Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Hyde Schools

the HYDE FOUNDATION: bringing LGATs into Public Schools

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Ursus:
Outside of the florid descriptives churned out via Hyde School public relations sound bites, I guess I've been hard pressed to really put into words what the Hyde Foundation actually does. Another new Hyde website (at least new to me) splashes some light on that dark corner of my soul. This endeavor is in part orchestrated, no doubt, by the indefatigably loyal Mark Murrell, who has apparently rejoined the flock, in keystroke if not in flesh.

To put it bluntly, in bruin speak, one mission of the Hyde Foundation is to incorporate Hyde's version of the Hoffman Process and sundry other LGAT and group management techniques into the the American public school system. Hyde's version of the Hoffman Process is, of course, a lot more comprehensive snake oil than what even the Hoffman Institute dishes out. Cult afficionados reading this, however, will be tickled pink to learn just how much of the Hoffman jargon and schtick has survived the translation intact.

To start off, here is the alleged Hyde Foundation mission, as stated on their homepage:

The mission of the Hyde Foundation is to establish a better way to prepare American youth for life by introducing and then developing the Hyde character development program in schools, families, and communities nation-wide.

At the center of our philosophy of character development lies the belief that every individual has a unique potential. Our schools and programs are designed to enable every member of a community to explore the depth and breadth of this individual potential. We are inspired as we see students, families and teachers grow in confidence as they take on new challenges and develop their capacity as learners and leaders.

http://www.hydepublicschools.org/[/list]

And here are the brief bios of key personnel:

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Hyde Foundation Staff

Joanne W. Goubourn, MA, ABD
Executive Director
Head of School – Hyde Leadership Charter School, Bronx, New York
jgauld@hyde.edu

Joe founded Hyde Schools in 1966. He has worked tirelessly since then to make the Hyde education available in a high quality format to students across the United States and the world. He directly assisted in the founding of 5 Hyde Schools and 2 additional schools with a character foundation. The character philosophy that underpins the teaching and learning at Hyde Schools was established by Joe who worked continuously with the schools communities to further innovate his philosophy of character development. In 1974, he established the first Hyde School Family Learning Center which brought parents to the center of the school community because of his recognition that parents are the primary teachers of students; therefore, school programs should include and impact parents.

Joe delivers high impact lectures and seminars regarding the Hyde Schools core belief in each individual's unique potential. He is a team member for the Foundation training retreats and visits schools to evaluate, teach and inspire.

Malcolm W. Gauld
Co-author of The Biggest Job We'll Ever Have
President, Hyde Schools
sdupree@hyde.edu

Dr. Sandra J. DuPree serves as Director of Academic Development for the Hyde Foundation Public School Initiative. As Director, with 14 years of experience in Washington, D.C. and New York City Public Schools as a teacher, principal, professor of education and consultant, she works with schools to develop the academic foundation and components needed to ensure quality schools and academic success.

Sandra brings insight and clarity with her ability to see what a school needs to do to enhance the learning of every child. Her expertise at melding components of character education inextricably into the academic content establishes a classroom where the whole child is being taught, challenged and nurtured to his or her best. Sandra brings an understanding of excellence as an achievable state for a school, regardless of alleged scarcity of time and resources.

Prior to her tenure as Director of Academic Development, Sandra served as Director of Program Quality at The After-School Corporation (TASC) and New Leaders for New Schools, where she oversaw initiatives and quality standards by which after-school programs are measured and evaluated. Previously, Dr. DuPree served as the founding elementary director at Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.

Jennifer H. Burns, Ed.M.
Director of Training and Program Development
jtracey@hyde.edu

As Program Assistant and a new member of the Hyde family, Janine develops the most efficient and cost effective systems to facilitate the expansion of the Hyde Foundation's Public School Initiative nationwide. She brings a wealth of experience as an Administrator and Educator in the corporate and non-profit sectors, and is committed to improving the educational landscape to help young people achieve academic excellence.

