Some public schools are quite good. I came from a solid public school background all my life, but when I got to Hyde, I felt like I had stepped back two years in some of my classes. Not in all classes, depends who they had teaching, of course. Some of the faculty were actually real live faculty who had got sucked into Hyde due to misplaced idealism. Some, of course, were just former student ideologues, with or without college degrees, but certainly without experience. Then also, at least in my time, the athletic coaches had to teach academics as well, and some of them, despite being experienced teachers of one sort of another, didn't know what the hell they were talking about as per the subject at hand, ha!
Did you have siblings? Were they also involved in the "Hyde process?" Were both your parents involved (they usually had to be)? When were you there?
You can be super vague about that if you want, I'm just curious vis-a-vis a general historical perspective. Former Hyde people are usually pretty protective of their anonymity. The experience is usually so personally invasive for a lot us that we're afraid of them leeching into our souls again... Those heavy-handed moral judgments just don't want to die.
Let me ask you this, Guest: do you think that you got involved with your studies of "bi-polar meglomaniacs" (be they professional or be they amateur, the latter being "for the love of knowing") due to your experience at Hyde, perhaps as a means of psychological survival?
It's not just Joe Gauld, though he epitomizes it. It's the power to pass judgement on other's character and emotional development-- the total lack of humility, and the quashing of critique. It infects the staff and the group dynamic.
This describes what I would call a cult, or an LGAT. Some would say those two descriptives are the same thing.
Of all the lessons the school grabbed from other institutions (AA included)...
I'd love to read an expansion of your thoughts on this. I have my own ideas, of course; would enjoy comparing notes.
When you describe your feelings re. the other faculty brats... because of the conflict between your family and Hyde? A sense of alienation from those other kids' lives at that time?