Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Facility Question and Answers => Topic started by: nimdA on June 19, 2007, 02:01:16 AM
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 19, 2007, 02:01:16 AM
Interview:
Focus on answering the questions.
I'll start with this:
When did you go to Hyde?
How long where you there?
Title: Re: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 19, 2007, 11:54:43 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
When did you go to Hyde?
How long where you there?
Early/mid 70s. I was there three years.
Title: Re: Hyde
Post by: silentlysinging on June 19, 2007, 07:28:13 PM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
When did you go to Hyde?
How long were you there?
Well, I did it; I made an account. :) Moving right along... I went to Hyde in the summer of 2002, and I stayed there as a freshman for nearly a year (until late-May 2003).
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 19, 2007, 08:31:02 PM
How were you transported to Hyde?
Where you informed of your departure to Hyde prior to leaving, or was it a bit of a surprise?
What was your first impression of Hyde upon arrival?
Title: Hyde
Post by: silentlysinging on June 20, 2007, 12:25:13 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
How were you transported to Hyde?
Where you informed of your departure to Hyde prior to leaving, or was it a bit of a surprise?
What was your first impression of Hyde upon arrival?
I was transported to Hyde by plane/car. My dad told me he found this program that he wanted me to do for the summer. He took me up for an "interview" where these unfamiliar adults sat down with me and ranted about my issues, and how much they could help and the importance of character and such. They seemed alright. Then we came home, and it seemed he had made up his mind. Of course, I didn't want to go, but he assured me that it would only be for a few months...and I was having a lot of problems at the time, so I hesitantly consented, thinking maybe, just maybe it might actually be good for me... I actually wanted it to be good for me. But I was also pretty scared... Upon my immediate arrival at Summer Challenge, I thought everything looked strange, but not so bad. Most of the kids (not all by any means, but it seemed like the majority) were from the suburban/rural northeast, and I remember thinking that with all their pale skin and L.L. Bean attire that, well...they all looked kind of lame, because I was a 14 year-old, trying-to-look-cool kid from South Florida who thought all teenagers everywhere had short shorts/baggy jeans/tight jeans, tank tops and huge shoes. :roll: I also noticed that almost everyone was white...and that was really weird for me because I'd always been used to more diverse environments. The staff, especially, just seemed really weird to me... I remember first walking into the Mansion, and I did get a strange sort of vibe from the place in general, but I really had no idea what to expect, or what was ahead of me...
(Of course, I did not get to come home a few months later... My dad got completely sucked into the whole Hyde mentality, and, despite my objections, I was forced to stay on for the school year. A few attempts at running away proved fruitless; I had nowhere else to go.)
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 20, 2007, 08:06:57 AM
Describe the intake proceedure upon arrival to Hyde.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 20, 2007, 10:41:01 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
How were you transported to Hyde?
Where you informed of your departure to Hyde prior to leaving, or was it a bit of a surprise?
What was your first impression of Hyde upon arrival?
In my case, I went to Hyde by choice. I was having some typical teenage issues with my parents and it was decided that it would be best if I went away to school for a year or two. The choice was between Hyde and a normal, well respected boarding school. We visited both schools.
My parents found out about Hyde from a neighbor who had hosted one of those obligatory admissions teas. Hyde parents are expected to participate in recruiting more families into the fold. It's a bit of an AmWay type of thing.
When we visited Hyde, we also had an interview. I remember that my parents weren't too crazy about what transpired, but I was impressed with the avowed idealism of the place. The school was sold on us as being a more meaningful institution than an "ordinary boarding school," and there were implications that should we opt not to attend Hyde, it would be because we didn't want to challenge ourselves. The perhaps unstated insinuation was that we would then be settling for less than the best. We bought the whole spiel hook, line, and sinker, especially me.
I'm not sure that my impressions upon arrival would be particularly helpful, as I had no experience to really compare it to at the time. I grew up solidly public school, and knew no one who went to a boarding school. The experience was a little intimidating to me at first, and more so, actually, as time went on given what happens there. Certainly everyone else seemed more "with it" and ingrained in the culture than I was.
Hyde has an obligatory Summer School that kids are expected to attend before they return for the school year, and my case was not one of the few exceptions to that rule. So my first arrival at Hyde was for the summer session. I recently came across an advertisement for the 2007 season's offering, and it apparently now costs $6000 for the 5-week session. In my day it cost substantially less, of course, but I also seem to remember that it was significantly longer. Perhaps another poster from this time period would care to chime in and elaborate more on that?
The Summer session entails a great many "expeditions" into the wilderness. Outward Bound had arrived on these shores not too many years prior, and Hyde patterned its expeditions a great deal on their model. I actually enjoyed the forays into the woods and the ocean, as they fit right in with my personal predilection for isolation in the wilderness. But I didn't understand many of the Staff's emphasis on "challenge," rather than "learning." I thought that they really should be teaching us more about survival skills, as well as teaching us an appreciation of the incredible beauty of the natural wonders we came across. Instead, there was far too much butting of heads with the "whiners" amongst us. In retrospect, it is obvious that it was me who just didn't get it. The confrontations were intentional for teaching us kids "character."
Title: Hyde
Post by: silentlysinging on June 20, 2007, 01:50:07 PM
Quote from: ""Ursus""
I'm not sure that my impressions upon arrival would be particularly helpful, as I had no experience to really compare it to at the time. I grew up solidly public school, and knew no one who went to a boarding school. The experience was a little intimidating to me at first, and more so, actually, as time went on given what happens there. Certainly everyone else seemed more "with it" and ingrained in the culture than I was.
I, too, had never been to a boarding school before and didn't know anyone who had. Everyone else seemed more "with it" and "ingrained in the culture" for me, too. :-? I like the way you worded that.
Quote from: ""Ursus""
The Summer session entails a great many "expeditions" into the wilderness. Outward Bound had arrived on these shores not too many years prior, and Hyde patterned its expeditions a great deal on their model. I actually enjoyed the forays into the woods and the ocean, as they fit right in with my personal predilection for isolation in the wilderness. But I didn't understand many of the Staff's emphasis on "challenge," rather than "learning." I thought that they really should be teaching us more about survival skills, as well as teaching us an appreciation of the incredible beauty of the natural wonders we came across. Instead, there was far too much butting of heads with the "whiners" amongst us. In retrospect, it is obvious that it was me who just didn't get it. The confrontations were intentional for teaching us kids "character."
When I was there, they called the wilderness stuff "outpost". I went to Seguin over Summer Challenge and it was beautiful, the nature itself. I also remember enjoying that aspect of it. I don't know if Hyde had Seguin in your day? But it's a little island that's sometimes used for navy training and stuff that Hyde also uses for summer outpost (at least, they did in 2002). However, I wasn't very fond of waking before dawn and running up and down the same hill over and over again (how many times exactly depending on the groups collective "attitude") and then swimming back and forth in extremely, extremely cold (even in summer, even though the weather itself was beautiful) water (all before eating "breakfast". The rest of the typical day there consisted mainly of two more fun-filled meals, sitting through a brutal Discovery Group, having some kind of workout and then collecting rocks.) Because to me, the message there didn't seem to be, "This is beautiful nature! And you should learn how to survive in it because it will make you stronger." (Which is what, I agree, it should have been, ideally.) Rather, the message seemed to be, "I am going to break you down." Of course, Seguin was lovely compared to some later Hyde experiences like Thanksgiving Outpost.
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Describe the intake proceedure upon arrival to Hyde.
There was nothing remarkable about the intake procedure as far as I remember. I remember my dad and me coming to the Mansion first; all the parents bringing their kids into the Mansion for registration stuff. Shortly after, my dad was gone, and I was ushered off to my dorm by a girl who was going to be a senior the following year. (A lot of seniors or "on-track" juniors are part of Summer Challenge, mostly to proctor the incoming kids.)
