TASIS: An Insider Look at a Novel Cult A 'Superior Education' or a Big Lie? – My High School Experience
A 'Superior Education' or a Big Lie? – My High School Experience
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself - Fredrick Nietzsche
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
- Ayn Rand
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
- Malcolm Forbes
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
- Mahatma Gandhi
I hope to illustrate both an account and interpretation of my own personal experience, and connect it to universal issues. I don't expect to change anything directly, but I hope that it can serve as a catalyst for further debate and maybe even a reference tool for broader research. I am not trying to promote any agenda or philosophy; it is my intention to write something that has universal appeal and value. I would like this page to be a focal point between various interests. That being said, I refues to 'dumb this page down' in order to reach a wider audience. Everything I say needs to be said. Hopefully I can get a few people to look at their issues and beliefs from a different angle, if only temporarily. I divided this page into sections making it easier to read and reference particular ideas. Some sections will hold more relevance to the reader than others. I welcome opinions and suggestions with regards to the content and format of this page.
I started writing this blurb many years ago and I can't seem to finish it. This page is and always will be an ongoing work in progress. If you are reading this page to be entertained, stop now. I am not writing this for public approval, money, to prove a point, or to fullfill some grudge, and I am not trying to sell myself or an agenda. I don’t care what you think about me or this blurb, and I don't care if I offend anyone. I am not even trying to justify my own failings. I have wasted too much of my life trying to maintain appearances to people who didn’t even have my interests in mind. I don't really care if there are people who don't care or who don't finish reading; I refuse to distort my message to get a wider audience. I wrote this just as much for my own understanding as for anyone else or to 'accomplish' somthing. There is no way to know what impact I will have anyway. You can’t change people, make people care, get them to understand you, or even change their opinion; all you can do is call it how it is.
For this reason the truth has always had value regardless of entertainment value, popularity, how uncomfortable it makes people feel, or how ruthlessly it was crushed. As immutable and compromising as truth may be, no one has a monopoly of it. Dissent, no matter how small of a minority it represents or how misguided it may be, has value, as it is the necessary component to any meaningful discourse. You can’t change the past, but you can learn from it and avoid its repetition by trying to reach for the truth.
I don't care if I make people uncomfortable. It took me a painfully long amount of time to realize that you can’t make people like you, respect you, accept you, treat you fairly, or even be rational. None of these things can even be earned, regardless of your level of effort or your character. You can't even make people understand you; you can only understand yourself and to a lesser extent other people. All you can do is strive to live with some dignity and self respect, which ultimately requires being honest with yourself and others, and living in the truth. I do not confuse this with pride; dignity and self-respect come from accepting your failings and limitations, and being willing the improve yourself while appreciating yourself for your uniqueness.
I admit I have no monopoly on the truth and I accept my personal failures, both past and present. However, I have learned that if you really want to progress in life you need to understand yourself, which requires being honest with yourself and others. Sometimes calling a duck a duck is the only power and comfort one has. From this, I have learned to value meaningful dialogue and the honest exchange of opinions and ideas, even if it makes myself and other people uncomfortable and even if that makes me a minority for doing so. Although I write this to understand myself and people and for my own peace of mind, I also truly believe everyone’s experiences, including mine, has some relevance to the world. As long as there is some point or story that only a few people can take some value from, it’s worth making.
Typically when people try explaining some unpleasant or traumatic experience to others, they are told simply to forget about it. However, unless you have experienced something yourself, you can never really understand it or the impact that it has. Obviously everyone's experiences have an impact on their personality and world view, especially when they are young. But people aren't always aware of how powerfull that impact can be. It took me a long time to discover exactly how my experiences shaped me.
In spite of the many similarities with other people's adolescence, it took me a long time to realize how unique my experience was. A lot of people hate high school and/or their adolescence. It’s a difficult time because you are undergoing biological development, you are still trying to figure out who you are, and because you are relatively naive and inexperienced. Human nature is flawed. People are cruel and petty, and conflict and bullying exists everywhere, in particular amongst youth. It’s an age when a premium is placed on fitting in and belonging to a group. Over time, and through discussing my experiences with friends, I have come to understand the uniqueness of my experience. The individual people may have not been that different and my experiences did parallel those of other people in many respects, but my experiences were also always somehow qualitatively different, more extreme, and way more bizarre, because the institution I was in was so different.
I also don't think my life in general has been much more difficult than that of most people on earth and I don't think I am special. I do think that I am different from most people in the sense that I can't accept the world without first understanding it. I refuse to accept things as a given with out understanding why. Most people either don't care, or they will accept that they can't make sense out of the contradictions of the world and they will stop there. Not only is it in my nature, but on principle I refuse to see a contradiction without trying to reconcile it. I write this because I can't help but feel compelled to explain things as well as call things as they really are. What I experienced was a consequences of many contradictions within contradictions, all of which deserve explaination.
