Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Facility Question and Answers
Hyde
nimdA:
Describe the intake proceedure upon arrival to Hyde.
Ursus:
--- Quote from: ""TS Waygookin"" ---How were you transported to Hyde?
Where you informed of your departure to Hyde prior to leaving, or was it a bit of a surprise?
What was your first impression of Hyde upon arrival?
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In my case, I went to Hyde by choice. I was having some typical teenage issues with my parents and it was decided that it would be best if I went away to school for a year or two. The choice was between Hyde and a normal, well respected boarding school. We visited both schools.
My parents found out about Hyde from a neighbor who had hosted one of those obligatory admissions teas. Hyde parents are expected to participate in recruiting more families into the fold. It's a bit of an AmWay type of thing.
When we visited Hyde, we also had an interview. I remember that my parents weren't too crazy about what transpired, but I was impressed with the avowed idealism of the place. The school was sold on us as being a more meaningful institution than an "ordinary boarding school," and there were implications that should we opt not to attend Hyde, it would be because we didn't want to challenge ourselves. The perhaps unstated insinuation was that we would then be settling for less than the best. We bought the whole spiel hook, line, and sinker, especially me.
I'm not sure that my impressions upon arrival would be particularly helpful, as I had no experience to really compare it to at the time. I grew up solidly public school, and knew no one who went to a boarding school. The experience was a little intimidating to me at first, and more so, actually, as time went on given what happens there. Certainly everyone else seemed more "with it" and ingrained in the culture than I was.
Hyde has an obligatory Summer School that kids are expected to attend before they return for the school year, and my case was not one of the few exceptions to that rule. So my first arrival at Hyde was for the summer session. I recently came across an advertisement for the 2007 season's offering, and it apparently now costs $6000 for the 5-week session. In my day it cost substantially less, of course, but I also seem to remember that it was significantly longer. Perhaps another poster from this time period would care to chime in and elaborate more on that?
The Summer session entails a great many "expeditions" into the wilderness. Outward Bound had arrived on these shores not too many years prior, and Hyde patterned its expeditions a great deal on their model. I actually enjoyed the forays into the woods and the ocean, as they fit right in with my personal predilection for isolation in the wilderness. But I didn't understand many of the Staff's emphasis on "challenge," rather than "learning." I thought that they really should be teaching us more about survival skills, as well as teaching us an appreciation of the incredible beauty of the natural wonders we came across. Instead, there was far too much butting of heads with the "whiners" amongst us. In retrospect, it is obvious that it was me who just didn't get it. The confrontations were intentional for teaching us kids "character."
silentlysinging:
--- Quote from: ""Ursus"" ---
I'm not sure that my impressions upon arrival would be particularly helpful, as I had no experience to really compare it to at the time. I grew up solidly public school, and knew no one who went to a boarding school. The experience was a little intimidating to me at first, and more so, actually, as time went on given what happens there. Certainly everyone else seemed more "with it" and ingrained in the culture than I was.
--- End quote ---
I, too, had never been to a boarding school before and didn't know anyone who had. Everyone else seemed more "with it" and "ingrained in the culture" for me, too. :-? I like the way you worded that.
--- Quote from: ""Ursus"" ---The Summer session entails a great many "expeditions" into the wilderness. Outward Bound had arrived on these shores not too many years prior, and Hyde patterned its expeditions a great deal on their model. I actually enjoyed the forays into the woods and the ocean, as they fit right in with my personal predilection for isolation in the wilderness. But I didn't understand many of the Staff's emphasis on "challenge," rather than "learning." I thought that they really should be teaching us more about survival skills, as well as teaching us an appreciation of the incredible beauty of the natural wonders we came across. Instead, there was far too much butting of heads with the "whiners" amongst us. In retrospect, it is obvious that it was me who just didn't get it. The confrontations were intentional for teaching us kids "character."
