I really didn't think that Hyde School was as bad as it seems here. (The "torture" of an audition-- I mean, come on!) I went there because I fought with my mom often. It was nice to be in a place with clear expectations, even if some of those expectations required me to be overly personal-- I'm a writer, so that doesn't bother me.
I was also exposed to some sports that became passions later. Not all of the rules were my favorites, but I knew where I stood. And if I needed to rebel, I simply wore a long jacket to dinner with nothing underneath. Then, I could smile a little bigger when I got confronted in a long conversation with a Gauld, knowing that I had a little harmless secret. I didn't need to be malicious or "take down the man." I just needed to to know that I still thought for myself.
What I did get out of that place was that my father opened up to me and told me he loved me. I'd never seen him do that before. Also, I was finally not the only one to see that my mother was completely nuts. They helped her to stop blaming me for everything, and she got a life.
Who knows. Maybe some of that stuff would have happened anyway just with my leaving home. Either way, that is more of a benefit for my folks than for me. Hyde is great therapy for parents.
As for what I got out of it, I learned not to screw around-- I almost never had 2-4 or 5:30 because it was a good enough incentive to not break the rules. I learned to educate myself, which I did, because I didn't think that the curriculum was rigorous enough for me. I went to a good school, and I did well in college. (See! Even smart kids can get an education there. Just like they can get one at a library or in a community college. It just has to be self-motivated.)
And I did feel that the faculty genuinely cared. Unlike some of the others, I found it possible to follow the rules without compromising myself. Although I will say that I "didn't get into it enough with people," because I genuinely didn't care enough about every random student out there to do so.
What was hard was that I was a non-addict and a virgin in a less-than-innocent environment. It shocked the hell out of me, actually, and made me think that some of that stuff was normal. I am now much more familiar with addiction than I was before, especially because some of my friends there relapsed and completely fell apart. I'm not sure I would have been exposed to that kind of stuff in such a glorified light had I not gone to the "bad kid" school. At the same time, I had a choice. I chose to avoid drugs because it looked like a bad idea. So no, it didn't screw me up.
I also know that the transition from Hyde to college is not particularly cushy for anyone. Either people bust out like Rambo and go completely insane, or they have no idea how to socially adjust to an environment where nothing is personal and no one cares about your emotional problems. The school can make their students a bit nacissistic because it openly tailors its character curriculum to best manipulate them into growing up. Many of them come to depend on positive reenforcement, and subsequently remain completely insecure and needy for others' approval. Maybe it's better to let them suffer in high school for being a show-off instead of delaying the lesson until they flunk out of college.
The graduate thing was mentioned before... since when did it become a good idea to teach kids to focus on mistakes as great "learning experiences?" They justify poor or selfish behavior with its potential lessons, thus preventing the wake-up call from really sinking in. (Remember the Action-Reflection cycle?)
Who knew that there would be a culture out there that made people proud that they'd gone to prison?! At some point, a kid needs to decide to let go of all the good excuses, self-inflicted or not, and do something about them (whether than means depression meds. or accepting reality for being as twisted as it really is. Sometimes you get pregnant or someone dies or your husband gets caught by the FEDs for selling kiddie porn. And then you're poor and have to get a job. So do the job. Life isn't fair. There's the sob-story and then there's the solution.)
Bottom line: in any environment, a person can either adapt or not adapt. The problem with Hyde is that it gets a bunch of kids together who refuse to adapt and lets them either fester in their negativity as an underground attitude kid or convinces them that it is enough to acknowledge that they cannot adapt, to name their good excuse, because that is what everybody else is doing. I find it healthier to be around people who proactively seek opportunities to change what doesn't work for them. With regards to that, Hyde is the good excuse that keeps many-a-kid very, very stuck (and maybe some of the regular posters on this chat forum also. So what if some school screwed with your head twenty years ago. Move on! This should be an opportunity for people to discuss the merits or down-sides to that kind of education. If it's a place to vent frustration, then you really need to get a life.)