As I was walking with this girl, she was basically telling me how horrible her life had been before Hyde...how utterly tragic and hopeless everything would have been for her without almighty Hyde, and so on. That's something I heard a lot... "Without Hyde, I would have been a crackwhore on a streetcorner somewhere!"and claims of that nature. Yes, the reality is that most kids did come to Hyde because they had problems of some kind, but the majority of these problems seemed to be vastly exagerated; "HYDE SAVED ME, WITHOUT HYDE I WOULD BE DEAD, WITHOUT HYDE I WOULD NOTHING," seemed to be the common, encouraged, acceptable and most-respected stance on things, oftentimes for kids who had simply let their grades slip from As to Bs or Cs or fought with their parents too much or smoked pot a few times.
Anyway, so that freaked me out a little. But she was generally nice, and she tried to answer any questions. She asked me why I was there, told me about all the drugs she used to experiment with, and then continued on about how Hyde totally saved her life and such. (At that point, I started to get an inkling of what I was getting myself into.) Then she asked me if I had anything on me that would make me "dirty", and explained that being dirty meant breaking any one of the "Ethics". I didn't. (Anything that would make a kid dirty, in the event that a kid actually did have any of this stuff on him/her, was to be immediately surrendered: cigarettes, drugs of any kind (including Tylonol and stuff), alcohol, anything that could be used for gambling, etc, even anything that implied sexuality). All in all, the process of arriving was somewhat normal, I think. A bit unnerving, but not terrible by any means. There was certainly no stripsearching or any of that other madness I've heard happens at other places, nothing like that. In a way though, I think one of the scariest aspects of Hyde is its ability to appear almost completely normal. By the time you fully realize the true nature of the place, you're in too deep to get out.
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 20, 2007, 09:17:00 PM
Hmmm.. most of my interview subjects don't type as much. heh..
I have many questions I want to ask, but will stick to the standard format.
They didn't inspect your luggage, strip search you, or have you take a urine test at Hyde?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 20, 2007, 10:19:34 PM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Hmmm.. most of my interview subjects don't type as much. heh..
Just your luck to be stuck with such a loquacious duo! :lol:
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
I have many questions I want to ask, but will stick to the standard format.
They didn't inspect your luggage, strip search you, or have you take a urine test at Hyde?
I tend to rather think that the summer wilderness session functioned more like one big intake en masse. In my time, they did not have older, more indoctrinated students functioning as mentors during the summer. However, it is possible that there were one or two who functioned as staff. Perhaps this difference is merely semantic and it is a question of my perspective. I was very young, and they all seemed way more grown up than I was, even the kids who actually turned out to be my same age.
In addition to the expeditions into the wilds of Maine, we had ropes courses and wall-climbing challenges on campus, with the students grouped into teams competing against one another. This was supposed to challenge our fears and insecurities as well as drive home the necessity of working together as a team.
Seminars (now called Discovery Groups) and School Meetings were introduced into your curriculum during the summer. Sometimes a School Meeting could function more or less like a Seminar when there was a hot issue on hand, but with more of a mob mentality to it. Sometimes they were screaming sessions for Joe Gauld or Ed Legg chastising our incredible ineptitude or utter lack of moral fiber while we sat in ashen silence.
Pushing for your best in Sports and developing a good work ethic were also introduced during the summer.
Hyde relies extremely heavily on Brother's Keeper to do much of the policing normally done via urine tests and strip searches. Not a day goes by that the concept isn't brought up in a myriad of ways... The point is driven home again and again: it is an act of caring and concern for your fellow students to pressure them to turn themselves in. If they still will not do so, then you must do it for them. To do any less would be inconscient, morally lacking, and a sign of weak character.
Title: Hyde
Post by: silentlysinging on June 20, 2007, 10:53:29 PM
Quote from: ""Ursus""
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Hmmm.. most of my interview subjects don't type as much. heh..
Just your luck to be stuck with such a loquacious duo! :lol:
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
I have many questions I want to ask, but will stick to the standard format.
They didn't inspect your luggage, strip search you, or have you take a urine test at Hyde?
Hyde relies extremely heavily on Brother's Keeper to do much of the policing normally done via urine tests and strip searches. Not a day goes by that the concept isn't brought up in a myriad of ways... The point is driven home again and again: it is an act of caring and concern for your fellow students to pressure them to turn themselves in. If they still will not do so, then you must do it for them. To do any less would be inconscient, morally lacking, and a sign of weak character.
Ugh, Brother's Keeper! :cry2: Brother's Keeper was one of the Ethics, and it basically meant that nobody could ever trust anyone else, because knowing about someone else being dirty in any way (or even just having a "bad attitude") and not essentially ratting them out made you dirty, too, and this basically created an environment full of mistrust and paranoia and general insanity. And if someone thought you were dirty, they would either put you right on 2-4, or first they would "confront" you, take you to Dean's Area and sit you down with an incident sheet and try to force a written confession out of you(even if you really didn't do anything). Brother's Keeper definitely fucks with your head. (And I don't know why I just wrote most of that in the past tense; I guess because my own experience at Hyde was in the past, but, for the record, all of this stuff continues happening there, and is still the same, as far as I know.) But no, no stripsearching or urine tests.
And yes, all my responses thus far have been quite long! Hehh. And they'll probably continue to be.:oops: I just have a lot to say!! :lol:
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 20, 2007, 11:51:43 PM
Actually it only makes it easier on me. With you two most of what I will be doing is steering the conversation. Easiest interview I've ever done.
What is the living arrangements like during the wilderness trips?
Coed?
What was a daily schedule like?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 21, 2007, 01:56:02 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
What is the living arrangements like during the wilderness trips?
Coed?
I remember the expeditions as always having at least two staff members along. We carried most of what we needed, on our backs or in the dories or canoes, depending on the type of expedition. Some heavier equipment, supplies were sometimes transported to a pre-determined rendezvous by other staff. We slept in our sleeping bags, in tents or out in the open. If in tents, sexes were segregated. I believe I only went on co-ed trips, but perhaps some were single-sex, as Hyde in my time had more boys enrolled than girls. Certainly single-sex expeditions would have been the case in the very early days, as Hyde was originally a boarding school for troubled boys.
There is a scary story about a kid who almost drowned on one of those trips which was just recently told on the Hyde board; the staff on that trip were Malcolm Gauld and Paul Hurd (Malcolm is the son of founder Joe Gauld, and is currently head of all Hyde Schools; Paul is the first student to have graduated from Hyde, and is married to Malcolm's sister Laurie, who is currently headmaster of the Bath boarding school). http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21721&start=30 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21721&start=30)
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 21, 2007, 11:55:02 AM
waiting on the rest of the questions to be answered prior to asking more.
Title: Hyde
Post by: silentlysinging on June 21, 2007, 04:09:25 PM
Quote from: ""Ursus""
I was very young, and they all seemed way more grown up than I was, even the kids who actually turned out to be my same age.
DITTO! (Ha.) Seriously though, I was fourteen when I came to Hyde, and to an extent, I felt that way, as well. The few other fourteen year-olds there seemed more mature than me in many ways, and most kids were at least fifteen, or sixteen or seventeen. How old were you at the time? Just curious. :)
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Actually it only makes it easier on me. With you two most of what I will be doing is steering the conversation. Easiest interview I've ever done.
What is the living arrangements like during the wilderness trips?
Coed?
What was a daily schedule like?
From Hyde's own website*:
"OUTPOST Outpost is a service provided to the Hyde boarding school students. Outpost students are challenged in an outdoor setting to face unproductive attitudes and reconnect to a sense of personal excellence."
I never had any experience with "WFLC" (Wilderness Family Learning Center), and prior to viewing Hyde's website just now, I didn't know that "Adventure Trips" existed. All I experienced myself (in terms of Hyde's wilderness programs) was outpost. so that is what I will describe. I went on three outposts during my stay at Hyde: Seguin, this canoe-thing sometime in the early fall, and then Thansgiving Outpost. I already mentioned Seguin, and basically covered what it was like there. I only stayed at Seguin for a few days, while the latter two lasted 2-3 weeks each. They were all coed, but of course boys and girls slept in different tents.
