Some of you have seen this already, but....

[kyrielle]

This is wrong on so many levels. The parents should be arrested for child endangerment or abuse (depending), and so should anyone who runs the place. Oh, but they're hiding out-of-country.

This whole article makes me queasy and furious.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/classroomviolence/story/0,12388,987932,00.html

Comments

[pantswarrior]

Someone pointed me to that article about a week ago, and like I told them... it sounds remarkably similar to the adolescent psychiatric wards I spent time in. After those, this isn't really that bad. I mean, yeah, it sucks, but that sort of stuff goes on right here in our country too, and no one does anything about it.

Yes, but....

[pheon.livejournal.com]

I agree that this is at the sickening and infuriating end of the
spectrum. But it is a spectrum. Let me tell you a story.

Several years ago, Peggy, a woman that I had worked with a couple of
times at Tek --- she worked in the Finance department and we
collaborated on whether and how to do charge-back to users'
departments for their computer usage; I argued that this made no sense
given our setup; she agreed and convinced her management of that ---
got referred to me by one of the sysadmins that worked for me. She
wanted help in searching for boot camp kinds of places for her
out-of-control daughter. Peggy was a single mom. She was at the end
of her rope, unable to control her daughter and unwilling to "accept"
the help the state offered her, which was to give the duaghter up to
the CSD, have her put in a foster home --- how are they going to do
better? --- and relinquish all control. Peggy was unwilling to go
that route.

So I helped her search out alternatives. This was before the days of
Google, you understand. It was a long and tedious search, leading to,
I imagine, a lot of phone calls on her part.

I had met the daughter when Peggy and I had a late afternoon meeting
one day. Perhaps 13 or 14, foul-mouthed, dirty, violently rebellious.
I remember walking away thanking my lucky stars that we had never had
such problems with our daughter, who was only a few years older.

I didn't see Peggy for several years --- she worked in a different
building than I did --- until one day a couple of years ago. It was
the "Bring your child to work day" and they were all over the campus.
Peggy came over to our building and found me in the cafeteria. She
introduced me to her daughter --- a strikingly attractive teenager who
looked a little bored --- as "the man who helped me find Ponderosa."
[I'm making the name up, since I don't remember the real name.] The
daughter was immediately enthusiastic. "Thank you. Thank you. I
could never have straightened out without them."

I gathered from Peggy later that she had sent her daughter to the boot
camp, somewhere in the southwest as I recall, for almost two years and
had gotten back a respectful, energetic, happy daughter.

Sometimes the process works. One of Peggy's strongest criteria was
that she retained control of when her daughter went in or out,
something that the CSD wouldn't allow her.

Yes, but....

[kyrielle]

That makes sense. I can see where, in some circumstances, extreme measures are needed.

But that article - that is way too extreme. In my opinion.

Yes, but....

[pheon.livejournal.com]

I agree. This place is over the top. Or maybe under the bottom....

Yes, but....

[kyrielle]

The regimented living, I can see. The teaching you to not want to be who you are, I can see. (I don't like them - my independent spirit and the realization that this could be done to anyone, not just those who truly need it - but that's different from thinking there's no cause for them at all.)

But the isolation (I speak of the room where they have to lie face down, not the rest), the physical pushing, the literal kidnapping, and teaching them to think they would have died without this?Some of the other stuff, too - I'm forgetting what-all - but those items in particular.

[elfbabe.livejournal.com]

This place worries me. Not because I don't think that some teenagers need a very strict sort of environment for a while... but because there's no guarantee that it's the very, very few people who might need something like this who'll be sent there.

I mentioned this to my mother. She said she understood why people sent their kids there, that it made sense to her.

So, just to be safe, I told my little sister about it, too. And I told her how to get out of a place like this with her mind intact.

Just in case. I'm fond of the little brat.