The 10 Priorities (from Biggest Job)

[Anonymous]

Priority #8
Create A Character Culture

There are many other cultures "out there" today that vie for the attention of our kids. One of these is the Achievement Culture that overvalues the outcome and encourages avoidance of risk, challenge and shortcuts. Others are the influence of their peers and the media. We need to teach our kids who they are, where they are going with their lives, and what it will take to get there. We do this by creating a culture of character in our homes and classrooms... laying a foundation that starts with us, as parents and teachers.

What exactly is their problem with achievement?  What is wrong with being ambitious and trying to excel at something?  Moreover, just how much moolah does Hyde think it'll rake in during its fund raising drives, if everyone were as non-materialistic as Hyde allegedly is, when giving 'till it hurts would squeeze but a few more nickels and dimes than a more flaccid campaign might ordinarily yield?

Does an "achievement culture" necessarily overvalue outcome? Encourage avoidance of risk and challenge?  Encourage the taking of shortcuts?

There is achievement culture, in which young people are encouraged to reach the outcome by taking shortcuts while avoiding risks and challenges. Then there is character culture, in which young people are encouraged to reach the outcome by taking risks and challenges while avoiding shortcuts. Simply put, those without natural advantages are trained to unseat those with natural advantages. All are fighting for a piece of the pie. There is nothing wrong with Priority 8 in and of itself.

[Ursus]

I think there is something definitely awry with Hyde's practice of portraying one method as morally superior to the other, and to do so, moreover, without any explanation or attempt at proof or validation.  This clearly is communicated in just such a fashion in Priority #8.  It is not at all as "neutral" as you would have it appear.

[Anonymous]

I think there is something definitely awry with Hyde's practice of portraying one method as morally superior to the other, and to do so, moreover, without any explanation or attempt at proof or validation.  This clearly is communicated in just such a fashion in Priority #8.  It is not at all as "neutral" as you would have it appear.

You are right, and in fact this point was troubling me. There is moral coloring already in the names: achievement vs. character culture. The truth is that both cultures are achievement cultures, one with negative, the other with positive moral connotations.

Achievement culture is a stigma reserved for the better students. The assumption is totally wrong because the best students, whether or not they are possessed of natural aptitude, are typically the most motivated, hardest working ones.

Character culture is really about letting nonacademic criteria affect academic evaluations. Top academic performers will have to get used to assessments like this: "Yes, Johnny is a good student who gets 100 on all his tests, but he is lazy and not living up to his potential."

Translation:

"Johnny is an excellent student. He takes pride in his work, participates in class discussions, and loves to be challenged. He demonstrates a wonderful attitude and all the qualities of character that Hyde cherishes. He wishes he had a little free time to read and study, which he feels he is doing way too little of. He wishes the quality of instruction was not so far below what he had enjoyed in public school so that he could once again begin to live up to his potential. However, Johnny hates Hyde. Therefore, I am going to write on all his report cards and college recommendations that Johnny is lazy and not living up to his potential.

Sincerely yours,
Johnny's teacher"

[Anonymous]

There is achievement culture, in which young people are encouraged to reach the outcome by taking shortcuts while avoiding risks and challenges.

  That is a bunch of crap.  There was a young man that graduated from our local publicly funded "achievement culture" high school.  While he was clearly the brightest kid in his class he was not the valedictorian.  His senior year consisted almost totally of AP course work in which he he did well, but not well enough to fluff his GPA.  HE was dating my daughter and I had several opportunities to talk with him.  He is a gifted young man who was aware of his intellectual power and enjoyed using it.  He did not avoid challenge.  He did not take short cuts and has far as character,  I have no qualms about him being with my daughter.  This is a statement that could not in good faith make about the majority of the nut job students at Hyde or Hyde's faculty ... especially the faculty.

 This #8 is just a false dichotomy cobbled up by Hyde to rationalize the fact that it accepts nut case kids and under performers at 40k per pop.

[Ursus]

"Johnny is an excellent student. He takes pride in his work, participates in class discussions, and loves to be challenged. He demonstrates a wonderful attitude and all the qualities of character that Hyde cherishes. He wishes he had a little free time to read and study, which he feels he is doing way too little of. He wishes the quality of instruction was not so far below what he had enjoyed in public school so that he could once again begin to live up to his potential. However, Johnny hates Hyde. Therefore, I am going to write on all his report cards and college recommendations that Johnny is lazy and not living up to his potential.

Sincerely yours,
Johnny's teacher"

What kind of "take-home" message does Johnny learn from all this?

Pride in one's work is unrewarded.
Intellectual class participation is, in and of itself, unrewarded.
Love of intellectual challenge is unrewarded, it may even be punished.

And yet:

Sucking up to teacher gets rewarded.
Attacking fellow students for independent and challenging viewpoints gets rewarded.
Disinterest in any line of thought that differs from the Hyde position gets rewarded.

