On 2005-12-08 08:06:00, Anonymous wrote:
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On 2005-12-07 17:22:00, Lars wrote:
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On 2005-12-07 17:03:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Well, I'm glad your life is good now. But did you really think that what I wrote was such a rave review? I didn't think it was that positive. Just because I wasn't ready to burn the place down... I guess I just don't give high school that much credit as a make-or-break point in life. I'm sorry that you were traumatized. Maybe I don't understand. What was so bad again? Really, I see why someone might not want to go there, but how is it so bad that you would recommend cutting off admission?"
Read some of my earlier posts. [ This Message was edited by: Lars on 2005-12-07 17:23 ]"
I did read them, and from what I understand, your biggest resentment is that they didn't understand that your "lack of effort" or "bad attitude" was really just clinical depression. You said that no one understood that until later, and that in the meantime, Hyde punished you for it. Does that describe it in a nutshell? I can understand why that would be a major problem by anyone's standards, but do you feel equally resentful towards the other schools you attended? What makes Hyde in particular so responsible when other normal schools didn't identify it either? A friend of mine felt the same way about her addiction, when she was accused of lying about it-- no one understood that she was using because she was completely out of control. At the time, the school glossed over the chemical nature of what she was going through and continued to try and make it about attitude. Bad move. One near-death experience later and she was in rehab where she should have been all along. So the question is: What makes Hyde really bad? Is it because they convince your parents not to listen to you when you say you don't want to be there (when maybe there's a really good reason why you shouldn't be there?) Is it because they promise to be able to help, and sometimes you have to fake being helped to get out of there without actually solving the problem, because when it comes to you, they don't actually know what they're talking about?
Part of Hyde's curriculum that makes it successful with some and freaky with others is this need for total commitment. They claim that parents must be totally committed or their kids won't change. Then they say that the kid must become totally committed or he won't graduate. Some of what they require is action, but a large bulk of it is also belief. That is where it becomes a "cult" at worst, and socially coercive at best. One of my major criticisms of the program is this aspect. Maybe at fifteen you don't know your own mind. Maybe at fifteen it helps to live in a structured example of a moral way to live, where peer pressure positively keeps people in line in the same way that negative peer pressure dictated their behavior before. But what if the whole program breaks down a student's uniqueness by messing with their faith in their own ability to make good choices? I hated that when I questioned things, I was patronized for just not "getting it" yet. I also hated that it was assumed that every kid's best move was to be there, and that leaving there was tacitly accepted as bad parenting. I appreciate Hyde because I was motivated there in a away that no other place seemed to motivate me. I also recognise and take seriously the major concerns I listed above.
So what are the options out there for a kid similar to myself who didn't really exist in high school? There is public school, where no one cares and where the self-motivated, socially gifted or athletically successful students seem to thrive. There is therapy for students who are rebelling, cutting, doing drugs or are completely out of control. Hyde prides itself on reaching the kid that no one else can reach, and though I do not think that many of its methods are ideal by any stretch of the means, what school environment does well with the nobodies? We've had suggestions for therapy schools, and someone vaguely suggested that Hebron, etc. are taking the underachievers. While Hyde may make all of the boastful claims about "getting your kid," does anyone really help them? What I did like was that Hyde asked me some major questions about my life, questions that have been provocative as I try to create a meaningful existence. What I didn't like is that they seemed to have some preformulated expectations of what the answers to those questions should look like. I am concerned that that much identity hand-holding can be detrimental, and that part I have never taken seriously. So what would really make a good school? Just calling Hyde a cult isn't good enough. I certainly know enough educators who barely have time for themselves, much less the 150 kids a year that they teach."
You seem like a very thoughtful, reasonable person who has taken the time to carefully consider the Hyde critics' points. You have not done what several pro-Hyde people have done on this website, and that is to launch into the litany of Hyde jargon and accusatory, dismissive, and judgmental assaults. I really appreciate your mature approach; unfortunately, I haven't encountered that much at Hyde (there are exceptions, but too few). What I experience at Hyde is usually full of self-righteous, patronizing, judgmental arrogance (especially from Joe Gauld.
I have two comments about your points. First, you ask Lars whether he resents OTHER schools for not picking up on his depression pre-Hyde. Is it really fair, you ask, to criticize Hyde for responding to everything as an "attitude" problem without addressing (where it exists) underlying depression (or whatever psychiatric issue is lurking), particularly when the student's other schools didn't do this either? My answer is, yes, one can absolutely criticize Hyde for this. Here's the main reason: Public schools have to take everyone who shows up at the door. Typically with limited resources, they do the best they can and often fail to meet every kid's complex needs. They may overlook or neglect a kid's mental health issues. That's unfortunate.
Hyde, on the other hand, knows full well that they admit an incredibly large percentage of kids with serious mental health diagnoses. They've CHOSEN to do that. Hyde admits in its own materials that describe the Hyde student body that the school admits lots of kids with a veritable "alphabet soup" of diagnoses. So, Hyde chooses to admit these kids and then chooses to largely ignore the ways in which the kids' mental health issues influence whatever behavior or "attitude" problems show up at Hyde. That's a problem, I think, and a serious one. It's one of the major reasons lots of educational consultants won't refer kids to Hyde and it's a reason why I think parents of kids with major mental health struggles should avoid Hyde completely. Sending these kids to Hyde is a set-up and a real disservice to them and their families. It amazes me that Joe Gauld's arrogance won't let in this fact; but, of course, that's part of the well known problem at Hyde.
Second, you ask about other options for these kids who don't need tremendous structure or residential treatment but require considerably more than the typical public school has to offer (including attention to their attitudes, values, mental health challenges, etc.). The truth is there ARE a number of "niche" schools out there for exactly this population. Many of them fall under the heading of "emotional growth" schools and they exist for the very population you describe (kids who need more than the traditional boarding school and less than a therapeutic boarding school). I've spoken with a number of former Hyde parents who have tremendous things to say about the emotional growth school they found after getting out of Hyde as quickly as they knew how. Typically they talk about what a remarkable difference the new school made because of its much more enlightened approach, especially compared with Hyde's toxic environment. Believe me, those schools exist. A really good educational consultant knows about them.