I actually have a few fond memories** of the canoe trip, a lot of horrible ones, but a few fond ones. The water was really pretty, and our schedule was basically getting with a partner and canoe-ing all day, every day, supplies in tow. Of course, this was totally exhausting. We would, however, stop to prepare and eat 3 meals a day, and to set up tents and stuff for the night. During these stops, a workout could happen if one of the two staffpeople deemed it necassery.*** There were Discovery Groups at least once a day, sometimes during meals. Now, Discovery Groups in general can get pretty sick... Let me explain. A Discovery Group consists of all the kids sitting in a circle, with at least one staffmember to lead it. The staffmember (who is not a liscensed psychologyst or therapist of any kind, by the way; there are, in fact, no lisensed therapists working at Hyde, not one) usually begins (after the "rules" are read) by singling out one specific kid and asking him/her some kind of personal question. Basically, if the kid does not respond with intense emotion or tears (even if he/she is simply being honest), then the kid is clearly doing something wrong and having a bad attitude and not opening up. And no matter how the kid responds, however he/she reacts, whatever he/she says, the discussion is then opened up to everyone else in the Disco Group who must then, essentially, tear him/her a new one. For example, a staffmember might say, "Tell me about your early childhood." Then the kid might say, "My early childhood was pretty good. I had a teddybear named...etcetc." Then the staffmemember would say, "Bullshit. You're not opening up!" Then a fellow kid would chime in with, "You have such an unproductive attitude! Why aren't you telling the truth?" And everyone around the circle would have to voice their quaint little reactions. It usually becomes this dynamic of the entire group collectively focusing on and attacking the one kid in the spotlight, who oftentimes does start crying at this point if he/she wasn't crying already. Then the staffmember moves it along to the next kid and, in outpost, this can continue on for hours, until the staffmember feels it's time to end it. The format varies. Sometimes Disco Groups are just everyone telling their "life story", with people just going around the circle telling the story of their lives thus far, with the same dynamic of when the person who's sharing is done, everyone responds to him/her. Sometimes they're focused on particular questions or a more specific theme. A good, somehwat-mild example: I remember a Disco Group during this whole canoe-thing where a girl, after being pressured insanely to "open up", started sobbing uncontrollably as she talked about her dead brother, egged on to keepkeepkeep talking about the pain of her loss, which, in the heat of all this madness, somehow inspired three other kids, including me (I had just lost my mother about four years prior) to breakdown and uncontrollably sob. Chaos ensued, and the guy who was leading it seemed pretty satisfied with this, and ended it there, with us shaking and sobbing. Sometimes it was almost like the goal of Disco Group was just to make you completely cry and lose it. They would prod and prod and prod and pressure, and delve into serious, sensitive issues without any real idea of how to properly handle said issues.
Anyway. The worst outpost I experienced was the last one I experienced: Thanksgiving Outpost. Most kids actually got to go home for Thanksgiving, but there were a select few of us with such bad attitudes that instead, we got a 2-week wilderness trip. This one consisted entirely of hiking through snowy mountains all day with bulging backpacks full of supplies, stopping only to eat, sleep and be ridiculed. I can elaborate if you'd like me to, but I'd rather not.
*Hyde's website is, of course, mostly propoganada/very good marketing; i.e. see their description of Summer Challenge, the program which I have previously mentioned that I started out in (as most kids do): "Summer Challenge is for teenagers, ages 14 - 18, who are looking for fun and challenging experiences. This summer program for teens blends thrilling outdoor experiences with a dynamic character development program in which teens have the opportunity to connect with the positive influences that will drive them toward reaching their highest potential. Participants don't have to be experts at any of the amazing challenges that will be presented to them during this five-week summer program experience; they just need to come with their best attitudes..." They do make it incredibly appealing to kids who actually want to improve themselves, and mostly to the parents of any teens, nonetheless "troubled teens", by totally misrepresenting the reality...but, I suppose, that's just what any good advertisement does.
**There were a couple days when we had to "hurtle", I think the word is? Actually carry the canoes on our backs for relatively short distances (about 2 miles). To be fair, I was convinced that I would not be able to do this, no way, and I did have a genuine feeling of pride and accomplishment after I successfully did. So that was one good experience. However, during this same experience, I remember there was one kid claiming to be injured, who really, truly looked like he was in a lot of pain. and, of course, the staff told him that he was not injured at all, but simply had a bad attitude. At this point, I remember him making some kind of comment about how, once his parents knew what all this was really like, they were going to sue. In response to this, the guy (staffmember) literally laughed in the kid's face, and I distinclty remember him saying, "You know how many people have said that? A lot. You know how many lawsuits Hyde actually has?? ZERO." Which, thanks to this board, I now know was a lie.
***In retrospect, I really hate the fact that exercise was/is used so frequently as punishment at Hyde (and apparently lots of other places). Between push-ups, 2-4 5:30s and other workouts, it definitely was. I'm extremely interested in child psychology, and there is a lot of information out there these days about what a generally horrible idea that is: http://www.nospank.net/exercz.htm (http://www.nospank.net/exercz.htm) http://www.lafamily.com/display_article.php?id=225 (http://www.lafamily.com/display_article.php?id=225)
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 21, 2007, 08:17:28 PM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
What was a daily schedule like?
I'm probably not going to be able to answer this one with as many specifics as you would prefer. It has been a long time ago for me. Suffice it to say that one had essentially no free time. I believe we had 2-3 Seminars a week (now known as Discovery Groups), but there were certainly weeks where there were fewer than the usual (e.g., the whole school had to participate in some other event), or times when there were more (e.g., there was a purge going on). There were also School Meetings, which were once or twice a day.
Classes during the day, seminars and sports in the afternoon, performing arts activities during some evenings, study hall during other evenings, homework wherever you could fit it in. In the wee hours before breakfast: sports or homework. Weekends were a little looser, but you still had all this homework to make up, plus laundry, etc.
All usual activities would be more or less disrupted if there was a purge going on; the requisite extra Seminars and School meetings were usually carved out of class time.
The whole school would get more or less involved during Performing Arts events. During my time there was "America's Spirit" which functioned more or less like a traveling road show during the Bicentennial years, with admissions material for Hyde on display at all of the performances.
After you completed the summer program, you only attended during the regular school year, unless you needed some "refreshing" in the wilderness category.
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 21, 2007, 11:12:56 PM
Right moving along then..
Who staffed these trips, normal staff from Hyde or was their a special group of wilderness staff?
What were their qualifications?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 21, 2007, 11:57:26 PM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Who staffed these trips, normal staff from Hyde or was their a special group of wilderness staff?
What were their qualifications?
"Normal" staff. How else could you be confronted appropriately as to your character shortcomings, which would become glaringly obvious when you were toiling through the woods with a pack that could be as much as 35% of your body weight?
Hey, I never said a word about that stuff. Personally, I considered the situation far preferable to the bullshit... er, baloney... on campus. But there were kids dropping like flies sometimes. And God forbid you actually had a medical condition that you actually had to defend. Yes, defend. Because first you would be put through the wringer for trying to find excuses for slacking off, not challenging yourself enough, not reaching for your personal best. And no matter how believable your circumstances, no matter how authentic the letter from your family physician was, no matter any of this, there would always be this stigma of trying to sleaze out of something that would hang over your head while at Hyde.
Qualifications? Ha ha, there's a good one! Remember: "attitude is more important than aptitude," and Hyde faculty sure take that one to heart. Seriously though, the lack of qualifications would freak me out if I were a parent of a Hyde student. See aforementioned link about the kid who almost drowned on Malcolm Gauld and Paul Hurd's watch. That situation was brought about by sheer arrogance and stupidity.
Title: Hyde
Post by: silentlysinging on June 22, 2007, 12:17:00 AM
Quote from: ""Ursus""
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Who staffed these trips, normal staff from Hyde or was their a special group of wilderness staff?
What were their qualifications?
