Mr. Hallam, you have my deepest respect and admiration. Thanks for all the detail. I don't know how you managed it, but you seem to have made it through without losing your mind at all.
Your telling of the story illustrates something I think is very important. There are some notable differences between the CEDU model and the Seed/Straight model.
For one, our parents were more directly involved in the Program. There were weekly or twice weekly open meetings; on 2nd phase of the program (couple of months in, usually) we'd either go home to live with our parents (who also had to meet certain criteria to be allowed to have us home) under Program rules and w/ higher phase Program clients to surveil and enforce the Program.
Our days were filled with endless rap sessions where we sat in straight rows of hard chairs, boys on one side of the room, girls on the other with a wide aisle between and facing staff at the front of the room. Work details were usually light work, like taking out trash, preparing meals, cleaning bathrooms. Usually, these "responsibilities" were handed out as rewards for compliance. In fact, there were levels between new newcomer and 2nd phase. Newcomers w/ talk got a 5 minute monitored conversation with their parents after open meeting. Newcomers w/ T&R (talk and responsibilities) could walk to the bathroom and food line w/o an oldcomer holding onto the back of their pants and could do some of these chores under direct, eyeball supervision of an oldcomer.
But the similarities in those essential elements of Program seem to have remained remarkably intact over the course of 3 decades and half a continent.
Straightlings, Seedlings and most KoNJ ppl will recognize the following.
On 2004-02-09 21:30:00, Anonymous wrote:
Even naming a restricted band resulted in punishment.
Ditto. Also, you couldn't use the term "man" slang. I believe "No druggie slang" was a stated rule, repeated at least twice a day at Rules Rap. And you couldn't use the "you" pronoun, only "I".
Severe dress codes were in effect, banning logos, any clothes with words on them, the color black, baggy clothes, suggestive clothes, jewelry, long hair in boys, hair dye, sideburns were limited, buzz-cuts, mohawks, shaved heads, all banned.
Ok, it my day, it was no tight jeans, no concert T-Shirts (Seed) no shirts with writing on them (Straight... except, of course, for those stooopid Izon LaCross golf shirts) No jewelry, except for a watch for 3rd phase and up (third phase was school or work) No long hair on boys, girls had to wear barrettes. Oh, and no flip-flops. Never did really understand that one.
Students recieved punishments for untucked shirts, unparted hair.
And, of course, any fashion detail not covered in the stated rules was subject to confrontation and conjecture by any staffer, parent, other client or the whole group. No one dared wear black, I don't think.
This was supposed to mbe to help keep the focus on emotional growth and to not hide behind an image, ...
Again, verbatim!
but was just an exercise in conformity, to forcing kids to adapt to the counselors demands. Speech patterns, suspicious nicknames, hand gestures, anything that couold be consedered image-driven, was banned. I was once banned from the library because rather than spend time moitoring other students for signs of dissent, I liked to read. Alone. I was banned from being alone. To discourage revolt. students were routinrly banned specifically from anyone they formed a close friendship with.
No cliquing. Also, without stating it outright, being alone was prohibited except when staff would order someone isolated in a "timeout" room. There were rules about never taking your eyes off a newcomer, and oldcomers nearly always had newcomers. There were rules about how many time a day or week you must call another client--"Dime Therapy", they called it. In order to advance through 4th phase, you had to spend your days off on "permissions". Permission were planned field trips into the real world in the company of other clients and at least one parent. They were compulsory and they had to be requested a week in advance in triplicate and approved (or not, usually w/o explanation) by Sr. Staff. No other activity was ever permitted. Parents would get confronted in parents' group after open meeting for stopping for gas w/ a phaser in the car (even their own kid) w/o checking it out w/ staff.
Any restriction (table, couch, pit, wherever) was met with automatic bans from younger levels of students who might be les brainwashed.
No newcomers talking to newcomers. One could become a "newcomer" again by edict of staff for anything or nothing. I've seen people started over from 4th phase (i.e. pretty damned close to the door) for having a "hard face" (absent that blissful, empty headed grin that became part of our uniform) and for refusing to divulge what staff deemed their real thoughts when confronted about it.
I was once accused of excessive masturbating, and forced to ask an older student or staff's permission to escort me to the bathroom and monitor my activity. The reason for this was because I spent a lot of time in the bathroom in order to just be alone. I was ridiculed, known thereafter by my peers as the "bathroom escort masturbator".
I can easily envision you (whatever you look like) being escorted to the guys' bathroom by an oldcomer in the warehouse on Cattleman Rd in Sarasota Florida. Same shit, different corporate logo.
Welcome to the club. I bet you do hook up w/ the necessary witnesses, legal talent and all the rest to bring suit. Please do bug your lawyer for any info that we can publish here and/or elsewhere.
There lives more faith, in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
http://www.tatteredcover.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=showproduct&affiliateId=000095&isbn=0753816571' target='_new'>Alfred Lord Tennyson