Anonymous:

--- Quote ---Joe delivers high impact lectures and seminars regarding the Hyde Schools core belief in each individual's unique potential. He is a team member for the Foundation training retreats and visits schools to evaluate, teach and inspire.
--- End quote ---

These biographies sound like something you'd find on a "Life Coaching" site. "High impact lectures"... "team member"... "expert at establishing and maintaining a character culture"...

Ursus:
The page below, from the Hyde Foundation's website, made me think of Lifton's 6th Criteria for Thought Reform, i.e., "Loading the Language":

"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis."
 
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, page 429).[/list]

Changingminds.org describes it this way:


--- Quote ---Loaded language

New words and language are created to explain the new and profound meanings that have been discovered. Existing words are also hijacked and given new and different meaning.

This is particularly effective due to the way we think a lot through language. The consequence of this is that the person who controls the meaning of words also controls how people think. In this way, black-and-white thinking is embedded in the language, such that wrong-doers are framed as terrible and evil, whilst those who do right (as defined by the group) are perfect and marvellous.

The meaning of words are kept hidden both [sic] from the outside world, giving a sense of exclusivity. The meaning of special words may also be revealed in careful illuminatory rituals, where people who are being elevated within the order are given the power of understanding this new language.
--- End quote ---


Bold emphasis and italics added to "The List" below for the sake of clarity.

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Our Approach

The Hyde practices of character development are designed to be part of a total community engagement in the pursuit of individual unique potential. Hyde School founder, Joseph Gauld, instituted 5 Words and 5 Principles to be the foundation of programming and conversations about personal development among all members of the community. Additionally, he defined the school community to include not only the students and teachers, but also the parents of the students.

Character development is not confined to certain times of the day, or to the students alone. Every member of the community is supported and challenged to develop their potential to the fullest. Because shared language strengthens the ties of a community, we focus our conversations about potential through using our 5 Words and 5 Principles.

The Five Words:

Curiosity
I am responsible for my learning.[/list]
Courage
I learn the most about myself through challenge and taking risks.[/list]
Concern
I need a challenging and supportive community to develop my character.[/list]
Leadership
I am a leader by asking the best of myself and others.[/list]
Integrity
I am gifted with a unique potential. Conscience is my guide to uncovering it.[/list]

The Five Principles:

Destiny
Each of us is gifted with a unique potential.[/list]
Humility
We believe in a power and purpose beyond ourselves.[/list]
Conscience
We attain our best through character and conscience.[/list]
Truth
Truth is our primary guide.[/list]
Brother's Keeper
We help others to achieve their best.[/list]

While all Hyde Schools engage in particular practices to create and maintain a character culture, the strength of our ultimate impact on student learning is equally derived from the integration of the language and intent of the Words and Principles into every corner and activity of the school. Student learning is strengthened more still through the engagement of the family in reinforcing the concepts and the expectations derived from those concepts.

Ursus:
Make sure those parents are in line with the program! "Parents and teachers must understand and deliver common messages of excellence and integrity." Otherwise, cracking down on the kid is liable to be less effective.

The problem is, when kids get abuse at home, in addition to abuse through their school environment, they are hardly predisposed towards lives as "robustly engaged adults in the 21st century!"

Where's the accountability and integrity on the part of Hyde School? Hyde tolerates and even sanctions all kinds of abuse, as long as the perpetrator drinks their Kool-Aid. You could even call them a "character cult," lol!

Think you can take the message without being affected by the messenger? Think again; that's never as easy as it sounds. There's all sorts of tricks to rope you in, e.g., creating a false sense of community that you don't want to be left out of, making you feel like a loser for not even "trying," raising the holy mantra of "your kid's best interests"... all LGAT methodologies.

'Cause when all is said and done, that's precisely what this is: Large Group Awareness Training. They may not charge the public sector for "taster sessions" in the beginning ... but "free info" is NOT where they are headed.

