History question

[Anonymous]

Joe left first.

I'm a former student from the early 1970s. I obviously wasn't there at the time, but from what I heard from students who were, Ed engineered Joe's departure in a sort of coup d'état. This quickly backfired and the whole place imploded with a professional headmaster brought in and the Hyde philosophy jettisoned.

My personal view was always that Joe was absolutely crackers with an enormous ego, but sincere. Ed Legg was highly intelligent, but power hungry, arrogant and insincere.

Subsequently, I worked in Hong Kong in early 1985 with a recent college graduate from Bowdoin, small world, who's mother was brought in by the Board in the early 1980s to help evaluate Hyde School. Her surname was Ring and I believe she was a professor of education at Bowdoin. In any event, as I recall from several conversations with her daughter this individual spent a great deal of time interviewing Joe and Ed. She and the board concluded that Hyde was enormously destructive and if it wasn't shut down then Joe had to to go.  She viewed him as unstable and thought the Hyde environment was extremely unhealthy for children of any description.

I'm not at all surprised to read your analysis.  It sounds quite accurate and, sadly, your take on Hyde seems just as applicable today as it was years ago.  Joe Gauld's destructive influence and egocentric tendencies may be even more intense with the passage of time.

Just last week I heard about another lawsuit filed against Hyde by parents.  I don't know all the details, but it sounds like the parents pulled their kid out of Hyde because of what they concluded was a horribly abusive environment (emotional abuse in the form of some out-of-control staff who were demeaning, insulting and very unprofessional).  Perhaps details of this legal case will emerge.

[Anonymous]

Joe left first.

I'm a former student from the early 1970s. I obviously wasn't there at the time, but from what I heard from students who were, Ed engineered Joe's departure in a sort of coup d'état. This quickly backfired and the whole place imploded with a professional headmaster brought in and the Hyde philosophy jettisoned.

My personal view was always that Joe was absolutely crackers with an enormous ego, but sincere. Ed Legg was highly intelligent, but power hungry, arrogant and insincere.

Subsequently, I worked in Hong Kong in early 1985 with a recent college graduate from Bowdoin, small world, who's mother was brought in by the Board in the early 1980s to help evaluate Hyde School. Her surname was Ring and I believe she was a professor of education at Bowdoin. In any event, as I recall from several conversations with her daughter this individual spent a great deal of time interviewing Joe and Ed. She and the board concluded that Hyde was enormously destructive and if it wasn't shut down then Joe had to to go.  She viewed him as unstable and thought the Hyde environment was extremely unhealthy for children of any description.

I would have to agree with that accessment.  Joe and Ed were like reverse image harliquins of each other.   I personally like Joe, but I knew how to tip toe around him.  Some of the people that did not got slammed pretty hard and hate him.. I can not blame them for that.  Ed was/(is) an asshole in my book.  I had a very bad experiance with his duplicity.  He was a user par excelance.

 Please flame me for my spelling.  It is 7:00am CST( c as in china) and i just ran 6 miles. too lazy to spell check.

[Anonymous]

Very credible accessment...

[Anonymous]

Joe left first.

I'm a former student from the early 1970s. I obviously wasn't there at the time, but from what I heard from students who were, Ed engineered Joe's departure in a sort of coup d'état. This quickly backfired and the whole place imploded with a professional headmaster brought in and the Hyde philosophy jettisoned.

My personal view was always that Joe was absolutely crackers with an enormous ego, but sincere. Ed Legg was highly intelligent, but power hungry, arrogant and insincere.

Subsequently, I worked in Hong Kong in early 1985 with a recent college graduate from Bowdoin, small world, who's mother was brought in by the Board in the early 1980s to help evaluate Hyde School. Her surname was Ring and I believe she was a professor of education at Bowdoin. In any event, as I recall from several conversations with her daughter this individual spent a great deal of time interviewing Joe and Ed. She and the board concluded that Hyde was enormously destructive and if it wasn't shut down then Joe had to to go.  She viewed him as unstable and thought the Hyde environment was extremely unhealthy for children of any description.