At the root of it, human beings seem predisposed to group think regardless of their level of education, intelligence, or culture. What this has resulted in is less than noble behavior and even disastrous results. At its worst, the historical record bears that normal people are quite capable of extreme brutality and callousness when operating in a group context. That doesn’t mean that people who engage in sheepish be behavior are evil. All people, myself included, are susceptible and guilty of mindless sheepish behavior. Being a true individual requires not just strength but constant practice and persistence, unwavering skepticism, and a willingness to go against the grain.
Considering the amount of effort and sacrifice it can take at particular times, it doesn’t surprise me that so many people choose to be sheep even as adults. I would argue that groupthink tends to be far more the rule than the exception, even if it requires self-deception. As an adult I have noticed that normal people not associated with any fringe groups will quite readily engage in self-deception at the expense of others even quite close to them. Many people under most circumstances will go to great lengths just to conform and go through motions in order to benefit themselves, regardless of the impact on other people or the world. Self-deception and the deception of others for personal gain seems more to be a rule than an exception. I only say this because you can't understand cults or any form of antisocial behavior until you understand the basic drives behind human behavior.
I believe that it is a misconception that all cults “brainwash” people by replacing their minds with entirely new ones that are not under their own control. Mind control is much more subtle and insidious, and has less to do with changing people as manipulating them emotionally and placing constraints on their environment. I think its even a greater misconception that cults are all violent. Although fear and conditioning can and are used as controls, the basic methods of control are far less coercive and sinister. The media stereotype of the cult being some group of lunatics that holds captives against their will in an isolated, walled, and armed compound is just a sensational extreme of a phenomenon that is widespread and common. Most cults are so benign and common place as to go undetected. Jehovah Witness, the Mormons, Nation of Islam, and even Alcoholics Anonymous are just a few of the common and well known groups that I will classify as cults. None of them have appeared in the press for engaging in violence confrontations with the police, engaging in mass suicide rituals, or holding people against their will.
With a handfull of small exceptions, I also don't think that anyone ever decides to form a cult soley for their own personal benefit, or that leaders have some desire to hurt people. I tend not to believe in conspiracy theories because usually they are too complicated, and the simpler explaination is usually correct. Leaders of various groups may have good intentions, even long after forming a group or an organization. However, all human beings are corruptable, expecially when no check is placed on their power. The problem occurs when individuals and groups think that their goals are worthy enough to be obtained by any means neccessary or without regards to a universal sense of ethics, and when there is no outside critisism or monitoring of their behavior. Often the behavior can feed on itself, as the leader becomes more and more addicted to the power they have over their followers.
So what is a cult then? I can answer this not just based of my experience at TASIS, but experiences following when I was involved in various political and religious groups. Despite the widespread acceptance of the phenomenon, there has never been one definition of a cult that has yet to be formulated. There are many models used to describe and identify cults. One of my favorite models is the BITE Model. BITE stands for Behavioral Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Mind Control. There seems to be a general consensus amoungst people knowledgeable about cults that cults engage in various forms of mind and physical control. Every group is different in the methods and degrees of control as well as the fundamental beliefs and what it claims to offer its members, nonetheless control seems to be the underlying drive of every cult.
Many people will strongly disagree as to which organizations are in fact cults. In spite of the fact that the term “cult” was originally applied to religious groups and movements early in the 20th century, it has become a term applied to a wide variety of organizations. Cults can be organized in a wide variety of ways, and can utilize a wide array of ideologies. There are religious, political, artistic, self-help, and as I would argue, even educational cults. Cults can range from a small and informal group or even a relationship between two people, to a well organized well funded international organization. Often times people will defend a cult because they identify with the belief system and ideals of the organization, no matter how corrupt and self-dealing the organization and leadership is.
The one thing that I have noticed exists amongst all cults is a desire by the cult entity to dominate the life of all members who come into contact with it on the pretext of providing some form of service, while in fact operating for the benefit of the leaders of the cult. Most models acknowledge that cults control their member, but then again so do many instititions in society. All organizations have rules neccessary to exist. What differentiates cults is the level and kind of control that they desire. Cults don't just place negative limits on behavior but also seek positive contol of behavior and thoughts in every aspect of their member's lives.
