Cascade School PO Box 9 Whitmore 96096 (530)-472-3031 by Elizabeth Ashley FInsthwait
I'm not sure where you got your info, but no one ever got tied down at Cascade. I hated that place, but none of the staff ever restrained kids. As for Paula... She's a bit of a nut, and will talk about the "importance" of schools like Cascade and the Brown schools. She's very into spiritual stuff like group singing and chanting and "vision quests". She's very weird. I would definitely NOT hire her as an ed. consultant. Find someone else. Look up Jannet Spires in Lake Forest, IL. She's really good and actually knows what goes on at these schools. She knew Cascade was going downhill and told me that after 1999 she never referred ANYBODY to Cascade because of the shady things surrounding their finances and the emotional state of the kids after they got out.
Write Soon!
http://www.dougjuenke.comPaula is a good person, though, she honestly was and I do believe that she cares a lot for the person in front of her at the time she is in life and going to be in to know a person. She had a lot of people to teach at Cascade and interesting experiences from her schooling before Cascade as a person who wished to learn. I miss her stories and liked her, although not always her information...So, perhaps in the society that we life today, some sort of a person as Paula is someone that might be called a nut. She is also someone who represents that sort of emotional directness and honesty that is not common to people "out there."
I did not like my time living at Cascade School in Whitmore, California, at all. But who did? We were not there to like it. Remember who was sent there? Remember how much you changed? Remember the truth, youth, friends, sisters, brothers, Imagine, and other workshops? Who liked doing all the looking at life from an emotional standpoint at the time? WE were only doing out the best we could. It was terribly difficult for our families as well. We each did the best that we would at the time. I do think that Paula is the same as us. She also was kind to me at times, like in a forum once.
Although there is a real reward system set up for people to do well, it is an extremely difficult state of mind to continue in after leaving the place. Paula seems to be a person that is willing to help some. I liked her. I liked Paula Rudy. We were not at all close and sometimes she stated information that hurt my feelings, and we were not too encouraged to let people know when they hurt feelings. Her sort of honesty is that of which is considered honest at Cascade. She is someone who spoke her feelings as true to everything. I cannot say anything bad about Paula Rudy, it is not correct in my mind to do. Sure, she and I are and were not close. She impacted the lives of many a person at the school. I guess I am not one of the ones that she impacted in a directly real daily positive way. So, Cascade is not a place where anyone was ever tied down, when I was there. Never, it was not and the founders are very good people as far as I can remember. I miss lots of people who were there when I was in the 90's. It was an intense program and helped me and a lot of others to believe in themselves and make some valuable changes in life at the time. Rumor still has it that things happened at the school that I do not know about today, like the "shady" things done with money. Sure. I do not know that there were not things done like that. I still miss the people who I loved and some of the teachers. Art Tillis, Stan who thought zoology, the chemistry teacher Lou who knew Albert Einstein, Lisa Horn, and more people who I became friends with. No, the financial information I do not remember, but I do not know that the people were not good. Some might have easily become corrupt financially. I wish that Eric VOn Meltzer would or could have stopped the whole mess, if he knew about the mess that the school was also in. Golly, what a person that people liked. We each had faculty who we called friends. I miss so many of those people. Art Tillis. His wife. The list goes on. Ya know? never knew were happening. I wish that they never happened. I really do. I missed out on the gossip there and so now I am out on my own and it is terribly difficult to be here with the learning of Cascade. I miss the school tremendousllly; it sought to teach us so many important and vital lessons. it was too black and white for me, though. I look back and wish that I had been thought that I was not to be the only RIGHT one in life. I learned there that I was right and could not and would not listen to the people who loved me and wished to also share information with me. I miss that place, Cascade, as much as I hated it at the time then, I miss it now. I really do, those people came closer than family to me. I miss the school a whole great deal more than anything else in the world. I miss my family and others. That place will always be a part of my life and heart. So will Andy Schiell. He was my first friend there. And in the last months, he is perhaps the one who came closest to the truth in a forum when he indicted me. I miss Andy tremendously and will do all I can to not harm anyone in life who ever harmed him intentionally. Andy was most importantly the one person that was my first friend there, even though we did not spend much time in the end. I do miss Andy and regret not calling him when my mind told me to. Lauri Funk is my best friend from those days. I miss her friendship, too, (long story)
ellizabeth ashley finsthwait
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