Much of the source material towards the end is from The Biggest Job®. Note the "Consulting Services" section at the very end.

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Developing a Personalized Parent Program with Hyde Foundation

The Hyde Foundation parenting program is designed to unite families and schools to support and challenge our children to reach their potential. Parents and teachers must understand and deliver common messages of excellence and integrity. Hyde Schools have included family in the education of students since the early 1970s. The Hyde Foundation works with schools to develop individualized programs using proven strategies to support the conversation between home and school in order to prepare children for lives as robustly engaged adults in the 21st century.

Children will need to have the life skills identified by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org) of leadership, ethics and personal responsibility, among others. It has become a well-researched understanding that parent involvement in schools, as well as the home environment itself, has a strong impact on student success. (http://www.csos.jhu.edu/P2000/research.htm) In 2007, ETS published a report titled "The Family: America's Smallest School." In this document, the authors pull together the current research regarding the affect of family resources on a child’s learning. From their conclusion,

Long before schools begin their jobs, however, teaching and learning take place in the family. The quality of that home and family teaching makes a large difference in how much children know and how ready they are to learn when they get to school. Home and family experiences and conditions continue to influence learning, too, once children start school.[/list]

Parents need to know not only to tell their children to turn off the television, but also why this is important. They need support from the school and other parents in order to build a strong, positive family culture that withstands tantrums, parent fatigue, and stresses of the environment and economy. Through the 10 Priorities of Parenting of Hyde Schools1, parents will learn to establish a vision for their parenting that is grounded in the reality of what children face and in the dreams they support their children to achieve. Parent meetings at the school will provide the supportive and challenging community that parents need to do the best job they are able. The home is the critical connecting point for children between their multiple communities.

Intuitively, we know that we need support and challenge from our peers to maximize our use of our innate abilities. Great athletic teams model the importance of teamwork in creating synergy that surpasses the abilities of any single player. There is an increasing amount of research that puts proof behind this intuition ("In Good Company," Cohen and Prusak, 2007. "Making Democracy Work," Putnam, 1993). By creating a dependable link between school and home, we strengthen the lessons of each. With this program, we implement a dependable model to connect home and family, in order to clearly communicate their shared messages of the importance of social responsibility, self-direction, accountability and other life skills.

Nation-wide the trend of separation between school and home is changing as school districts recognize the importance of the research on the impact of family situation on student-learning. In order to best help our students, to prepare them to contribute to a 21st century economy; we must integrate the school-home connection into our school priorities. Not only is there research that illuminates the current deficit in connecting parents into student learning, there is also research on programs that effectively address this issue.

Our intent is to connect schools and parents in a collaborative partnership to strengthen the learning of our children. We understand that this is an investment in individual children, but also in our state and country as we educate children to be productive 21st century citizens.

FRAMEWORKS

1 The 10 Priorities of Parenting from The Biggest Job We'll Ever Have: The Hyde School Program for Character-Based Education and Parenting (Gauld & Gauld, 2002)

1. Truth over Harmony2. Principles over Rules3. Attitude over Aptitude4. Set High Expectations and Let Go of Outcomes5. Value Success and Failure6. Allow Obstacles to Become Opportunities7. Take Hold and Let Go8. Create a Character Culture9. Humility to Ask for and Accept Help10. Inspiration – Job #1
The 6 types of parent involvement from National Network of Partnership Schools:

TYPE 1--PARENTING: Assist families with parenting and child-rearing skills, understanding child and adolescent development, and setting home conditions that support children as students at each age and grade level. Assist schools in understanding families.

TYPE 2--COMMUNICATING: Communicate with families about school programs and student progress through effective school-to-home and home-to-school communications.

TYPE 3--VOLUNTEERING: Improve recruitment, training, work, and schedules to involve families as volunteers and audiences at the school or in other locations to support students and school programs.

TYPE 4--LEARNING AT HOME: Involve families with their children in learning activities at home, including homework and other curriculum-linked activities and decisions.