I would have to agree with that accessment.  Joe and Ed were like reverse image harliquins of each other.   I personally like Joe, but I knew how to tip toe around him.  Some of the people that did not got slammed pretty hard and hate him.. I can not blame them for that.  Ed was/(is) an asshole in my book.  I had a very bad experiance with his duplicity.  He was a user par excelance.

 Please flame me for my spelling.  It is 7:00am CST( c as in china) and i just ran 6 miles. too lazy to spell check.

Where are you in China? I'm currently in Hong Kong for the week. Staying at the Excelsior.

[Anne Bonney]

Interesting reading.


http://www.educationnext.org/20051/22.html

Earlier this year, at the Hyde School, a private high school in Bath, Maine, dedicated to ?family-based character education,? I witnessed a confrontation in an 11th-grade honors English class the likes of which, it is safe to say, few educators or scholars have ever seen. The teacher, Barbara Perry, asked if everyone had finished reading the assigned novel, Edwidge Danticat?s The Farming of Bones. All but two of the dozen or so students had. It was a Monday, and Perry asked Brad, one of the two, if he had done any of the reading at all over the weekend.

?No,? said Brad. ?It was a really rough weekend for me. I?ve had a lot of trouble with believing in myself, and I?ve been trying to figure out where it comes from. Mr. Gauld [Malcolm Gauld, president and CEO of the Hyde Schools] thought it came from my father, and I should talk to him. I brought it up, and he got really upset.?

One of the kids jumped on Brad. ?You say you don?t believe in yourself, but you don?t give yourself an opportunity to believe in yourself. It?s like how you didn?t go to lacrosse practice on Saturday. I don?t know how not doing your work, not going to lacrosse, is going to make you believe in yourself.?

A chorus of ?uh-huh?s rose around the room. Miss Perry said gently, ?Do you know what you?re doing??

?Do I know what I?m doing?? Brad repeated, in a heartbreakingly toneless, defeated voice. ?Hardly.?

And now the other students tried to direct Brad to the deeper causes of his malaise. He was, they said, holding something back. ?I?m really worried about you,? said one of the girls.

A boy turned to Brad and said, ?I was talking about you to my mom yesterday?how you have this reputation for being the kid who fluctuates the most. It?s up to you whether you?re going to be in charge or not.?

Brad listened silently. Finally, he said, ?So I guess I should leave now??

?It?s up to you,? Miss Perry said. Brad pushed his chair back, gathered up his books, and left. And only then did the class begin to discuss The Farming of Bones.

Both students and teachers assured me that this exercise in tough love was nothing out of the ordinary at Hyde; several kids said that they had been on the receiving end of it themselves, to their lasting benefit. Radical truth telling, accompanied by an ethos of mutual responsibility known as ?Brother?s Keeper,? lies at the core of Hyde?s vision of character development. And these principles are meant to guide the conduct of not just the students but all the adults in what is very consciously referred to as ?the Hyde community??teachers, administrators, parents. Everyone is obliged to hold everyone else to the standards they themselves would wish to be held to. The Hyde experience is, if nothing else, exhausting.

[Anonymous]

And this has WHAT to do with the topic of the post?

[Anne Bonney]

Gives a good insight as to how Hyde works, since you don't seem to interested in attempting an answer.

[Anonymous]

If you read that article carefully and you have half a brain, then you can figure out that Hyde is a Cult.

[Anonymous]

Interesting reading.


http://www.educationnext.org/20051/22.html

Earlier this year, at the Hyde School, a private high school in Bath, Maine, dedicated to ?family-based character education,? I witnessed a confrontation in an 11th-grade honors English class the likes of which, it is safe to say, few educators or scholars have ever seen. The teacher, Barbara Perry, asked if everyone had finished reading the assigned novel, Edwidge Danticat?s The Farming of Bones. All but two of the dozen or so students had. It was a Monday, and Perry asked Brad, one of the two, if he had done any of the reading at all over the weekend.

