I’m sure you can find ex-students that will give you your positive responses. I know many many many more that want nothing to do with surveys or even talking about their experiences in cedu and cedu like programs because they were so tramitized.

Finally, I find it upsetting and scary that anyone would be OK with sending the child to a program that would “experimenting” in hopes of becoming the “next best practice”. Great for the kids of the programs that work, not so great for the ones that the “experiment” did not work.

You sound like a mad scientist, trying to justify radical experiments on homeless, disabled, or elderly people. You are not messing with some lab rat, these are living, breathing people.

The post-traumatic stress, of which I have been clinically diagnosed, did not come from my time in the military. It did not come from living in a war zone for a year.
It came from a facility, like yours.
It came from administrators, like you.
It came from staff, like the ones you employ.

It would be safer to send children into Baghdad than send them to a residential treatment center.

ALL of the things mentioned above were a part of the program. 21 days were not experienced by everyone because you had to get in a lot of trouble to be put on one (IE refusing the program for an extended period was a good enough reason). Many of my peers were sent on 21 days.

I am a graduate and none of this his “hearsay”

The consensus with graduates of my time is the program was illegal, abusive and unethical (mostly negative)

You can’t discount real experience. You participating in a “workshop” here and there is not the same as attending CEDU as a student year round, everyday for 30 months.

I’m glad some people had a good experience.. I would never wish upon someone the nightmarish emotions that me and many of my friends must endure due to CEDU. But I highly doubt this opinion is a majority.

-Keeping minors up for 24 hours at a time with little clothing and food with extreme variable temperatures is not legal

-Leaving a minor in the desert alone for 4 days with little food and no shelter is not legal

-Giving valid high school credits for chopping wood with a cross cut saw and sledge and wedge for 30 hours a week is unethical

-Physically injuring a student and not letting them see a doctor nor tell their parents for months on end is not legal!

-Stripping a child of their right to smile, laugh, sing, be touched is unethical

The list goes on and on. Although this “great” experiment may have helped a small minority.. it has hurt a great majority. Innovation, with it’s positive connotation, is noway to speak of with behavioral modification techniques on children especially when their parents are paying a lot of money for it.

The program is flawed and very expensive.

But I ask you Lon, you seem to be the expert here.. Have you experienced a propheet? a rap? work assignments? a workshop? work crews? a wilderness trip? a solo? a table? a fulltime? a 21 day? dinner dishes? lugs?

I ask.. who is the real expert here. Who really know what effect a program has on it students?

The students.

If you want data.. interview ALL students over ALL time periods. I think you’ll be surprised at the outcome.

So far as experiences, yes I participated in most of the above, but some I never saw or heard happen at this school system (heard some from some rogue programs though). So far as interview all students, I have received surveys from a period of over many years with responses from very positive to very negative (with an emphasis on the positive) including some ex-students who have kept in touch with me, and: did you experience all of those bad experiences yourself, or are you just passing on heresay/war stories from others?

Reunions have nothing to do with the program… we have them all the time because the friendships made under such distress will be some of the tightest friendships ever created. Those people are my family.. they went through 30 months of insanity with me.. and they will be a subset of my friend pool forever.. a subset that can understand me better than anyone.

You are welcome to your opinion. From my side, I hear from ex-students and ex-parents all the time and the reaction ranges from positive to negative The picture is not as clear and simple as you seem to state.

1 : the introduction of something new
2 : a new idea, method, or device : novelty

CEDU definitely used “innovative” approaches but that does not mean that they were successful nor does it imply that they were legal. Daily humiliation for 30 months helps a struggling child how?

That doesn’t seem to be what the ex-students are saying on the facebook page planning the Rocky Mountain Academy reunion: and it doesn’t sound like that from parents mostly distressed by CEDU’s closing . -Lon

Huh? Is there a fact here?

15 years ago – in the budding internet – I was one of those that could have been considered “an internet addict” – did this ruin my life?

No.

It actually gave me the basis for something that has now become the livelihood of my family.

Let me explain – I spent countless hours on MUDs (like today’s MMORPG’s but text based), IRC (internet relay chat – essentially chat rooms), and the WWW. I was fascinated with the whole new world opening up. (It might also be said that I had just gotten out of one of those “treatment facilities”, for a so-called “sex addiction” – even though there was no addiction, and it was actually a matter of personal identity – I was a lesbian – and I have Asperger’s Syndrome – which, given its ability to become compulsive and obsessive, looked very much like “addiction”, when I got into something).

I spent time at home – not working – on the computer, constantly – my parents (I was almost 20 at the time), were worried, always yelling at me to go get a job, and to get out of the house and do something social. Seriously – my life – nothing but ‘net.

Flash forward 15 years later – I have an Emmy award for technical work with a team for Interactive Television, I work in the computer industry as a Systems Administrator/Network Engineer.

Essentially my “addiction” got to the point where I had to know everything about the internet and computers, I started playing with UNIX – which made all these things I was into (MUDs, IRC, and WWW) much easier, and definitely made my experience complex and enriching.

When I finally needed to get a job, I finally had marketable skills – at first in tech support, next in networking. I was “obsessed” with networking and computers for a good part of the next 8 years from that point.

And then came my son – and now – I’m “addicted” to being a Mom.

I understand the paradigm for everyone to think of things they don’t understand as “addiction” – but seriously – in things that can turn to marketable skills (and yes, I even think surfing porn can be turned into a marketable skill, or it may just be I know more about the internet and technology than the average bear… I have a friend who mkes a nice living doing bizarre porn websites – I’m pretty sure that was an obsession/”addiction” for him at one point.) is there really such thing as an “addiction”? Or is it just obsession than can be harnessed and turned into something life-giving and affirming, and positive?

Sometimes it really amazes me how clueless some people really are – makes me want to hit them with a Clue by Four – ala the BOFH (another fun thing arising out of my internet “addiction” – look it up sometime).