<p>I am shocked and horrified, but I can’t say I’m surprised.</p>
<p>When I was at Horace Mann, long ago and in another incarnation, I knew a number of people named in the article. One was a classmate, who later became a teacher and coach. There were always rumors about pedophilic teachers, not that anything like that happened to me personally. (Elsewhere, but not at Horace Mann.) I know the school is “lawyering up,” but I still find its reaction rather contemptible.</p>
<p>DonnaL,
As I’m sure you know, the current administration has only been in place relatively recently, and this article describes incidents that in most cases happened decades ago. Unfortunately, I’m sure these types of occurrences happened at many other schools. The Times and NY Magazine love to “go at” HM whenever possible. It is portrayed, somewhat unfairly, as a school for the children of the elite, and it’s quite fashionable to knock the “elite” down a peg or two whenever possible. Almost 20% of the school is on financial aid, and there are plenty of families who while not on FA, have to work very hard to make this type of superb education available to their children.</p>
<p>I do find the reaction of previous administrations to be contemptible, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve had 3 kids graduate from the school since 2003 and haven’t heard any such rumors from them in that time. What, if anything, do you find contemptible about the reaction of the current administration?</p>
<p>To name a few, the lawyer/PR person-speak, the “it wasn’t us, don’t blame me” approach – as if it’s an issue with them personally rather than the institution itself, which was indeed around when this happened, and needs to answer for it – and the pretense that they have to protect the privacy of people who are dead. Also, Somary died just last year. It isn’t as if the current administration didn’t know about him. (I always tried to stay out of his way – I was very much not a music person – but what little I saw, I didn’t like.)</p>
<p>Did you read the statement the school released today? That’s a lot of what I’m talking about. </p>
<p>Read the comments below the New York Times article. There are many from former students, some of them a lot less than 30 years ago, naming names – many of which weren’t mentioned in the article. This isn’t entirely “ancient history.”</p>
<p>I’ve heard some interesting stories from my prep school, but thankfully while there were plenty of adults misbehaving, for the most part they didn’t seem to be as harmful to students. What amazes me the most is how little supervision there was of students at a boarding school. No adults in the dorms at all at night for example.</p>
<p>The current head of school came in on 7/1/05 several years after Somary left. I agree that I don’t like the “lawyer” speak of official press releases, but I can tell you that recent alumni students also received an email today from the current head of school as well as the chair of the board of trustees which quotes from the current handbook about policies in place for dealing with any allegations of bullying or harassment.</p>
<p>I’m afraid I don’t understand. Do you mean that if this happened at a top school then there must have been unspeakably more at schools with less affluent students? </p>
<p>I went to public school in an upscale area ( houses now in the $600,00 - $800,000 range) . My brother’s elementary teacher was caught abusing little girls in the class. One of my Jr high teachers was fired for “dating” (that’s what they called it then) a 16 year old former student. One of the favorite high school teachers who got all kinds of honors at the time was sleeping with a different Sr. girl every year. The summer after I graduated one of my high school teachers married one of my classmates. These were only the cases that were known openly at the time.
Being “elite” doesn’t make a school immune.</p>
<p>I understand that. But I still think it’s very important not to sweep everything that happened under the rug, on the theory that it’s ancient history and couldn’t happen anymore, etc. And I should add that the article may not have been only the tip of the iceberg, but left a whole lot unsaid. Perhaps the most notorious long term abuser there, an English teacher who was around while I was there and for many years thereafter (I always thought he was frighteningly creepy and did my best to avoid him) isn’t even mentioned. Nothing was done about him, either. </p>
<p>And then there was my 7th grade English teacher. I’m embarrassed even to say what he used to do with all the little boys in turn, as he continued to teach the class.</p>
<p>There really needs to be an investigation of how things were handled. Especially the way they used to fire people who molested kids (only the less powerful and influential teachers, of course), and send them on to other schools without saying a word. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Pass the problem along.</p>
<p>Donna, I didn’t mean to say one should sweep things under the rug - only that this kind of thing happened everywhere and still does, and that non-elite schools probably aren’t worse than higher priced ones.</p>
<p>This may sound odd to say, but of late I’ve begun to look at much of what went on at my prestige LAC (which at the time I think was 50-60% or so prep school grads) as just kids trying to figure out their own recovery (and without any assistance).</p>
<p>In the comments to the New York Times article, someone mentioned something I already knew: that out of my graduating class of 103 at Horace Mann, 5 committed suicide before the age of 21. I’d like to think that was an unusual number, and just a coincidence. But who knows?</p>
<p>A lot of parents pay a lot of money for top prep schools to make sure that their kids are taken care of and protected. It is really sad that something like this happens, but I just think it’s sort of ironic how parents pay a lot of money for their kids to go to these top prep schools (especially in New York City), only to you know have these teachers doing these disgusting things to these students. </p>
<p>I didn’t necessarily mean that more will happen in less affluent schools, I just think that more does happen probably at really poor schools (think inner city in cities like Detroit, Chicago or Baltimore). I went to a “top” public school by most standards but I still didn’t like a lot of my teachers. Many were only there for the paycheck, some were bitter about their lives and reflected it back to us, and others just engrossed us in their negativity. Younger male teachers were sometimes subjected to unwarranted flirting by hormonal teenage girls (they made mixtapes for one teacher, laughed at almost anything he said, stayed with him during lunch hours), and so many teachers dared us to play favorites. Attractive female teachers were sometimes disparagingly talked about by male students.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing the article. I found it disturbing. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and went to parish schools and am often left wondering if any of the young men / boys I went to school with had similar stories. We were so clueless and unprepared back then.</p>