Okay, this is going to be a long post, so bear with me
It was......different. I've been out for 3 years now and it was literally being "removed from the stream of reality" for 16 months.
The students were broken up into teams. Boys and girls, all different peer classes. Each team had an adviser and an assistant adviser.
There were 5 workshops. One of our students went to CEDU middle school and ended up at Carlbrook for High School. He said that they were almost exactly like the Cedu workshops. Hell, the night I got out of Veneratio (the last workshop; Honor) he dropped one of the tools on me and he had only gone through the first three (Integritas (Integrity), Amicitia (Friendship), and Animus (Passion)). The tools and exercises and music...well, if you have specific questions, I'll tell you what I remember.
"Tell it all brother"... What does that song mean to you?
Groups 3 times a week. Monday and Friday were request groups, Wednesday was Team group. Request groups were always scary for me, mostly because I was what you could call...well an Omega Male. All groups had at least one adviser, if not two. Sometimes the deans and/or directors would go to group.
I didn't deal well with confrontation and I took every bit of feedback as a reflection of character (read:permanent and irrevocable) and had to be reminded a number of times, by myself, my peers, and the advisers that it wasn't.
Rules were called standards, and when you were "out of standard" you'd usually get a crew. This was disciplinary action. An hour of physically demanding cleaning. You ran around and cleaned, on the hop. The "crew leaders" were all students.
yeah.. where I was, they called it "work ethic"
In "Lower School" we were allowed 1 phone call a week, and as many letters as we'd like.
Middle School upped us to two phone calls a week.
Our letters were never censored,
How sure are you? I thought that as well until talking to my parents in detail, and realizing I didn't get many of the letters they sent me.
but they were read. Our parents had one call with our advisors every week.
Wilderness was a pre-requisite. We were all given aptitude tests before we were even considered for enrollment. I can tell you that everyone at Carlbrook was bright. The intellectual prowess was there, however neglected or misused it was.
Case in point: I got a 1380 on my SATs.....without trying.
Not bad, not bad. Similar score here, same situation (not trying).
It was enough to get me into Rutgers Engineering. (R-U-RAH-RAH) I actually recently met with a girl who was on a college visit with her parents. Things have changed some since my tenure there, but I'll get into that later.
If you were stuck, acting out, or what have you, you'd get put on a program (this has since been turned into suspension). I was put on a program because I had "flown under the radar" through three workshops, avoiding many of my deeper issues. If anyone wants to hear more about that, I'll share.
Please do. I am a rock... you know the shtick. It's all the same in all the programs. However, there is a sceptical parent reading, who I tried to convince of this, but she still remains sceptical.
From personal experience.. I know it's hard to write about, remember, or really even think about... But if you can , please. I'd like to hear about it, and it might open the eyes of a few people.
Umm..lets see. A few of my close friends didn't make it through the program. When I was there, noone had yet to turn 18 and walk. However, from what I heard from the girl on her college visit, that's changed some. We had a few runners, and runners were sent back to wilderness. After I graduated, a few students went on home visits and never returned.
Visit schedule....hmmm: Okay, first visit is after the first workshop. Its 2 days on campus. Second is after the second workshop, 2 days off campus in a 150 mile or so radius. If you lived in that area, you weren't allowed to go home though. Some of my friends while I was there were actually fairly local to the area. Third visit was 3 days off campus. Fourth visit was a home visit, 1 week. Fifth visit was another home visit. Second visit you can drive, and its almost like a precursor to assimilation back into society.
I've recieved a few e-mails from our alumni relations. One was a survey on what could've been done better to help us post graduation. As a result of this, they've been working on putting together a reintroduction curriculum.
At least in my experience, they try and convince students they are changing... So they won't start a crusade... Have you talked to recent graduates? My guess is that nothing ha (or will) change. It hasn't cince CEDU's inception... and it won't. It works (makes money)... why break it.
They make no pretenses that we're going to graduate and be little angels. They know that some of us will make mistakes. Some of us have. Carlbrook's first graduation was in May 03. It's still young, still changing. However, from what I've heard, it's become stricter and the students have been acting out worse and worse.
I haven't been back, although a number of my friends have. I do know that although it's very intense, it's also a very nurturing environment. Yes, the potential for abuse is there, with the monitoring of letters and limited phone calls. However, I never saw emotional abuse. Unless you call stark, clean, no bullshit honesty abusive.
Ok... Could you describe an example of "no bullshit honesty".
I don't, but I'm fairly conservative about these things.
I honestly can't say that I recommend the program to anyone anymore, because I haven't seen all the changes that have taken place since I graduated so my recommendation wouldn't be entirely in full faith.
Wise decision. Programs lie. I would be very interested in talking to you via phone or IM about your experiences. Can you PM me?
My personal experience....I can't say I enjoyed the experience. And I can't say that I've gotten nothing out of it.
All the people who know me say that I went to college a shit-ton more confident than I was when I went in. I don't reflect often on my experience there, but I know that I'm different and better off for it.
Do you feel you have an almost paranormal insight into other people's heads? Can you tell when they're lying? (You can't con a con)...
Do you feel you discovered a "new you".. or that you took off masks you wore before program?
The morning I went to the woods (wasn't escorted) I had barely turned 16, and I had it in my head that I was gonna drop out of high school. I was on my second public high school. I would go days without coming home; I had, at that point, regrettably gotten into a few physical altercations with my father.....home wasn't a pretty place. I was a full of shit high schooler...I lied to most of the people in my life.
Were you encouraged to rewrite your "Life story"? Multiple times?
Was what you wrote accepted... or did you have to put down what they wanted to hear to progress?
Did you ever believe what you put down? Was it true? What is truth to you? Is it what others see, or what you know? What do you know? Did fiction become reality? What were the facts?
I'm asking these questions, not for you to give me answers, but for you to think about them. The answers are your own. I've been there. I know what I went through. No. I don't know you. I can't see into your heart... And neither could they. They made a guess, and you had to accept it... How deeply did you accept it? Pretending enough.... eventually you aren't pretending anymore.
Did my parents fuck up? Yes. Did they take responsibility for that? Yes. I'm in a unique situation for being Thai, with old country parents. Thailand is a country of corporal punishment, verbal abuse, and general strictness. I kinda feel that they didn't have a chance. The differences in cultures were tough enough.
For the record: I NEVER saw a student being physically restrained by a staff member.
Oh, and I've been pmming with Charly. I can vouch for her because I am close friends with her son.
And in terms of the women that I referenced earlier, they were very nurturing, caring, and good to me. Julie Dyer and Bridget Martinson were my advisors for the second half of my stay, Amy supported my first workshop and actually was hired right after I got there, and Jen, IIRC, supported my 4th workshop.
Oh cool.. You know Karen and her son. She knows me too.
You seem to like the adcisors you were in your workshops with. I'm not surprised. Ever wonder why every student's favorite counselor/advisor is the workshop one?
