Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Facility Question and Answers
Hyde
silentlysinging:
--- Quote from: ""Ursus"" ---
--- Quote from: ""TS Waygookin"" ---Hmmm.. most of my interview subjects don't type as much. heh..
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Just your luck to be stuck with such a loquacious duo! :lol:
--- Quote from: ""TS Waygookin"" ---I have many questions I want to ask, but will stick to the standard format.
They didn't inspect your luggage, strip search you, or have you take a urine test at Hyde?
--- End quote ---
Hyde relies extremely heavily on Brother's Keeper to do much of the policing normally done via urine tests and strip searches. Not a day goes by that the concept isn't brought up in a myriad of ways... The point is driven home again and again: it is an act of caring and concern for your fellow students to pressure them to turn themselves in. If they still will not do so, then you must do it for them. To do any less would be inconscient, morally lacking, and a sign of weak character.
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Ugh, Brother's Keeper! :cry2: Brother's Keeper was one of the Ethics, and it basically meant that nobody could ever trust anyone else, because knowing about someone else being dirty in any way (or even just having a "bad attitude") and not essentially ratting them out made you dirty, too, and this basically created an environment full of mistrust and paranoia and general insanity. And if someone thought you were dirty, they would either put you right on 2-4, or first they would "confront" you, take you to Dean's Area and sit you down with an incident sheet and try to force a written confession out of you(even if you really didn't do anything). Brother's Keeper definitely fucks with your head. (And I don't know why I just wrote most of that in the past tense; I guess because my own experience at Hyde was in the past, but, for the record, all of this stuff continues happening there, and is still the same, as far as I know.) But no, no stripsearching or urine tests.
And yes, all my responses thus far have been quite long! Hehh. And they'll probably continue to be.:oops: I just have a lot to say!! :lol:
nimdA:
Actually it only makes it easier on me. With you two most of what I will be doing is steering the conversation. Easiest interview I've ever done.
What is the living arrangements like during the wilderness trips?
Coed?
What was a daily schedule like?
Ursus:
--- Quote from: ""TS Waygookin"" ---What is the living arrangements like during the wilderness trips?
Coed?
--- End quote ---
I remember the expeditions as always having at least two staff members along. We carried most of what we needed, on our backs or in the dories or canoes, depending on the type of expedition. Some heavier equipment, supplies were sometimes transported to a pre-determined rendezvous by other staff. We slept in our sleeping bags, in tents or out in the open. If in tents, sexes were segregated. I believe I only went on co-ed trips, but perhaps some were single-sex, as Hyde in my time had more boys enrolled than girls. Certainly single-sex expeditions would have been the case in the very early days, as Hyde was originally a boarding school for troubled boys.
There is a scary story about a kid who almost drowned on one of those trips which was just recently told on the Hyde board; the staff on that trip were Malcolm Gauld and Paul Hurd (Malcolm is the son of founder Joe Gauld, and is currently head of all Hyde Schools; Paul is the first student to have graduated from Hyde, and is married to Malcolm's sister Laurie, who is currently headmaster of the Bath boarding school).
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21721&start=30
nimdA:
waiting on the rest of the questions to be answered prior to asking more.
silentlysinging:
--- Quote from: ""Ursus"" ---I was very young, and they all seemed way more grown up than I was, even the kids who actually turned out to be my same age.
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DITTO! (Ha.) Seriously though, I was fourteen when I came to Hyde, and to an extent, I felt that way, as well. The few other fourteen year-olds there seemed more mature than me in many ways, and most kids were at least fifteen, or sixteen or seventeen. How old were you at the time? Just curious. :)
--- Quote from: ""TS Waygookin"" ---Actually it only makes it easier on me. With you two most of what I will be doing is steering the conversation. Easiest interview I've ever done.
What is the living arrangements like during the wilderness trips?
Coed?
What was a daily schedule like?
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From Hyde's own website*:
"OUTPOST
Outpost is a service provided to the Hyde boarding school students. Outpost students are challenged in an outdoor setting to face unproductive attitudes and reconnect to a sense of personal excellence."
I never had any experience with "WFLC" (Wilderness Family Learning Center), and prior to viewing Hyde's website just now, I didn't know that "Adventure Trips" existed. All I experienced myself (in terms of Hyde's wilderness programs) was outpost. so that is what I will describe. I went on three outposts during my stay at Hyde: Seguin, this canoe-thing sometime in the early fall, and then Thansgiving Outpost. I already mentioned Seguin, and basically covered what it was like there. I only stayed at Seguin for a few days, while the latter two lasted 2-3 weeks each. They were all coed, but of course boys and girls slept in different tents.
