Hi PODK, its good to see you back again. I remember the discussion a few years ago also. There were many posters here on fornits who did not like the report/book because Dave Marcus found The Academy at Swift river to be helpful to most children. He lived and taught there and followed a peer group for 14 months. He reported on the good as well as the bad aspects of the industry.
He lived and taught what he was permitted to see and teach. I remember clearly how the program I was in would clean up and outright lie to visitors. They presented a false front when it was convenient.
Even if Dave Marcus did witness an sanitized version of the program, after being there 14 months i'm not at all convinced he wouldn't have "gone native". The bizarre starts to seem normal after a while. Let me quote an amazon review of the book:
What would have been a less harsh and equally effectvie solution for jerome, the boy who had never touched an illicit drug and who only needed greater attention academically to thrive? Why was his mother not encouraged to look at the alternative school that he ended up at first? Is there a potential danger in putting a naive and socially struggling kid from the suburbs in a place with world weary drug taking sophisticates? Would it be culturally appropriate for a hispanic girl with devout catholic beliefs to have to confess her sexual sins publically?
This book also presents the kids relapses as an unfortunate accident without extensively delving into why. It strikes me that Trevor, the witty and easygoing Englishman never really learnt how to survive outside of the highly artificial world of ASR. Perhaps this was because it did not give him the self worth to refuse to engage in behaviours extreme enough to be lifethreatening or the practical tools to say no to a very real and strong temptation.
And what of the staff? Only one line was devoted to the fact that the enthusiastic English teacher left claiming the only thing she loved about the place was the kids. Why was this so?
And whhat is the effect of such a high turnover of staff on vulnerable troubled young people? DJ the ADD adoptee began a down hill slide when his favourite PE teacher Big Mike abruptly left.
Finally it does not question at all the morality of the programme. Actively punishing harrdworking kids such as Jerome for not turning in their friends when they confide in each other does not teach loyalty or strengthen friendship. It comes across as meanspirited and unjust. Does any school have the moral right to tell a mother what she should or should not put in a letter to her child?
Apparently, none of these things seemed to shock Dave Marcus in the least -- certainly not in retrospect. Anyway, wasn't he And
even if what he saw and reported was completely accurate,
it's still anecdote. There is no proof whatsoever that a single kid was ever saved by a program. There are plenty who think they were, but then again, there are plenty who swear by homeopathy, or Scientology, or foul smelling exotic fruits.
Speaking of exotic fruits, the Noni fruit, which Whooter is so fond of is not allowed to be sold in Europe as a health product. It's permitted to be sold as a food, but it's not permissible to sell it with any claims about health benefits. Why? Because there is no real evidence there are any. Why then is it OK to send kids to a programs that makes claims about "saving" kids when there is no evidence that has ever happened and there is considerable evidence the methods often employed are harmful? Should parents be able to subject their kids, as their property, to any untested treatment whatsoever?
That's really the core issue here. Desperate parents are willing to try anything when they
feel like their kids are spiraling out of control and programs are more than willing to sell them a solution. The viability or efficacy of the solution doesn't matter. What matters is that it makes the parents feel good and as far as i'm concerned, that's the number one goal of many of these programs -- not helping the kids. Whooter would argue that by helping the kids, the parents are pleased. I would counter that programs need not actually help the kids. All they have to do is get the kids to believe, and openly profess, that they were helped. If they explode later -- well. It's anybody's fault but the program.