Laura, was Mike there while you were at MMS? As I see it,from what I have heard, it appears that there are some very clear similarities between Mike's bullying and what you describe as Laurels bullying, would you agree? Or perhaps similar to Johns? I also want to point out that mockery, at least in my experience, was kind of an expected thing to some degree- for instance, i recall the first day i arrived at MMS and Mike was absolutely beside himself, greeting me with a knowing smile and a 'welcome to MT, it's you're lucky day' - he very much took pleasure in my misery and fear. I sensed that thorughout the entire time i was there- same with John (but perhaps in a less day to day torture kind of a way). So, I found both Mike and John to be quite sadistic, even Colleen and Deb to a lesser degree, but still in a very similar sense.
In La's defense, she was young and equally susecptable to the need to be approved by them- as we all were. I'm not excusing her behavior, but what I will say is that MMS created a structure by which we all functioned in an equally...power hungry (for lack of better term) manner. I could be wrong, but from what I recall it was much better to be the person calling a peer out, than being the one called out- there was respect to be had in that...and a certain amount of privildge and power. Senority (with staff approval, fo course) was the ultimate aim, and frequently that involved a ceratin amount of false superiority that gave way to the same abuse demonstrated by the staff reflected in the older students- the sense that they know better than you and in that way are superior. In a hierarchial structure such as MMS, I can't imagine it any other way...Maybe I lack imagination though- I would like to hear more about how things are run now. It's hard to envision the same power plays absent given so much of their philosophy is based on it. woa- much longer than i intended, sorry laura. You attended the reunion, so it would be great to hear your thoughts given your clarity and openess.
I'm sorry you had to go through that though. DId you feel like it interferred with your MMS experience, in a way? Would it have been different? Also, what years were you at MMS?
Anyway, what's that saying...'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' I think that sums up a great deal of the problem, as I see it.
best,
kat
[ This Message was edited by: katfish on 2005-08-29 13:12 ]