Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elan School

elan.school

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 59 posts

Re: Elan School

#11

Post by ars »

revscat wrote: post #8
stardenburden wrote: post #6

I read the entire comic two days ago, it left me disturbed and angry. It's tragic to what humans are possible, and terrifying to see the results of countless studies in real life - abused for money. I don't understand how the school could exist for so long, conditions were straight up evil - how did nobody publish that in a mainstream newspaper?

Not only how it existed, but how people could find cause to send their own children there.

The parents did not actually know what it was really like. They only knew the marketing "we'll help your kids".

When the kids told them, they were usually not believed because these were kids with a history of bad behavior already.

Re: Elan School

#13

Post by bentcorner »

This is horrifying. Can we be sure something like this isn't still happening? Are there people trying to help stop this kind of thing? I don't even know where to start.

Re: Elan School

#14

Post by helpfulclippy »

zzixp wrote: post #10

I originally found this link 2 days ago from this HN discussion on the troubled teen industry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30819756 . I sat through and read the entire thing in one sitting. It's gripping and incredibly horrifying at the same time.

Same, except it took me two (lengthy) sittings. Really strong stuff. Had to really reflect afterwards.

Re: Elan School

#15

Post by ohlookabird »

zzixp wrote: post #10

I originally found this link 2 days ago from this HN discussion on the troubled teen industry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30819756 . I sat through and read the entire thing in one sitting. It's gripping and incredibly horrifying at the same time.

Found it also a while ago (maybe also on HN), and was captivated by it. I had to spend a whole Saturday reading through it. Absolutely horrifying.

Re: Elan School

#17

Post by afandian »

tempnow987 wrote: post #9
revscat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What justification was used by your parents in sending you there?

One challenge parents face is they don't feel there are other options. They often cannot get services locally, cannot get kids into anything in patient, cannot get discipline going. It's a weird dichotomy. You let your kid walk to park alone, you could face jail time. You send them to one of these camps, no issues. In addition to criticizing these program's I'd love to see better suggested options for often desperate…

No post body was provided.

Re: Elan School

#18

Post by tharne »

afandian wrote: post #17
tempnow987 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One challenge parents face is they don't feel there are other options. They often cannot get services locally, cannot get kids into anything in patient, cannot get discipline going. It's a weird dichotomy. You let your kid walk to park alone, you could face jail time. You send them to one of these camps, no issues. In addition to criticizing these program's I'd love to see better suggested options for often desperate…

Quoted post unavailable.

In a lot of U.S. states now, the age is as high as 12. The U.S. has gone absolutely insane in the name of protecting children. And, if you dare question the wisdom of any of these policies, you're typically met with something like, "I guess you just want children to DIE".

As an aside, there's also this creepy trend in the U.S. to refer to 15 and 16 year-olds as "children". If someone had referred to me as a child at 16 years old, I would have looked at them like they were insane.

Re: Elan School

#19

Post by cameronfraser »

revscat wrote: post #7
cameronfraser wrote: post #5

I went to a similar school called CEDU, same protocol for getting students there, same abuse. Elan school was actually actively contacting current students parents of CEDU right when it closed down to get them to come to Elan. Most of the people I went to CEDU with are broken or dead. There are more schools like this, they just close down and start again. I'll plug Daniel Yuen's name here, he was at the facility with…

What justification was used by your parents in sending you there?

They lie to parents and misrepresent the school usually. When parents go to visit everyone is acting to some extent. That being said it's usually narcissistic parents with money who are looking for an easy solution. There were quite a few fairly famous children there. Most of the kids there had issues for sure, including myself, but it was still in the realm of normal teenager issues.

Re: Elan School

#20

Post by ThatGeoGuy »

dljsjr wrote: post #2

I was completely unaware of the existence of Elan School and I couldn't find much on the site that talks about what's going on unless you actually read the comic. Unfortunately it's the middle of the work day so I don't have time to read the comic right now but I wanted to know what it was about to know if I should come back to it. If you're in a similar boat: Elan School was apparently a behavior modification/"thera…

> Elan School was apparently a behavior modification/"therapeutic" boarding school in Maine that engaged in some extremely controversial practices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élan_School

Not that I'm doubting any intentions here, but I think dressing this up as "extremely controversial" might be under-selling or burying the lede a bit. Had the practices (the ring, isolation, management structure) that occurred at Elan been done on adult prisoners, they would have with absolute moral certainty been seen as war crimes of the highest order. The fact that this happened to children and had the level of corruption and money behind it to persist for as long as it did should give one extreme pause, and the reprehensibility of the institution should not be "controversial," but rather condemned.

Indeed I would agree that this is really harrowing stuff. Just wanted to add that if you're going to look into this without any prior knowledge be sure that you're ready to be exposed to several levels of trauma.

Post reply on HN