Graduation Stats

[Anonymous]

Yes, but you are not at Hyde, (I assume) teaching character and making life decisions for kids!

[Anonymous]

Yes, but you are not at Hyde, (I assume) teaching character and making life decisions for kids!

I said I had a respectable life to show for it.

[Anonymous]

What were some of the "official reasons" given for students leaving?  Not just graduation, but earlier in the school year as well?

One was a guy named Randy.  He was officially a run away.  He was a Mainah.  I ran into him he told me a story about not wanting to go to college and refusing to sign up for the military.  I guess at that point in 77 you had to go into the military or college.  Henry told him he had to do one of the three: sign up, get excepted to a college or leave.  This was close to grduation.  The other was a guy named Peter.  this is the peter you probably think of when you think of a guy name Peter at hyde in 77.  The story was a little different. I would have to say that I am pretty sure he was high at the time.  He asked me if I wanted to snort some crushed percocets.  I declined his gracious offer.  The bottom line was the same: Henry told him to get his ass out of Dodge.  So it is believable that people were asked to go.  They were kids that in the current hyde parlance were "offtrack" so it would look like they were running away. I have also been in contact with a guy that was gone before I got to Hyde named Walter who spun a similar tale.  I found his story to be believable.

If you are talking about Peter T, he absolutely hated Hyde and was pretty cynical about any adult hypocrisy, but was basically a decent kid.  I also have to wonder about Henry's interest in him.  

Somehow I cannot picture Peter M with the crushed percocets and he may have been there earlier; Peter M also had a sister who went, Heidi.  Never heard what happened to either one of them, they were kind of quiet and kept to themselves.  Maybe they even graduated and I just don't remember! lol

Did Walter usually go by a different name?  Never heard what actually happened to him, if we're talking about the same person.  I thought he took the credits accrued and just never came back.

I remember a girl named Donna A, who I had always assumed was one of Hyde's darlings since she was pretty gung-ho about Hyde and Sumner really liked her (she played Blanche in the school play A Streetcar Named Desire, amongst other leads in other plays), but one day she disappeared and the official word was she "ran away."  Not long afterwards, I ran into her on the road between the New Dorms and the Outhouse; tears were streaming down her face as she had just talked to some faculty member about her returning/staying.  She said that she couldn't talk to me about it.  I had always assumed that she really wanted to be there.  But it seemed as if there were some "difficulties."  And then she was gone.

Yeah, I do remember a lot of people officially designated as "runaways" and ones who never came back from a period of time at home, be that the end of the year or mid-term such as Christmas or Spring Break, etc.  It was always portrayed as "their decision," like they made that choice on their own sans Hyde's stipulations.  But this is what Hyde told us.  I don't remember many of these kids telling me themselves what the reason was, at least not while they were there.

 "L" as in Lennon

[Anonymous]

You guys are talking in small numbers about Hyde not graduating us. This is from long ago. Now the numbers are very large.

Hyde now gets rid of lots of kids during the school year for many bogus reasons. Parents not participating, kids not bowing down, yada yada. Then of course towards the end of the year Hyde goes over in their minds how many of the sucker parents would pay another $40,000 to get their kid a diploma. They make up the usual, "joe blow has not lived up to the character part of the program." They have ruined many a family and many a kid by this.

Hyde's leaders can pull the wool over our parents for the rest of their lives, but I take great enjoyment out of knowing that the majority of Hydes leaders are nothing but loosers themselves. Doesn't matter how many years they are there, they are still talkin bout the same shit that happened in their lives 30 years ago. LOOSERS!!!

    30 years ago the place was really for want of a better phrase "a real mind fuck"  So many of the kids were down with the program it was like living in east Germany with the stazi.
   Judging from the bits and pieces from more  recent years and from talking to people from the late seventies it was never that intense again.  I think that is why so many people from that era, that were with the program, are still involved: it was the most compelling experiences of their lives.  That is why thirty  years on people like me are willing to spend time commenting on it.  The nearest thing in fiction I can compare it to was a British TV show called "The Prisoner"

  One of the things that was used a the razor to cleave the good from the not worthy was belief in a thing called "National Commitment" which was nothing less that the over throw of the US educational system.  If you did not believe in it you were not worthy.  In retrospect the folks that were willing to say it was a bunch of crap were the ones with character.
 The whole thing is like a dirty family secret.  No one I have ever run into from back then was willing to talk about it because it was so preposterous that they sat there and bought into it. It would be like going to a family reunion and talking about the time Uncle Billy was caught in the barn standing in a wheelbarrow outtin' the wood to a cow.    
I am not sure how wide a net you are throwing when you use the term "Loser"  Some of those folk are basically good people.  For example Rob is a good guy.  I am glad he got a job at a normal school.

[Ursus]

You guys are talking in small numbers about Hyde not graduating us. This is from long ago. Now the numbers are very large.

Hyde now gets rid of lots of kids during the school year for many bogus reasons. Parents not participating, kids not bowing down, yada yada. Then of course towards the end of the year Hyde goes over in their minds how many of the sucker parents would pay another $40,000 to get their kid a diploma. They make up the usual, "joe blow has not lived up to the character part of the program." They have ruined many a family and many a kid by this.

Hyde got rid of lots of kids 30 years ago the same way.  @Emil:  you just don't remember them.  They disappeared and it was not talked about.

Hyde's leaders can pull the wool over our parents for the rest of their lives, but I take great enjoyment out of knowing that the majority of Hydes leaders are nothing but loosers themselves. Doesn't matter how many years they are there, they are still talkin bout the same shit that happened in their lives 30 years ago.  LOOSERS!!!

Yeah, they are.  And I am, too.  I guess that's because I'm a loser.  I mean that with all seriousness and sincerity.  I AM a loser.  I went to Hyde with some problems, probably little more than the average teenager, maybe even less, but I was seriously depressed.  Hyde knew this.  They put the screws to me and exploited that.  I left a million times more fucked up and shattered to boot.  Hyde fucked me up for life.  I'm finally realizing it.  Thirty years came and went and so many things were just too painful for me to get out from under them.

Back then Hyde really was an incredible mind fuck.  And there was no internet, where you could anonymously explore and compare notes with others.  You were completely alone for the most part.  Lucky were the few who had some real friendships that could transcend the Brother's Keeper bullshit, where you could actually get some honest feedback and support.

[Ursus]

One of the things that was used a the razor to cleave the good from the not worthy was belief in a thing called "National Commitment" which was nothing less that the over throw of the US educational system. If you did not believe in it you were not worthy. In retrospect the folks that were willing to say it was a bunch of crap were the ones with character.

The whole thing is like a dirty family secret. No one I have ever run into from back then was willing to talk about it because it was so preposterous that they sat there and bought into it. It would be like going to a family reunion and talking about the time Uncle Billy was caught in the barn standing in a wheelbarrow outtin' the wood to a cow.

"National Commitment" is still alive and kicking.  They could not get other schools to change over to Hyde methods on their own accord, so Gauld started focusing on the public charter school system and putting his own people in key positions.