?No,? said Brad. ?It was a really rough weekend for me. I?ve had a lot of trouble with believing in myself, and I?ve been trying to figure out where it comes from. Mr. Gauld [Malcolm Gauld, president and CEO of the Hyde Schools] thought it came from my father, and I should talk to him. I brought it up, and he got really upset.?

One of the kids jumped on Brad. ?You say you don?t believe in yourself, but you don?t give yourself an opportunity to believe in yourself. It?s like how you didn?t go to lacrosse practice on Saturday. I don?t know how not doing your work, not going to lacrosse, is going to make you believe in yourself.?

A chorus of ?uh-huh?s rose around the room. Miss Perry said gently, ?Do you know what you?re doing??

?Do I know what I?m doing?? Brad repeated, in a heartbreakingly toneless, defeated voice. ?Hardly.?

And now the other students tried to direct Brad to the deeper causes of his malaise. He was, they said, holding something back. ?I?m really worried about you,? said one of the girls.

A boy turned to Brad and said, ?I was talking about you to my mom yesterday?how you have this reputation for being the kid who fluctuates the most. It?s up to you whether you?re going to be in charge or not.?

Brad listened silently. Finally, he said, ?So I guess I should leave now??

?It?s up to you,? Miss Perry said. Brad pushed his chair back, gathered up his books, and left. And only then did the class begin to discuss The Farming of Bones.

Both students and teachers assured me that this exercise in tough love was nothing out of the ordinary at Hyde; several kids said that they had been on the receiving end of it themselves, to their lasting benefit. Radical truth telling, accompanied by an ethos of mutual responsibility known as ?Brother?s Keeper,? lies at the core of Hyde?s vision of character development. And these principles are meant to guide the conduct of not just the students but all the adults in what is very consciously referred to as ?the Hyde community??teachers, administrators, parents. Everyone is obliged to hold everyone else to the standards they themselves would wish to be held to. The Hyde experience is, if nothing else, exhausting.

Do you cite this as an endorsement of Hyde?  Read the rest of the article.  The author refers to Hyde's cult-ish qualities and clearly had major concerns about what happens at Hyde.

[Anonymous]

Interesting reading.


http://www.educationnext.org/20051/22.html

Earlier this year, at the Hyde School, a private high school in Bath, Maine, dedicated to ?family-based character education,? I witnessed a confrontation in an 11th-grade honors English class the likes of which, it is safe to say, few educators or scholars have ever seen. The teacher, Barbara Perry, asked if everyone had finished reading the assigned novel, Edwidge Danticat?s The Farming of Bones. All but two of the dozen or so students had. It was a Monday, and Perry asked Brad, one of the two, if he had done any of the reading at all over the weekend.

?No,? said Brad. ?It was a really rough weekend for me. I?ve had a lot of trouble with believing in myself, and I?ve been trying to figure out where it comes from. Mr. Gauld [Malcolm Gauld, president and CEO of the Hyde Schools] thought it came from my father, and I should talk to him. I brought it up, and he got really upset.?

One of the kids jumped on Brad. ?You say you don?t believe in yourself, but you don?t give yourself an opportunity to believe in yourself. It?s like how you didn?t go to lacrosse practice on Saturday. I don?t know how not doing your work, not going to lacrosse, is going to make you believe in yourself.?

A chorus of ?uh-huh?s rose around the room. Miss Perry said gently, ?Do you know what you?re doing??

?Do I know what I?m doing?? Brad repeated, in a heartbreakingly toneless, defeated voice. ?Hardly.?

And now the other students tried to direct Brad to the deeper causes of his malaise. He was, they said, holding something back. ?I?m really worried about you,? said one of the girls.

A boy turned to Brad and said, ?I was talking about you to my mom yesterday?how you have this reputation for being the kid who fluctuates the most. It?s up to you whether you?re going to be in charge or not.?

Brad listened silently. Finally, he said, ?So I guess I should leave now??

?It?s up to you,? Miss Perry said. Brad pushed his chair back, gathered up his books, and left. And only then did the class begin to discuss The Farming of Bones.