TYPE 5--DECISION MAKING: Include families as participants in school decisions, governance, and advocacy through PTA/PTO, school councils, committees, and other parent organizations.

TYPE 6--COLLABORATING WITH THE COMMUNITY: Coordinate resources and services for families, students, and the school with businesses, agencies, and other groups, and provide services to the community.

 

 

SCOPE OF CONSULTING SERVICES

1. Leadership Consultation: Work with the school leadership to establish specific goals and timeline unique to the school.2. Parent Presentations: Our presenters are available to deliver programs using the 10 Priorities.3. Training to use the 10 Priorities: Parents, teachers and facilitator training for flexible use of the 10 Priorities to guide parents.4. Sample schedules and activities for Family Days at the school.5. Sample schedules and activities for parent/student weekend retreats.6. Teacher training on communication with parents: specific tools as well as well as intention to partnership.7. Parent Leadership Group: Guidance to development of parent leadership group to support home/school communication, program delivery and parent participation.
RECOMMENDED PROGRAMS

1. Parent Program at school every 4 – 6 weeks.2. Family Days twice a year to include parents and students.3. Parents as classroom volunteers and presenters.4. Weekly communication between classroom and home.5. Student-led conferences.6. Family homework to facilitate communication.

Ursus:
The central portion of the Hyde Foundation website has a blog. Most of the entries thus far are signed by Jennifer Burns. The first one is not signed, but I am guessing it's either from Burns or Joanne Goubourn, judging by the following two blurbs: the first from the "Hyde Foundation" section of Hyde's main website, the second from what listed on the program for the 9th Annual Charter School Conference:


--- Quote ---FOUNDATION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TO PRESENT AT 2009 NATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOLS CONFERENCE
Joanne Goubourn, executive director of the Hyde Foundation and Head of School at Hyde-Bronx, has been selected as a presenter at the annual National Charter Schools Conference which is the only national gathering of the entire charter school community. Ms. Goubourn's topic is Hyde Leadership: Creating a Character Culture at a Charter School. For more information about the conference, visit their web site at http://www.nationalcharterconference.org.
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---Title:   Hyde Leadership: Creating a Character Culture at a Charter School
Strand:   Strand 1: Charter School Design and Instruction
Description:   Joanne Goubourn, Head of School at Hyde Leadership Charter School, Bronx, NY, and members of the Hyde-Bronx school community, lead an informative, interactive workshop on creating and maintaining a strong culture-among students, teachers, administrators, and parents-in schools focusing on character development.
Presenter(s):   Jennifer Burns (Hyde Foundation), Joanne Goubourn (Hyde Leadership Charter School)
Location:   102A, Washington DC CC
Time:   Tuesday 6/23 3:15 PM - 4:30 PM
--- End quote ---

So... here is that first blog entry from the Hyde Foundation:

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03/02/2009
Creating A Character Culture

Recently in completing a speakers form for a conference, I was stymied by the check boxes that asked me to indicate whether my topic covered classroom methods, assessment, social-emotional learning, or leadership, among other options. "ALL," I wanted to check, and I wanted to make a noisy checkmark. Our topic of "Creating a Character Culture" touches aspects of everything that happens in a school community. While we can tuck the conversation easily into social-emotional learning, engaging character education involves every aspect of teaching and learning. As teachers, when we grapple with how to best cover a learning standard, we know we have to consider the personal characteristics of our students, including focus, determination, and the ability to work with others, along with background knowledge, aptitudes, learning styles, as we craft a unit that will meaningfully and productively engage every person in the class. It is an intricate mixture that takes focus, creativity and planning. We challenge ourselves to come to class each day expecting and demanding the best from our students.

That is what it is to be engaged with character education – all wrapped up in a single sentence. We challenge ourselves to come to class each day expecting and demanding the best from our students. This can't done without a combination of self-reflection and high level teaching skills.


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