In short:

Spouting the party line will buy you a good grade.

If Johnny has any kind of integrity and character at all, he will -- at the very least -- greatly dislike Hyde.

[Anonymous]

This #8 is just a false dichotomy cobbled up by Hyde to rationalize the fact that it accepts nut case kids and under performers at 40k per pop.

Psychological Offender Profile (POP).

[Ursus]

Ha ha!  Just when has anyone in their right mind ever pictured Hyde feigning any semblance of "humility?"  Now that is a "challenge" they will never rise to, mark my words...

Sloppy formatting too:  last bullet is not one of "these questions," but the closing sentence.

============================

Priority #9
[li]When was the last time you really asked for help from someone?[/li]
[li]When was the last time you asked for help from your child?[/li]
[li]If we can become better at this, our children will trust us at a deeper level and will use us more as a resource.[/li][/list]

[Anonymous]

Priority #9
[li]When was the last time you really asked for help from someone?[/li]
[li]When was the last time you asked for help from your child?[/li]
[li]If we can become better at this, our children will trust us at a deeper level and will use us more as a resource.[/li][/list]

It is reasonable for a professional (doctor, lawyer, etc.) not to seek advice from a client. Hence, it is reasonable for the Hyde professionals not to seek advice from parents, students, and alumni. But who are the Hyde professionals? To quote Malcolm Gauld, at Hyde students have an opportunity to "learn from real teachers and coaches who provide personal advice and counsel on the side, NOT real therapists who teach on the side" (Malcolm's Blog, 10/1/2007). In other words, the Hyde professionals are educators who should not be held to professional psychological standards.

First, are there "real teachers and coaches" at Hyde? It was the case when I was there that real coaches were teachers and real teachers were coaches. From what I gather, that is still the case. What are the professional teaching standards set by The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) of which Hyde is a member, and does Hyde meet them? This is easy to check. Hyde would lose accreditation if it were found to be in violation of TABS standards.    

Second, Hyde professionals are not therapists, but concerned teachers who give "personal advice and counsel on the side." There are several flaws in Malcolm's statement. First, "on the side" suggests that giving advice is a marginal activity, whereas it is the central activity at Hyde: students are subjected to a constant barrage of advice during their daily activities. Malcolm's statement suggests that advice is given in private, whereas it is almost always given in a public forum. Since it is common knowledge, it is intended to influence the way our peers treat us. Malcolm's statement suggests that students and parents receive advice, whereas they are also obligated to give it, however uncomfortable and unqualified they feel. Malcolm's statement suggests that advice is solicited by students and parents, whereas this is rarely the case. Malcolm's statement suggests that advice is given by teachers who are concerned friend, whereas it is often delivered in the most brutal, humiliating, and even traumatic manner imaginable. Finally, one is free to follow advice at will, whereas advice at Hyde is on the order of a command: failure to heed it leads to punitive actions. In light of the peculiarities of this "advice given on the side," shouldn't it be dispensed by certified therapists, or at least regulated by a professional psychological body?

[Jesus H Christ]

Can you really make money, handing out advice like this?  Please let me help.  I have two kids in college and need cash.  Please help. BTW I have asked my kids to help with the bills by working.

  JoeSoulBro
(I walk the course when I play too)

[Ursus]

Good show!  Excellent questions and points!   I completely agree with the previous poster's comments re. the ghastly misrepresentation that is implied as well as flat out stated in Malcolm's recent blog re. teaching vs. therapy.  Care to provide the full text?

Let's get even simpler:  teaching qualifications and academic material, since this is the ostensible focus of a "school," and certainly the coattails Hyde rides as to any accreditation going on there...

I can remember taking an English class which essentially consisted of reading several books and then discussing these in class.  There were perhaps a half dozen books over the course of the semester.  Perhaps we also needed to write a paper or two on one of them, or comparing two of them, at the very end.  At least one of the books was a paperback pulp bestseller, salacious enough to make one embarrassed to be caught reading it in public, but maybe that's just my take on it.  I think one of my female classmates was responsible for the selection of that one.  Not exactly high brow literature, although some of the other books were okay/good choices.  

The course was taught by a coach.  Nice enough man, but definitely nowhere near his field of choice, pun intended, ha ha.  I felt like I had dropped backwards at least two years as far as my academic progress was concerned.  The class discussions were painful.  Insight and comparison in literature were not rewarded; historical context -- operating at the time of the authorship -- was never provided; holding oneself to grammatical standards in one's writing was never noticed nor judged.  Rather... it was one big exercise in finding examples of Hyde's teaching in other contexts.  Or, applying our great Hyde facilities for judgment, as in "How might Hyde have done it differently?"  To be fair, I don't think the coach's heart was in it.  I think he really just didn't know what else to do, and this focus was "suggested" to him by someone higher up.