Both students and teachers assured me that this exercise in tough love was nothing out of the ordinary at Hyde; several kids said that they had been on the receiving end of it themselves, to their lasting benefit. Radical truth telling, accompanied by an ethos of mutual responsibility known as ?Brother?s Keeper,? lies at the core of Hyde?s vision of character development. And these principles are meant to guide the conduct of not just the students but all the adults in what is very consciously referred to as ?the Hyde community??teachers, administrators, parents. Everyone is obliged to hold everyone else to the standards they themselves would wish to be held to. The Hyde experience is, if nothing else, exhausting.

Much of what the Hyde PR machine touts sounds very good in theory.  And, I'll concede that during my time at Hyde I met some genuinely committed, dedicated professionals.  But there's no doubt in my mind that when you look at the big picture at Hyde you find so many examples of poorly qualified staff who mistreat students, staff who don't come close to living up to the Hyde ideals.  There are so many problems at Hyde that the nice sounding literature and speeches are misleading.  The good stories that come out of Hyde (I know there are some) are completely overshadowed by the tidal wave of bad stories.

Hyde reminds me a lot of what happened to Karl Marx's vision.  On paper the model sounds quite good.  But the implementation has been so flawed (see the former Soviet Union and China) that the system can't survive or live up to the ideals.  Sounds like Hyde to me.

[Anne Bonney]

That seems to be a common thread running through all of these places.  The basic model for this came from Synanon (although I'm not sure that any direct link can be traced the whole model of treatment is a chapter right out of Chuck Dederich's grand plan.  Cult all have the same basic characteristics.  See if any of this is familiar...

http://www.ex-cult.org/bite.html

http://www.ex-cult.org/General/singer-conditions

http://www.ex-cult.org/General/lifton-criteria

[Anonymous]

Joe left first.

I'm a former student from the early 1970s. I obviously wasn't there at the time, but from what I heard from students who were, Ed engineered Joe's departure in a sort of coup d'état. This quickly backfired and the whole place imploded with a professional headmaster brought in and the Hyde philosophy jettisoned.

My personal view was always that Joe was absolutely crackers with an enormous ego, but sincere. Ed Legg was highly intelligent, but power hungry, arrogant and insincere.

Subsequently, I worked in Hong Kong in early 1985 with a recent college graduate from Bowdoin, small world, who's mother was brought in by the Board in the early 1980s to help evaluate Hyde School. Her surname was Ring and I believe she was a professor of education at Bowdoin. In any event, as I recall from several conversations with her daughter this individual spent a great deal of time interviewing Joe and Ed. She and the board concluded that Hyde was enormously destructive and if it wasn't shut down then Joe had to to go.  She viewed him as unstable and thought the Hyde environment was extremely unhealthy for children of any description.

I would have to agree with that accessment.  Joe and Ed were like reverse image harliquins of each other.   I personally like Joe, but I knew how to tip toe around him.  Some of the people that did not got slammed pretty hard and hate him.. I can not blame them for that.  Ed was/(is) an asshole in my book.  I had a very bad experiance with his duplicity.  He was a user par excelance.

 Please flame me for my spelling.  It is 7:00am CST( c as in china) and i just ran 6 miles. too lazy to spell check.

Where are you in China? I'm currently in Hong Kong for the week. Staying at the Excelsior.

I was just in SIngapore for twelve days, before that twelve in Taiwan.
I am back in the states now.  I miss asia already.  I bought a coffee at O'hare.  Jesus Christmas tree!  Nasty attitude with your coffee.  I liked the Mayla girl at the Starbucks in Suntek City.  She remebered how I drank my coffee, called me "Sir" and smiled.  At that and no tip jar. They are working 2x the hours that americans work for half the pay AND have a better attitude about it.  SE asia is going to kick our lazy american asses. They are already.  I was there moving a manufacturing set up from the US.

[Anonymous]

thats right you figgured it out, hyde controles our minds because we all haveto wear button down shirts every day(just like every other boarding school)  and we have to share all our feelings, that is a lie, i didn't and i spent 3 years there.  so oh no you figured us out

[Anonymous]

So button-down shirts are the real core issue of Hyde's problem, I guess.

[Anonymous]

What about ties... are they part of the problem too?