I actually have a few fond memories** of the canoe trip, a lot of horrible ones, but a few fond ones. The water was really pretty, and our schedule was basically getting with a partner and canoe-ing all day, every day, supplies in tow. Of course, this was totally exhausting. We would, however, stop to prepare and eat 3 meals a day, and to set up tents and stuff for the night. During these stops, a workout could happen if one of the two staffpeople deemed it necassery.*** There were Discovery Groups at least once a day, sometimes during meals. Now, Discovery Groups in general can get pretty sick... Let me explain. A Discovery Group consists of all the kids sitting in a circle, with at least one staffmember to lead it. The staffmember (who is not a liscensed psychologyst or therapist of any kind, by the way; there are, in fact, no lisensed therapists working at Hyde, not one) usually begins (after the "rules" are read) by singling out one specific kid and asking him/her some kind of personal question. Basically, if the kid does not respond with intense emotion or tears (even if he/she is simply being honest), then the kid is clearly doing something wrong and having a bad attitude and not opening up. And no matter how the kid responds, however he/she reacts, whatever he/she says, the discussion is then opened up to everyone else in the Disco Group who must then, essentially, tear him/her a new one. For example, a staffmember might say, "Tell me about your early childhood." Then the kid might say, "My early childhood was pretty good. I had a teddybear named...etcetc." Then the staffmemember would say, "Bullshit. You're not opening up!" Then a fellow kid would chime in with, "You have such an unproductive attitude! Why aren't you telling the truth?" And everyone around the circle would have to voice their quaint little reactions. It usually becomes this dynamic of the entire group collectively focusing on and attacking the one kid in the spotlight, who oftentimes does start crying at this point if he/she wasn't crying already. Then the staffmember moves it along to the next kid and, in outpost, this can continue on for hours, until the staffmember feels it's time to end it. The format varies. Sometimes Disco Groups are just everyone telling their "life story", with people just going around the circle telling the story of their lives thus far, with the same dynamic of when the person who's sharing is done, everyone responds to him/her. Sometimes they're focused on particular questions or a more specific theme. A good, somehwat-mild example: I remember a Disco Group during this whole canoe-thing where a girl, after being pressured insanely to "open up", started sobbing uncontrollably as she talked about her dead brother, egged on to keepkeepkeep talking about the pain of her loss, which, in the heat of all this madness, somehow inspired three other kids, including me (I had just lost my mother about four years prior) to breakdown and uncontrollably sob. Chaos ensued, and the guy who was leading it seemed pretty satisfied with this, and ended it there, with us shaking and sobbing. Sometimes it was almost like the goal of Disco Group was just to make you completely cry and lose it. They would prod and prod and prod and pressure, and delve into serious, sensitive issues without any real idea of how to properly handle said issues.
Anyway. The worst outpost I experienced was the last one I experienced: Thanksgiving Outpost. Most kids actually got to go home for Thanksgiving, but there were a select few of us with such bad attitudes that instead, we got a 2-week wilderness trip. This one consisted entirely of hiking through snowy mountains all day with bulging backpacks full of supplies, stopping only to eat, sleep and be ridiculed. I can elaborate if you'd like me to, but I'd rather not.
*Hyde's website is, of course, mostly propoganada/very good marketing; i.e. see their description of Summer Challenge, the program which I have previously mentioned that I started out in (as most kids do): "Summer Challenge is for teenagers, ages 14 - 18, who are looking for fun and challenging experiences. This summer program for teens blends thrilling outdoor experiences with a dynamic character development program in which teens have the opportunity to connect with the positive influences that will drive them toward reaching their highest potential. Participants don't have to be experts at any of the amazing challenges that will be presented to them during this five-week summer program experience; they just need to come with their best attitudes..." They do make it incredibly appealing to kids who actually want to improve themselves, and mostly to the parents of any teens, nonetheless "troubled teens", by totally misrepresenting the reality...but, I suppose, that's just what any good advertisement does.
**There were a couple days when we had to "hurtle", I think the word is? Actually carry the canoes on our backs for relatively short distances (about 2 miles). To be fair, I was convinced that I would not be able to do this, no way, and I did have a genuine feeling of pride and accomplishment after I successfully did. So that was one good experience. However, during this same experience, I remember there was one kid claiming to be injured, who really, truly looked like he was in a lot of pain. and, of course, the staff told him that he was not injured at all, but simply had a bad attitude. At this point, I remember him making some kind of comment about how, once his parents knew what all this was really like, they were going to sue. In response to this, the guy (staffmember) literally laughed in the kid's face, and I distinclty remember him saying, "You know how many people have said that? A lot. You know how many lawsuits Hyde actually has?? ZERO." Which, thanks to this board, I now know was a lie.
***In retrospect, I really hate the fact that exercise was/is used so frequently as punishment at Hyde (and apparently lots of other places). Between push-ups, 2-4 5:30s and other workouts, it definitely was. I'm extremely interested in child psychology, and there is a lot of information out there these days about what a generally horrible idea that is:
http://www.nospank.net/exercz.htm
http://www.lafamily.com/display_article.php?id=225
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