"Normal" staff. How else could you be confronted appropriately as to your character shortcomings, which would become glaringly obvious when you were toiling through the woods with a pack that could be as much as 35% of your body weight?
Hey, I never said a word about that stuff. Personally, I considered the situation far preferable to the bullshit... er, baloney... on campus. But there were kids dropping like flies sometimes. And God forbid you actually had a medical condition that you actually had to defend. Yes, defend. Because first you would be put through the wringer for trying to find excuses for slacking off, not challenging yourself enough, not reaching for your personal best. And no matter how believable your circumstances, no matter how authentic the letter from your family physician was, no matter any of this, there would always be this stigma of trying to sleaze out of something that would hang over your head while at Hyde.
Qualifications? Ha ha, there's a good one! Remember: "attitude is more important than aptitude," and Hyde faculty sure take that one to heart. Seriously though, the lack of qualifications would freak me out if I were a parent of a Hyde student. See aforementioned link about the kid who almost drowned on Malcolm Gauld and Paul Hurd's watch. That situation was brought about by sheer arrogance and stupidity.
Ah, yes. You've captured it so well. When I was there, there was one guy in particular- his name escapes me (stout, short guy, brown hair and slight facial hair, probably around 30something)- that went on all the wilderness trips, but he was just a part of the "normal" Hyde staff that took a liking to it, I'm pretty sure. And the second staff member could be anyone. When I was there, I had no idea of the staff members' actual "qualifications"; all I knew in my 14-15 year-old head was that they certainly didn't seem to know what the hell they were doing. At all. Now I know that's because they didn't... Hyde, apparently, doesn't give a shit about qualifications, and will hire you without a college degree/any sort of real experience in dealing with kids at all, nonetheless kids with serious issues. Some of them probably went to Hyde themselves; I just found out that a girl named Adele who used to be in my dorm, one or two years older/ahead of me, now works in Dean's Area. She has been since she graduated.
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 22, 2007, 12:36:32 AM
During one of these discovery sessions if you weren't participating in the questioning of a peer what could potentially happen?
Title: Hyde
Post by: silentlysinging on June 22, 2007, 01:10:31 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
During one of these discovery sessions if you weren't participating in the questioning of a peer what could potentially happen?
Well, it depends. Aside from the entire group emotionally attacking you... If it was a regular Disco Group happening on campus, then the result of having a "bad attitude" (just like the result of being "dirty") would be 2-4. I don't know if I've explained 2-4 yet: when you were on 2-4, you would not go to classes or Sports or any of the regularly scheduled Disco Groups or school meetings or any other activities. Days on 2-4 would start by being woken up early for an early-morning disciplinary workout (5:30). You were not allowed to speak on 2-4, except to answer a proctor or sometimes to have your own little 2-4 Disco Group. If you got caught talking or attempting communication, you got push-ups. The day would be spent silently doing activities like raking leaves or digging giant holes. A lot of the time, when you were done raking, the proctors would come mess up the piles of leaves so you had to do it all over again, or have you fill up the holes so you could re-dig them. Fun stuff like that. The whole time, of course, in silence. When you weren't doing stuff like that, you were sitting, spaced out, on the bleachers in silence; sometimes, depending on who was proctoring, you could get away with journaling during this time, but that was it. and, of course, a proctor could ask to read your journal at any time. The bleachers faced a fairly big sign with words like Integrity and Humility, and the Ethics (brother's keeper, no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes/tobacco, no sex, no lying, no stealing, no gambling; I'm probably forgetting some, but that's all I can recall at the moment). You weren't allowed to eat meals with the rest of the school on 2-4, either. Instead, PB+J sandwhiches and stuff like that would be brought to you to eat on the bleachers, or you would have to go get it, and bring it back to the bleachers.
If it was during an outpost, then the whole group would probably get a workout.
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 22, 2007, 11:01:36 AM
Define workout with appropriate examples, also attempt to explain the logic behind such an excercise as reported by staff.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 22, 2007, 12:15:50 PM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
During one of these discovery sessions if you weren't participating in the questioning of a peer what could potentially happen?
You could be confronted about your "bad attitude." Sometimes the focus of the Seminar/Discovery Group could switch! ...onto YOU! The trick was to find some middle ground, where you participated at least as much as the least participating person, but less than the real gungho brown-nosers were.
There could also be a problem if you participated too much, although that was rare. There could be such a circumstance where someone tried to buy into the Program with all their heart and participation, but someone on the Staff did not like them, and would confront them about their phoniness. And then kids who had been previously eviscerated by said sycophant would jump into the confronting fest with great gusto.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 22, 2007, 12:49:15 PM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Define workout with appropriate examples, also attempt to explain the logic behind such an excercise as reported by staff.
L O G I C ? Oh my...
I think having to do pushups or other calisthenics (e.g., jumping jacks or situps, but pushups were usually the choice du jour) as punishment for attitude issues has its origins in the military, but I could be wrong. Often this was an immediate remedy for a relatively minor transgression. There is currently a clip on YouTube shot by a former Hyde student detailing a few minutes in Algebra class where the instructor is inexplicably absent, and in which a student suddenly drops to the floor and starts doing pushups. This is, undoubtedly, such a situation. Said student probably used foul language or insulted someone inappropriately, and another student called them on it and hence the first student had to do pushups.
5:30 workouts and 2/4 (known as workcrew in during my time) are different.
Algebra II You need to turn the volume way up for the body of this piece (opening and closing credits excepted).
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 22, 2007, 07:11:47 PM
I'm going to be mostly gone for the next day or so. However, during my absence I'd like you both to consider doing the following:
Describing the residential setting of Hyde in great detail.
Describing the policy and proceedure in regards to the following: Dining arrangements Showering Laundry Medical Aid Student Jobs
If any or all of these items can be affected by staff or fellow students please explain how and cite a personal example.
peace out yo.. be back later.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 23, 2007, 09:38:58 AM
Quote from: ""Ursus""
5:30 workouts and 2/4 (known as workcrew in during my time) are different.
To continue:
5:30 workouts: punitive sports-oriented workout at 5:30 AM. Overseen by staff or more senior and "on-track" student. Rationale: your slacker attitude, or your bad attitude in any respect. A lot of leeway for interpretation here.
workcrew aka 2-4: punitive round-the-clock condition that could last a few days to a few weeks, depending on your case. It could also last quite a bit longer, although Hyde would not put it quite that way, I'm sure! Personally, when a kid on workcrew has a meeting with staff to determine where he's at, and he gets put back out on workcrew, I don't consider that a new situation, I consider that a continuation of the previous.
Workcrew could consist of digging 6' x 6' x 6' pits, and having to fill them back up again. You could be moving a woodpile from one place to another. I saw a girl have to create a walkway on campus one year. She was on her hands and knees, digging in the soil with some appallingly small utensil, covered with dirt and grime, all her hair chopped off (to help her re-examine her self-image)... The other students walked back and forth over her handiwork en route to their classes, literally looking down at her... She was not allowed to speak with us. I think her crime was trying to run away, but I honestly don't recall that particular detail. Yes, the school got quite a bit of landscaping done this way.
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 23, 2007, 11:26:03 PM
Quote
Workcrew could consist of digging 6' x 6' x 6' pits, and having to fill them back up again. You could be moving a woodpile from one place to another. I saw a girl have to create a walkway on campus one year. She was on her hands and knees, digging in the soil with some appallingly small utensil, covered with dirt and grime, all her hair chopped off (to help her re-examine her self-image)... The other students walked back and forth over her handiwork en route to their classes, literally looking down at her... She was not allowed to speak with us. I think her crime was trying to run away, but I honestly don't recall that particular detail. Yes, the school got quite a bit of landscaping done this way.
Was this the result of an actual psychiatric intervention?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 24, 2007, 01:20:52 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Quote
Workcrew could consist of digging 6' x 6' x 6' pits, and having to fill them back up again. You could be moving a woodpile from one place to another. I saw a girl have to create a walkway on campus one year. She was on her hands and knees, digging in the soil with some appallingly small utensil, covered with dirt and grime, all her hair chopped off (to help her re-examine her self-image)... The other students walked back and forth over her handiwork en route to their classes, literally looking down at her... She was not allowed to speak with us. I think her crime was trying to run away, but I honestly don't recall that particular detail. Yes, the school got quite a bit of landscaping done this way.