Before I attended Hyde, I took Geometry.  Yet, to my recall, there was never such an "advanced" or "specialized" course ever offered at Hyde the several years that I was there.  Has that changed?  Perhaps it gets assimilated into "math."

Who accredits Hyde these days?

[Anonymous]

Can you really make money, handing out advice like this?  Please let me help.  I have two kids in college and need cash.  Please help. BTW I have asked my kids to help with the bills by working.

JoeSoulBro
(I walk the course when I play too)

Dear Joe SoulBro,

Thank you for submitting your application for a professional educator's position at the Hyde School. As the Hyde Schools are the principal force guiding America’s efforts in character education, we have strived to consider every candidate’s application seriously.

Our first impression is not a good one. You have a polite and quiet manner that is an oddity in our network of colleagues, and we found your tendency to say "please" quite distracting and wonder what this reflects of your character.

As your letter continues, we find other characteristics that trouble us. Your bachelor's degree and teaching diploma, while commendable, seem a tad pretentious. Although some of our members thought it wonderful that you have many years of teaching experience, your list of references from "achievement-oriented" boarding schools hardly elicits confidence.

In truth, we fear that your celebrity status may ultimately impede our principal mandate of excellence in character education. To be blunt, your lack of any prior convictions renders you somewhat overqualified to teach character at the Hyde School.

Consequently, we regret to inform you that your application will not be shortlisted for further consideration at this time.

Sincerely yours,

Malcolm Gauld
Hiring Committee
The Hyde Schools

[Ursus]

::roflmao::  ::roflmao::  ::roflmao::  ::roflmao::

P.S.  Your predilection for the field of engineering, with its focus on hard facts and deductive reasoning, gives us great pause.  We fear you might ask too many questions, and not be open enough to "trusting the process."

Also, your wicked and insightful jokes do not go over well here.  We choose to wield our highly developed sense of humor in a more politically correct fashion, namely, only targeting those with lack character.

Peace,
Mal

[Anonymous]

Ha ha!  Just when has anyone in their right mind ever pictured Hyde feigning any semblance of "humility?"  Now that is a "challenge" they will never rise to, mark my words...

Sloppy formatting too:  last bullet is not one of "these questions," but the closing sentence.

============================

Priority #9
[li]When was the last time you really asked for help from someone?[/li]
[li]When was the last time you asked for help from your child?[/li]
[li]If we can become better at this, our children will trust us at a deeper level and will use us more as a resource.[/li][/list]

these people want to talk down to us about "humility", and tell us to be humble to our kids, and ask for our kids help.  When is the last time Hyde humbled itself and apologized for their mistakes, and asked us for help?

they dish it out but they sure cant take it.

[Ursus]

She really should be writing for Hallmark.  They can afford to assign her a good editor.  This also would be an arena where there would be far less damage done in the long run.

Hyde is famous for telling people what their children "actually want."  But this is a misnomer of the highest degree.  Hyde is actually telling people what Hyde wants, and charging them $40k for the privilege of listening.

============================

Priority #10


What do our children most want from us? As parents, we can misread this. Our children may be telling us to leave them alone, or they may want us to "trust" them more and back off. We tell our parents that their children want us to inspire them. They may not even know they want this from us. However, their desire to be inspired may well be the strongest yearning they have, the greatest hope they have. We will not inspire them with our achievements. It will be done through sharing our struggles, reaching for our best, and modeling daily character.

[Anonymous]

Priority #10


What do our children most want from us? As parents, we can misread this. Our children may be telling us to leave them alone, or they may want us to "trust" them more and back off. We tell our parents that their children want us to inspire them. They may not even know they want this from us. However, their desire to be inspired may well be the strongest yearning they have, the greatest hope they have. We will not inspire them with our achievements. It will be done through sharing our struggles, reaching for our best, and modeling daily character.

Hyde neither inspires nor influences; it fosters psychological dependency. From the moment of its founding, Hyde has greatly exaggerated and inflated the evils of the American family, youth culture, and educational system into a vast and interrelated culture that alienates youth from any deep sense of purpose in life. The promulgation of this myth justifies and encourages the creation of an alternative education. Unfortunately, Hyde offers no real alternative. Hyde's educational program lacks intellectual sophistication and doctrinal coherence; it does not possess the weight and power, historical, intellectual or organizational, to replace the existing educational system. Courage, integrity, leadership, curiosity, and concern amount to no more than a few scattered, insubstantial, and even unrelated principles that owe most of their apparent coherence of teaching and organization to the preconceptions and writings of the Gaulds themselves.

My main criticism of Hyde, however, is that it is a persecuting culture. The monolithic student, parent, and peer culture Hyde creates within its walls, in opposition to America's "dysfunctional" culture, stamps out diversity, heterogeneity, free speech, free thought, and indeed courage, integrity, leadership, curiosity, and concern.