainly does not apply to Hyde, nor are the listed items inherently bad (NLP is in fact used by many therapists today, and is widely viewed as a very viable medium for change). For the bad ones (EST/LANDMARK FORUM), Hyde is in no meaningful way similar to these programs. The key thing to note about the anonymous person continually posting about LGATS is the lack of definition, lack of posted references, and and lack of indentification which parts of HYDE's program might fall therein.
The best article I found on the topic is at
http://skepdic.com/lgsap.html and I reiterate, by this definition, these types of LGAT have no commonality with Hyde's process. [EDIT: Found another great piece on LGATs.....
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eldon.braun/awa ... lgat1.html -- and these again are completely different from they Hyde experience in seminars.]
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I will add onto this post in the future, but this is a start and I will try and keep it fresh rather that debating anonymous streams of people who never attended Hyde, or attended and had troubles for good reasons, or even those with legitimate beefs. Again no school or system is 100% perfect.
I hope this has been of some help.
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FOLLOW ON NOTES:
Just so you can keep track of the profiles here:
TommyFromHyde1: He went to Hyde for Summer School and 1/2 a school year, running away three times, the last in January of 1977! His desire to shut down Hyde and any similar schools because 30 years later he's just getting in touch with his feelings. His real name is Tom Allan. He posts a lot of stuff on here like he knows Hyde inside out.
Sample Post URL:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... tart=#1253 Post URL:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... =30#112674Oppositional Defiance: Likely a former Marine. AKA
Black Francis the 2nd
Email-
[email protected]One time I was sent on 2-4 because my SONOFABITCH "friend" Rob Ebling ratted out to Dean's Area that I told him that I knew that Jesse Wang had cigarrettes. This was during a "bust". During a bust sometimes half the fucking school would be on 2-4.
Antigen: Runs this website and has a vested interest in promoting anything she thinks is part of the troubled teen industry. Never went to Hyde.
[ This Message was edited by: HydeFan on 2005-11-11 02:06 ]