Was this the result of an actual psychiatric intervention?
What do you mean by "psychiatric intervention?" In this girl's case, she was just considered a rebellious screw-up. Needed to be squashed and taught a lesson or two. She spoke out in protest of something or other, did not cooperate, said "Fuck this!" and ran away. But she got caught, and brought back. Nowadays, I hear that they don't try to stop them, but they instruct the parents to not allow them back home. SilentlySinging might be better able to elaborate on current protocol.
Hyde prides itself on not using professionals in the therapeutic milieu; they feel that anyone can do this stuff... A relatively fresh Hyde graduate recently posted in the Hyde forum: "I learned a lot mainly from the other students there. You don't need a Psychology or Psychiatry degree to help someone, all that matters is that you care and are speaking from experience." That pretty much sums up the mindset there, although I would add that there is a great deal of downright disdain for therapeutic professionals that may or may not be actually voiced, depending on the audience.
Personally, I would say it all depends on the kind of "help" you're giving. Are you talking about friend-to-friend? Or are you talking about an institution that takes a kid who, to cite one example, has been diagnosed with Major Depression, and who then tells this kid that their lack of self-esteem and seeming inability to make "progress" has nothing with said diagnosis, and yet everything to do with the fact that they are a loser, and that if they were honest with themselves they would have to admit that calling it "depression" is a cop-out?
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on June 24, 2007, 01:45:36 AM
Interesting... right anyway back to the previous questions.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on June 24, 2007, 02:24:08 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Describing the residential setting of Hyde in great detail.
Describing the policy and proceedure in regards to the following: Dining arrangements Showering Laundry Medical Aid Student Jobs
If any or all of these items can be affected by staff or fellow students please explain how and cite a personal example.
In my time, and I suspect that it is little or no different now, there were a small collection of dorms, housing approximately 20-40 students each. There were also a number of dorm rooms on the upper floors of the Mansion (original main building), perhaps 1.5 floor's worth of them. Each dorm room housed 2-3 students, depending on the size, and at what point in the school year (Hyde was always more densely populated at the beginning of the school year than at the end); usually each room had 3 students.
Each dorm, or dorm section/floor was under the jurisdiction of a faculty couple who also lived there, that is, in a separate apartment that was also attached to the dorm via a door that only they had access to. Within the dorm, there were a few senior or on-track students who were more or less in charge of the dorm/dorm section. Some dorms were quite small, e.g., the Carriage House.
Dorms were segregated as to sex. Each dorm had a communal bathroom/shower area. Some dorms had a congregating area, some did not. I don't remember any such area in the Carriage House, but the two "New" (at the time) Dorms did each have such a spot, as did the OutHouse (albeit internal, and hence not accessible to the opposite sex). Not that it mattered. You did not have time for such activity anyway. Any "congregating" that you did was in the pursuit of some other school-defined activity, and was elsewhere on Campus.
Meals were eaten in the Kitchen/Dining Area. It was a semi-regular Cafeteria style place, except that meals were eaten Family style around large round tables seating about 6 or 8. A faculty member would also be seated at each table. There were a few tables where there were no faculty seated, and it was considered highly suspect if you sat at one of those tables too many times in a row. When not used during mealtimes, the space was used for school meetings and Performing Arts activities. Breakfast was less formal: you got your tray and went through a line getting what you wanted.
To be continued...
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on July 15, 2007, 10:54:50 AM
Let's continue!
How intensive was the day to day supervision of the staff?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on July 25, 2007, 11:24:45 AM
Getting back in the swing of things...
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Describing the residential setting of Hyde in great detail.
Describing the policy and proceedure in regards to the following: Dining arrangements Showering Laundry Medical Aid Student Jobs
If any or all of these items can be affected by staff or fellow students please explain how and cite a personal example.
Laundry: Not sure if I remember this with utmost accuracy, but I do believe that most of the dorms had a couple of machines. If your dorm did not, you used the machines at one of the other dorms. I am thinking something on the order of 2 washers, 2 dryers per...
Kids generally did their laundry on weekends, there being so little unstructured time during the week. An exception might be if machines were in your building and you could just manage to coordinate being there when they finished, etc., but this would be rare.
Medical Aid, Sports Injuries, etc.: In my time, there was no resident physician, nor regular visits of such. There was a designated doctor the school sent the kids to off campus in town, and to pay him a visit you needed prior approval from the school nurse. You would be transported and accompanied by staff from the school.
I didn't particularly care for this physician, he seemed to have a rather cynical attitude towards us kids. To my knowledge, there was not an option to see a physician of your choice. During my time, the school nurse was employed by Hyde by virtue of her being the wife of one of the faculty members.
There was virtually no medical instruction or education as to the nature of your ailments and/or medications. And there was absolutely nothing forthcoming from the school proper as to sex education and common sense procedure re. disease control. There were periodic outbreaks of some sort (e.g., strep throat) which would run their course multiple times throughout the school body, with several kids being re-infected multiple times. No word from the school nurse, nor the designated physician, nor the school administration as to how to mitigate these kind of incidents.
Perhaps even more disturbing, given the potential longterm consequences, were how sports injuries were dealt with. Sports reigns as king at Hyde, as they consider physical striving and competition to be key to their "character development" program. No argument with me there, but you are treated like a total wuss if you receive an injury that might prevent or temporarily curtail said striving for your personal best. The injury needs to be brought up to your coach, most likely also discussed with your teammates in seminar-like confrontational discussions, and if they do not believe you... Well, you run the risk of not only not receiving medical intervention, but also of having to make reparations of some sort for your "attitude problem," not to mention having to live with that stigma in other areas of school life. A lot of kids are too afraid, or perhaps too brainwashed, to risk that 'till permanent damage has already been done.
During my time there, there was a gal who skied over her thumb somehow. The digit swelled up to twice its normal size and turned bright blue. I saw her with a makeshift split she had constructed herself, the nail being long lost. To my knowledge, she never received medical attention or advice for this. Myself, I suffer to this day from leg injuries that were sustained over the course of a full year of repetitive injury before being lent enough credence. By this time, I had been experiencing significant difficulty just in walking more than six feet. There was another classmate who had had rheumatic fever as a child, with subsequent heart damage, and this classmate's efforts in cross country were always considered "suspect."
And if you had a weight problem on top of everything else, you were really up the creek. Talk about evidence of a major character flaw, ha! Being fat at Hyde is a special hell all its own. Because it is not a question of your having a weight problem, it is a question of your having an attitude problem! You just don't have enough commitment! To say that bulimia/purging was an "issue" at Hyde is a laughable understatement. You learned how to purge at Hyde. Requisite self-image issues are understandably heavily intertwined.
In short, there was no access to impartial third party medical care, at least during my time. Medical care, such as there was, was heavily filtered through a "character development" mindset.
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on July 25, 2007, 09:07:18 PM
Quote
And if you had a weight problem on top of everything else, you were really up the creek. Talk about evidence of a major character flaw, ha! Being fat at Hyde is a special hell all its own. Because it is not a question of your having a weight problem, it is a question of your having an attitude problem! You just don't have enough commitment! To say that bulimia/purging was an "issue" at Hyde is a laughable understatement. You learned how to purge at Hyde. Requisite self-image issues are understandably heavily intertwined.
Was purging brought about by peer pressure?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on July 26, 2007, 12:22:39 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
Quote from: ""Ursus""
And if you had a weight problem on top of everything else, you were really up the creek. Talk about evidence of a major character flaw, ha! Being fat at Hyde is a special hell all its own. Because it is not a question of your having a weight problem, it is a question of your having an attitude problem! You just don't have enough commitment! To say that bulimia/purging was an "issue" at Hyde is a laughable understatement. You learned how to purge at Hyde. Requisite self-image issues are understandably heavily intertwined.