--- End quote ---
When I was there, they called the wilderness stuff "outpost". I went to Seguin over Summer Challenge and it was beautiful, the nature itself. I also remember enjoying that aspect of it. I don't know if Hyde had Seguin in your day? But it's a little island that's sometimes used for navy training and stuff that Hyde also uses for summer outpost (at least, they did in 2002). However, I wasn't very fond of waking before dawn and running up and down the same hill over and over again (how many times exactly depending on the groups collective "attitude") and then swimming back and forth in extremely, extremely cold (even in summer, even though the weather itself was beautiful) water (all before eating "breakfast". The rest of the typical
day there consisted mainly of two more fun-filled meals, sitting through a brutal Discovery Group, having some kind of workout and then collecting rocks.) Because to me, the message there didn't seem to be, "This is beautiful nature! And you should learn how to survive in it because it will make you stronger." (Which is what, I agree, it should have been, ideally.) Rather, the message seemed to be, "I am going to break you down." Of course, Seguin was lovely compared to some later Hyde experiences like Thanksgiving Outpost.
--- Quote from: ""TS Waygookin"" ---Describe the intake proceedure upon arrival to Hyde.
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There was nothing remarkable about the intake procedure as far as I remember. I remember my dad and me coming to the Mansion first; all the parents bringing their kids into the Mansion for registration stuff. Shortly after, my dad was gone, and I was ushered off to my dorm by a girl who was going to be a senior the following year. (A lot of seniors or "on-track" juniors are part of Summer Challenge, mostly to proctor the incoming kids.)
As I was walking with this girl, she was basically telling me how horrible her life had been before Hyde...how utterly tragic and hopeless everything would have been for her without almighty Hyde, and so on. That's something I heard a lot... "Without Hyde, I would have been a crackwhore on a streetcorner somewhere!"and claims of that nature. Yes, the reality is that most kids did come to Hyde because they had problems of some kind, but the majority of these problems seemed to be vastly exagerated; "HYDE SAVED ME, WITHOUT HYDE I WOULD BE DEAD, WITHOUT HYDE I WOULD NOTHING," seemed to be the common, encouraged, acceptable and most-respected stance on things, oftentimes for kids who had simply let their grades slip from As to Bs or Cs or fought with their parents too much or smoked pot a few times.
Anyway, so that freaked me out a little. But she was generally nice, and she tried to answer any questions. She asked me why I was there, told me about all the drugs she used to experiment with, and then continued on about how Hyde totally saved her life and such. (At that point, I started to get an inkling of what I was getting myself into.) Then she asked me if I had anything on me that would make me "dirty", and explained that being dirty meant breaking any one of the "Ethics". I didn't. (Anything that would make a kid dirty, in the event that a kid actually did have any of this stuff on him/her, was to be immediately surrendered: cigarettes, drugs of any kind (including Tylonol and stuff), alcohol, anything that could be used for gambling, etc, even anything that implied sexuality). All in all, the process of arriving was somewhat normal, I think. A bit unnerving, but not terrible by any means. There was certainly no stripsearching or any of that other madness I've heard happens at other places, nothing like that. In a way though, I think one of the scariest aspects of Hyde is its ability to appear almost completely normal. By the time you fully realize the true nature of the place, you're in too deep to get out.
nimdA:
Hmmm.. most of my interview subjects don't type as much. heh..
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?
Ursus:
--- Quote from: ""TS Waygookin"" ---Hmmm.. most of my interview subjects don't type as much. heh..
--- End quote ---
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 ---
I tend to rather think that the summer wilderness session functioned more like one big intake en masse. In my time, they did not have older, more indoctrinated students functioning as mentors during the summer. However, it is possible that there were one or two who functioned as staff. Perhaps this difference is merely semantic and it is a question of my perspective. 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.
In addition to the expeditions into the wilds of Maine, we had ropes courses and wall-climbing challenges on campus, with the students grouped into teams competing against one another. This was supposed to challenge our fears and insecurities as well as drive home the necessity of working together as a team.
Seminars (now called Discovery Groups) and School Meetings were introduced into your curriculum during the summer. Sometimes a School Meeting could function more or less like a Seminar when there was a hot issue on hand, but with more of a mob mentality to it. Sometimes they were screaming sessions for Joe Gauld or Ed Legg chastising our incredible ineptitude or utter lack of moral fiber while we sat in ashen silence.
Pushing for your best in Sports and developing a good work ethic were also introduced during the summer.
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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