Was purging brought about by peer pressure?
Although I am sure that there were some minor peer pressure factors, the incentive to lose weight was primarily school driven. Purging was a desperate means to attempt to comply with Hyde's expectations. If you did not sufficiently comply, punitive measures would be taken (confrontation/discussion with your teammates, extra workouts, possibly even work crew aka 2-4, humiliation/confrontation in Seminar aka Discovery Group, and, in my time, possibly even having to wear a large sign around your neck stating to all your "problem"). Suffice to say that there wouldn't be a single person on campus, including the secretarial and maintainance staff, who would not know of your "issues."
Regular weigh-ins were an integral part of your sports experience at Hyde. I should also say, however, that it is my impression that the school appears to have had a rather spasmodic focus on this issue. Some periods of time were worse than others. Here is a post which I believe describes the mid-70s, although it does seem to describe Hyde's general approach over the years to a tee: http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=13623&start=36 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=13623&start=36)
Quote from: ""Guest""
...I do know, however, that there were other inappropriate male comments made to girls about their bodies in general, and some girls were put on diets arbitarily. Seemed odd to have a male teacher weighing in all these teenage girls. The wrestlers taught the girls how to get their weight down for these weigh-ins by using laxatives. The weight loss was totally unsupervised. The teachers said to lose so many pounds and the girls were expected to do it with no guidance. They had to eat the same high starch food in the dining room as everyone else and weigh in once a week. After weighing in on a weekend morning, they headed to the dining room for french toast or pancakes with lots of syrup. Hyde was really good at teaching the binge-purge cycle.
Here is another post from someone about another particularly pernicious period: http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=20343&start=158 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=20343&start=158)
Quote from: ""Guest""
OK another one...late 70s early 80s. The school and schools in general are worried about overweight kids. So, body fat measurements are recommended as a way to determine total body fat percent. A teacher, coach and dad of one of my female classmates. Has all the girls in the school strip for him one at a time for the body fat measurements. We boys were allowed to keep shorts on. The rationale the teacher came up with was the elastic bands of the bras and panties would throw off the test results. The headmasters daughter at the time (not a gauld), protested and the nude teen show came to a halt. She was a 8th or 9th grader and had some common sence. The brainwashing had not set in on her. The "leadership senior" girls donned their birthday suits with out a second thought. I think this speaks reams to the hyde process...It taught these girl to do as your told, we know best, don't question the process to the point of stripping butt *ss naked in front of this sadly disturbed man. Now that is character before acheivement!!!!!
As to current focus, it is my general impression that the same pressures, as well as the same lack of professional approach, remain.
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on July 26, 2007, 10:27:40 AM
That just made my brain hurt.
So it wasn't an official policy, but the amount of pressure to shape up in body and attitude was so intense that purging became a reasonable method?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on July 28, 2007, 10:50:56 AM
Quote from: ""TS Waygookin""
That just made my brain hurt.
So it wasn't an official policy, but the amount of pressure to shape up in body and attitude was so intense that purging became a reasonable method?
You got it. Note that these purging methods were in use quite some time ago, long before this issue became more mainstream to the point it is now.
Wish there was some more input from someone more recent, to confirm how it is now. I am basing my suppositions on the current state of affairs on personal information from people two, three years ago, but that is hardly the same thing as them chiming in with the verdict themselves.
Hyde has a lot of these so-called non-official policies. I am guessing it enables them to fine-tune the "character education" on an as-need basis...
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on July 28, 2007, 11:06:43 AM
Student Jobs: Everyone had a student job. These would be things like cleaning your dorm's bathroom, or cleaning up the congregating area in your dorm (if there was one), etc. Basically something that could be done in about half an hour, scheduled to take place before or after room inspection in the morning, if I recall correctly. These jobs were to be done each day. The lineup would rotate.
More responsible students had jobs with less structure and less oversight; they might be assigned a job that was less intense, but took longer, e.g., be monitor for study hall.
Students on scholarships had additional, more extensive, jobs. Typically something like pots and pans work for the kitchen chef.
Work Crew, aka 2-4: If you were on work-crew, you usually were exempt from your student job, as it would have enabled more fraternization with your fellow students than the school deemed appropriate. Part of the reason you were on work-crew was for you to think, in isolation, of whatever it was that you did that was so bad. Same comment, of course, about wilderness and outpost, when you would be completely off-campus altogether.
Of course, if you were on work-crew aka 2-4, you would be doing a student job, of sorts! You might be doing landscaping work on the school grounds, or other similarly beneficial labor... During my time this work was typically more involved and yet more pointless: digging 6x6 pits and filling them up again. The distance you had to move the dirt increased with the magnitude or number of your transgressions.
Here is a quote from Joe Gauld's own book, Character First: The Hyde School Difference (ICS Press, 1993), pp78-79:
The desystemization process is highly effective, even in the case of kids who have been notorious troublemakers in the past, like Jim. After Jim was expelled from his high school for repeatedly cutting classes and breaking the school's no-smoking rule, his mother read an editorial about Hyde School. After an interview Jim was given a trial in our summer program and underwent desystemization.
A year later we wrote his parents: "We believe Jim will not only continue to grow at Hyde but will also be an asset to the community... Jim is well on his way to becoming a young man of conscience and character."
How could a problem student like Jim make such a transformation in just a year? Jim's mother helps to explain, in a letter she wrote to her local newspaper about her son's summer school experience at Hyde.
Last spring you wrote an editorial about Hyde School... About this time my son was expelled from G. High School... His father took him for the required interview, and both made a commitment to Hyde.*
During the eight weeks that followed, weekly calls were made home: "Get me out of here, these kids rat on each other"; "Our canoe was swamped by a wave, and my tennis shoes are at the bottom of the ocean"; "We nearly starved on the ocean course in the dory" (ate all their provisions too soon and had only apples left the last day); then there were the pits dug "to bury the old image in" (my son's math class figured he dug enough dirt to cover an acre), not to mention work crews, being a shadow (having to constantly follow around some more responsible student), and what the kids termed the worst punishment, banishing a student to live by himself until he could prove he was ready to join the group again.
All of these experiences brought this group of 120 kids to the realization Hyde had a lot to offer them. They found they could get along without cigarettes, lose weight or a bad image, overcome shyness, etc. A more confident, thoughtful, happy group emerged, visibly proud of their accomplishments.
My son had no intention of returning to Hyde in the fall and was one of the last to decide to go back... He confided he was not sure he hadn't been brainwashed. Finally, he said he thought Hyde was like Listerine: you hate it, but you know you need it.
*
Addendum: See also the following re. ICS Press: http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21774 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21774)
Title: Hyde
Post by: nimdA on July 28, 2007, 08:08:30 PM
Describe more of these unofficial policies regarding character education.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Che Gookin on September 27, 2007, 10:47:23 AM
Where are we with this interview?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on October 29, 2007, 07:54:45 PM
Okay, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things here... Sorry, folks, got distracted with some other stuff.
This in from a recent grad, re. some details pertinent to allowable communications with your loved one stuck at Hyde. I have taken the liberty to alter some phraseology to protect said person's identity, otherwise the info, and the words for the most part, are theirs:
"...the students at hyde are assigned e-mail adresses, most of the time they are the first initial+last name at hyde.edu... For the most part e-mails are safe as long as they don't have profanity in them, then they are screened. Sending "snail mail" is the safest way, although they have confiscated mail of students who are in constant trouble. Also, if you are on '2-4,' their punishment for breaking ethics, you cannot receive any kind of mail."[/list]
Title: Hyde
Post by: Che Gookin on October 30, 2007, 02:00:04 AM
Are the rest of their internet activities monitored?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on October 30, 2007, 10:12:04 AM
Quote from: ""Che Gookin""
Are the rest of their internet activities monitored?
Well, take a look at what they did to this poor gal earlier this year (this was posted in June):
I honestly dount it will be 30-40%. Although i am one of those people who started the year and did not finish. My mother is now out 40,000. They also refused to give me money/clothing/cellphone back to me unless i removed what i wrote about hyde on this website. All i did was say the dean is a dick its not like i broke the lying ethic i mean hey come on I TOLD THE TRUTH! http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21094&start=9 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=21094&start=9)[/list]Read onwards in the above noted thread for speculation as to methodology. Clearly, current Hyde students should not post on fornits from campus using the Hyde server without using an anonymizing proxy, preferably one that re-sizes data packets. Even then, I suspect Hyde's proxy (using the https address, for tracking all incoming and outgoing traffic) may still give them enough data to nail someone for posting based on data packet sizes and time stamps, even if they can't prove it. I'm not a 100% sure about the tech aspects of that, but it's something along those lines.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Anonymous on October 30, 2007, 11:41:55 AM
the chinese have the same problem. I think they have some website they can use to access sites outside of the country without getting caught.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on October 30, 2007, 11:48:41 AM
Quote from: ""Guest""
the chinese have the same problem. I think they have some website they can use to access sites outside of the country without getting caught.
There are certain word filters used, too, I'm sure. Ergo screening the Hyde students' mail if they use profanity.
Kinda like what happens to you if you use the word "Tibet" in China, ha haa!!
Title: Hyde
Post by: Anonymous on October 30, 2007, 11:52:24 AM
guess someone needs to set up some sort of mirror site or something.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Anonymous on November 02, 2007, 09:07:30 AM
Out of curiousity, and you may have discussed it already I'm just to lazy to check, but in what other ways does the hyde school monitor communications?
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 02, 2007, 10:13:18 AM
Quote from: ""The Gookin""
Out of curiousity, and you may have discussed it already I'm just to lazy to check, but in what other ways does the hyde school monitor communications?
This may be an incomplete answer, but here goes. Phone communications are effectively not private. Cell phones are not allowed (for students). Pay phones that one can use for communicating with the outside world are all located in hallways and/or very public places. The pay phones are the ones your parents would call you up on, if they wanted to talk with you. I don't know what the restrictions are regarding phone communication if you are "in trouble" there, but I imagine there would be some.
The chances of you being in such a spot with no one around or in within earshot are virtually nil, since students' time is pretty highly organized. You are always around someone else at any given time of day. An exception might be if you chose to go on a 5 mile run alone in the woods or along the streets at 5 or 6 AM. Maybe on a weekend you could go into town alone. But if you were "in trouble" those off-campus privileges would be denied you.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 02, 2007, 12:49:34 PM
I think one of the more egregious areas of abuse that Hyde is guilty of is in the arena of sexual predation of the student body. I imagine some parents might think something along the lines of, "What's the harm of a little brainwashing, if it gets my kid back on track?" Certainly I have read words to that effect elsewhere, when it comes to parents rationalizing sending their kid away some where. Said parents and I might differ as to the consequences of a "little brainwashing," but I doubt very much that we would disagree on the potentially lifelong effects of a student being raped, seduced, or sexually assaulted by a faculty member.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Che Gookin on November 03, 2007, 03:38:35 AM
Quote from: ""Ursus""
I think one of the more egregious areas of abuse that Hyde is guilty of is in the arena of sexual predation of the student body. I imagine some parents might think something along the lines of, "What's the harm of a little brainwashing, if it gets my kid back on track?" Certainly I have read words to that effect elsewhere, when it comes to parents rationalizing sending their kid away some where. Said parents and I might differ as to the consequences of a "little brainwashing," but I doubt very much that we would disagree on the potentially lifelong effects of a student being raped, seduced, or sexually assaulted by a faculty member.
Explain this statement a little more please...
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 05, 2007, 12:45:55 AM
Hmmm. Where to start? It might be easiest to just start with a case that has received a lot of coverage this year, that would be the Larry Dubinsky case. This thread in the Hyde forum has discussed this at some length, along with a number of other cases:
Scary Larry back on campus!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=15689 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=15689)[/list]Briefly, Larry Dubinsky was a student during the mid/late 1970s, apparently a seemingly successful one, as he was a member of the Senior Leadership during his final year. He married another Hyde student, Donna Leonard, who was a few years younger. The Dubinskys came back to teach at Hyde, specifically the Woodstock campus. This was sometime in the mid or late 1990s; I'm not sure as to the specific year. Larry liked to express his love for the girls in rather... physical ways... There were complaints. Hyde did nothing. Eventually, a parent sued Hyde for the sexual assault of their daughter. This latest development was relatively recent, I'm thinking maybe 5 years ago. Here are links to some pages from the lawsuit, filed on the ISACCorp website:
http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit01.jpg (http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit01.jpg) http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit02.jpg (http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit02.jpg) http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit03.jpg (http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit03.jpg) http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit04.jpg (http://www.isaccorp.org/hyde/hydelawsuit04.jpg)[/list]These are jpg scans of actual documents, with the names of the student and her family blacked out, and are a bit fuzzy and not especially easy to read. I will transcribe them and post them here when I have more time.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 05, 2007, 03:25:27 AM
Transcription of the ISACCorp document (original on 4 separate pages) on the Dubinsky case. Please see my previous post for the links to jpg scans of the actual documents. ===========================================
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
XXXX XXXX VS. HYDE SCHOOL AT WOODSTOCK CIVIL ACTION NO. MARCH 5, 2002
C O M P L A I N T
1. This is an action by a female student against a private school which, upon information and belief, is the recipient of federal funds, for tolerating and encouraging a pattern of sexual misconduct directed against her and other female students by a male faulty member, over a long period of time.
2. Jurisdiction of this court is invoked under the provisions of Sections 1331, 1343(3) and 1367(a) of Title 28 of the United States Code and this court's supplementary and diversity jurisdiction over the plaintiff's causes of action under state law.
3. The plaintiff is an adult female citizen of the State of XXXXX. She was born on XXX and at all times mentioned herein was an out-of-state student at the defendant's school in Woodstock, Connecticut.
4. The defendant is a private school located in Woodstock, Connecticut. Upon information and belief, the defendant receives federal financial assistance for the operation of its educational and related programs.
5. The amount at issue in this case is greater than seventy-five thousand dollars, exclusive of interest and costs.
6. In 2001, and for several years prior thereto, the defendant employed at its school in Woodstock an adult male teacher by the name of Larry Dubinsky. At all times mentioned herein, said Dubinsky was acting as the agent, servant, and employee of the defendant, within the scope of his employment and agency, and for the defendant's financial benefit.
7. For several years prior to and including the events described hereinafter, the defendant, through its administrators and officials, had actual knowledge that Dubinsky was subjecting the female students at Hyde School to sexual harassment which included inappropriate touching, staring, and comments. Despite such actual knowledge, the defendant retained Dubinsky on its faculty and permitted him to continue to have daily, direct and unsupervised contact with the adolescent female students at the school, including the plaintiff.
8. During the second week of July, 2001, at the school, Dubinsky initiated a "role-playing" incident with the plaintiff in the course of which he insisted upon having full body contact with the plaintiff, repeatedly and over her objection, while making lewd and inappropriate comments to her which included the phrase "fucking pussy".
9. On August 1, 2001, while instructing a dance routine in which the plaintiff was involved, Dubinsky required the plaintiff to be his partner and to dance with him. He required her to bend down in front of him, then lifted her, raised her blouse, felt around her body for her hips and placed his hands on her hips. When the plaintiff objected and moved away from him, he attempted to coerce her into continuing.
10. When the plaintiff complained to the defendants administrators about the aforesaid misconduct, she was summoned to a meeting at which she was required to meet with Dubinsky and was criticized by administrators for not wanting to look at Dubinsky during the meeting. The following day, she was summoned to yet another meeting with administrators, which the administrators concealed from her parents. When school officials were informed in September of 2001 that the plaintiff was suffering from recurring nightmares regarding Dubinsky, a faculty member falsely accused the plaintiff of flirting with another male teacher. Her mother's pleas to the defendant's highest administrators that Dubinsky be kept away from the plaintiff and not allowed on school grounds were rejected. In February of 2002, the plaintiff was required to serve as a waitress at a party given the defendant's headmaster at which other under-age students were required to serve alcoholic beverages. Dubinsky was an invited guest at that party.
11. In the manner described above, the defendant has, on the basis of the plaintiff's sex, excluded her from participation in, denied her the benefits of, and/or subjected her to discrimination under an education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance in violation of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, Sections 1681 - 1688 of Title 20 of the United States Code.
12. In the manner described above, the defendant through its aforesaid agent subjected the plaintiff to assault and battery on each of the two separate occasions described above, in violation of Connecticut state law.
13. The conduct of the defendant and its agent described above was extreme and outrageous and was carried out with the knowledge that it probably would cause the plaintiff to suffer emotional distress.
14. In the manner described above, the defendant further acted in negligent disregard of the probability that its conduct would cause the plaintiff, like any person of ordinary sensibilities similarly situated, to suffer emotional distress so severe that physical illness could result.
15. As a direct and proximate result of the acts and omissions of the defendant described above, the plaintiff has suffered severe emotional distress.
WHEREFORE, the plaintiff claims judgment against the defendant for compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees and costs.
CLAIM FOR JURY TRIAL The plaintiff claims trial by jury.
THE PLAINTIFF
BY:______________ JOHN R. WILLIAMS Federal Bar No. ct00215 Williams and Pattis, LLC 51 Elm Street New Haven, CT 06510 TELEPHONE: 203.562.9931 FAX: 203.776.9494 E-MAIL: [email protected] Her Attorney
Title: Hyde
Post by: Anonymous on November 05, 2007, 11:18:28 AM
This makes me a bit ill thinking about all that must have gone on that didn't even make it to the official complaint. The pain of having to deal with a punitive and hostile administration, not to metnion the false innuendo used to possibly discredit this poor girl's pov when keeping it under wraps was no longer a possibility, reminds me so much of the hyde I once knew.
I guess not much has changed.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 05, 2007, 10:03:10 PM
Despite everything that transpired, despite the lawsuit even, Hyde continued to keep Dubinsky on campus. I believe that he lost his teaching benefits, but the rationalization for keeping him there was alleged to reside in the fact that his wife still taught there, and that they had kids which were still attending at the time.
Not sure how the needs or safety of the other female students attending at the time were factored into that, but I think it does say something about where Hyde places their priorities and exactly what kind of values they actually do hold dearest.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Anonymous on November 05, 2007, 11:00:58 PM
It definitely shows a clear lack of regard for the safety of the students by keeping the man on the campus.
He should have been removed and kept away dependent upon the outcome of the court's decision.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 06, 2007, 08:12:38 AM
The family chose to settle out of court, probably out of consideration for the daughter, and for what she undoubtedly would be put through during the trial. They were assured that "Hyde had learned its lesson."
I think each time such a circumstance arises, the family and the courts are given the impression that these are highly unusual circumstances, and that such a situation could never arise again. Families, or specific members of families, are often portrayed as crazy, having irrational vendettas, or in need of psychological help. The existence of former lawsuits is always downplayed or denied. In Connecticut, the obfuscation was enhanced by the relatively recent establishment of Hyde's Woodstock campus. Information or awareness of cases involving the Bath campus were less accessible.
In truth, such situations have been arising since at least the mid 1970s.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 07, 2007, 10:22:23 AM
Anyway, back to Larry Dubinsky... In some respects, Dubinsky never really left the Hyde enclave. His teaching activities were curtailed, as mentioned previously, and Hyde did eventually see fit to move the family "off-campus" (within a short walking distance), and somewhere in there the Dubinskys got divorced over the whole scandal. However, within a short period of time, Larry and Donna remarried. The event took place on the Bath campus in the Hyde "mansion" with many from Hyde community attending, it was even duly discussed in a Feature in one of the Hyde newsletters.
Larry was frequently sighted on campus, presumably due to "family activities," and there were several rumors as to his involvement with one or some of the sports teams as recently as 2006. I am not sure that that involvement was considered "official employment;" he may well have been "volunteering" as a local parent. He continued to participate in school functions, alumni reunions, etc. essentially all activities and avenues normally open to an alumnus, parent, or spouse of a faculty member since he was, in fact, a member of all three.
Here are some quotes from posts on the Hyde forum relative to this time:
Title: Your experience
Post by: hurrikayne on November 09, 2007, 12:33:08 AM
Oh my Gawd. I thought I had things bad (oh, and I did...just see anything whatsoever to do with Roloff's...). You folks seriously went through some shit too. I really believed that no one else had been through similar crap. That's such a shallow and whiny point of view, surprisingly. Never thought of myself as shallow & whiny before...
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 09, 2007, 08:13:11 AM
There are definite similarities. One of the reasons these ideologically-driven programs last so long is they tie in their raison d'etre with lots of so-called virtues and laudable values.
I love this statement from the Roloff threads. Kind of sums up their rationalizations real nice. It could have just as easily been written by a Hyde-apologist.
Quote from: ""Guest""
In the final analysis, if we want civilization to advance and the world to become a better place, we need rules and role models that can counteract dissolution and evil-doing. Human behavior is a broad spectrum, and even religions and cults have helped with those things.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Ursus on November 25, 2007, 05:12:27 PM
And if Larry Dubinsky's shenanigans -- in and of themselves -- weren't bad enough, the icing on the cake was how Hyde chose to deal with them. At no time were any authorities contacted. In fact, Hyde held at least two meetings with the girl -- in which she was forced to confront Larry Dubinsky in person, in the presence of multiple, mostly male faculty who were probably not very happy about the situation -- before even deigning to call the girl's parents. Probably the only reason it got to the point of calling the girl's parents is because the girl refused to back down. And, from what I've been told, the only reason it got to the point where the girl was even taken seriously in the first place, was due to the efforts of one sole faculty member (not surprisingly, no longer associated with Hyde School).
Mind you, Larry Dubinsky had been on this behavior path for some time, and none of the girls' complaints had been taken seriously up to that point.
From the Complaint, a few posts up:
Quote
10. When the plaintiff complained to the defendants administrators about the aforesaid misconduct, she was summoned to a meeting at which she was required to meet with Dubinsky and was criticized by administrators for not wanting to look at Dubinsky during the meeting. The following day, she was summoned to yet another meeting with administrators, which the administrators concealed from her parents. When school officials were informed in September of 2001 that the plaintiff was suffering from recurring nightmares regarding Dubinsky, a faculty member falsely accused the plaintiff of flirting with another male teacher. Her mother's pleas to the defendant's highest administrators that Dubinsky be kept away from the plaintiff and not allowed on school grounds were rejected. In February of 2002, the plaintiff was required to serve as a waitress at a party given the defendant's headmaster at which other under-age students were required to serve alcoholic beverages. Dubinsky was an invited guest at that party.
Title: Re: Your experience
Post by: Che Gookin on November 25, 2007, 06:56:53 PM
Quote from: ""hurrikayne""
Oh my Gawd. I thought I had things bad (oh, and I did...just see anything whatsoever to do with Roloff's...). You folks seriously went through some shit too. I really believed that no one else had been through similar crap. That's such a shallow and whiny point of view, surprisingly. Never thought of myself as shallow & whiny before...
If you have some free time I'd love to discuss the particulars of Roloff's.
Title: Hyde
Post by: Che Gookin on November 25, 2007, 06:58:42 PM
And specifically regarding Larry and his sort.. Did other teachers engage in Larry's sort of disgusting behavior or even worse?
Title: Re: Hyde
Post by: Anonymous on March 03, 2009, 06:17:59 AM
earl bigalow, 2004
Title: Re: Hyde
Post by: katfacehead89 on December 09, 2021, 06:39:09 PM
wow, I hadn't read these before. ISAC has been shut down. Anyone still have the Larry Dubinsky case transcripts? (Hiler v Hyde)