Even if some service or benefit is provided to the members, the cult will do what it can to dominate its members for the organizations benefit. Every cult uses different methods, engages in varying degrees of dominance, and has varying levels of success in dominating its ‘members’. Typically most cults will attempt do the most to make sure that it has a monopoly on the lives of the people that it dominates. All cults at the very least will attempt to at least make sure that the cult in question is the center and at the very least the most dominating force in the persons life. Keep in mind that cults do not have to be all powerful entities. Many, if not most people, are quite free to leave to leave the cult, and often do so. The turnover amongst many cults can be high. It’s usually only the large and most powerful cult organizations with large legal and press teams that kidnap and torture people, like Scientology that get the most press.
Despite the ample research cataloguing and analyzing cult behavior, not enough research has been done to examine how cults are born. My limited research indicates that cults typically start off as legitimate organizations that are either gradually taken over by corrupt leadership and/or that become more and more isolated by society. Eventually such an organization no longer lives up to it's original goals, but meerly persits for the benefit of the leaders. A classic example of this is organized crime; many crime syndicates such as the Chinese Tongs and the Italian Mafia were originally revolutionary organizations with a political purpose, or organizations that served the community. In the case of the Tongs, their original purpose was to overthrown the Qing dynasty in China. Due to changing circumstances, in this example the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the organizations quickly degenerate into parasitic organization that exist for the beneifit of its leaders.
Cults, demagogues, and even powerful tyrants can’t reengineer human nature; they can only manipulate it. Often it can be as insipid and innocuous as feeding people what they want to hear while providing a spurious sense of belonging, meaning, or importance. Cults try to dominate the lives of their members so as to make them as dependant on the cult as possible and to cut off alternate ways of thinking. Ultimately this serves to control and exploit people they are taking advantage of. Typically all cults manipulate the most basic desires and fears in human beings. The ideology of the cult in question is quite tangential to the method of control of the cult.
Most cults initially bring people in by claim to provide a practical or straightforward purpose, whether it is a political agenda, self-improvement, or a relationship with God. On a deeper level, they provide a sense of belonging or purpose. Once fully immersed in group, guilt, fear of ostracism or expulsion from the group, and a fear or contempt of the world outside the cult are used to keep members from leaving or questioning the cult. All cults have some ideology and set of standards by which its members seem to fall short of. By having their members cut off contact with formers friends, family members, and people outside the cult, the manipulation, indoctrination, and intimidation become free of the scrutiny of outsiders. Once this is successfully done, a rigid uniformity of though and behavior and acceptance of some hierarchy is enforced.
A lot of people in any society, cult or not, with particular values don’t even sincerely and meaningfully “believe”, or even understand the dogma propagated by itself. Part of sheepish behavior involves not just loyalty and obedience to an organization or cause, but a mindlessness that refuses to engage in any sort of critical reflection. In the most extreme of situations, a lack of ‘gung-hoe’ attitude can be seen as disloyalty or even treason. If you look at a lot of the atrocities committed by cults or cult like organizations, you will notice that the ideologies of the dominant group were not only hopelessly contradictory but pathetically puerile. I don’t think anyone who participated in the Cambodian genocides ‘believed’ that they were starting history again from year zero. Do any Scientologists take the idea of Thetans and Zenu seriously for long once they get to that level of scientology? Do the beliefs themselves hold any real value?
The point I am trying to make is that it is not just freaks or ideologues that end up in cults. Human beings in general are quite sheepish. There are an infinite variety of cults that exist and that operate beneath the radar of the media. Most do. The idea that a cult could take the form of a boarding school in the case I am about to mention is not bizarre at all. In fact, such a cult could potentially be quite powerful. Most of the students resided in the school. The school determined when people ate and slept, and who they associated with. The school has immense power to control the thought and emotional process of its students; the institution that has the responsibility of 'educating' minors when their personality is not fully formed. Such an institution has enormous power to indoctrinate its members. The power differential between the students and teachers is great enough to ensure a virtual domination the lives of the students completely.
I can't fault people who go through the motions and parrot the convention for survival. What is really disappointing and disgusting is when people ride a wave of group behavior in order to get their own agenda and personal needs met even if it hurts other people in the process. Institutions can’t program people like robots, but they can direct and shape their drives and instincts. They can also have a profound influence on human behavior and the psyche by shaping and limiting experience, and by pitting the self-interest and survival of people against other people. Like any cult, TASIS manipulated the best and worst aspects of human nature for its own preservation as an institution. As with most cults, it contradicted the very ideology upon which it is based. The result is the same as with any other cult, all individuals become deindividuated to serve the need of institution.
I created this web page to reach out to similar minded people. No two people are alike, and everyone percieves reality in a different way. Nonetheless people with separate life experiences can inevitably come to similar conclusions. Some people might think that I have a narrow and narcisistic agenda. I think most people are uncomfortable talking about the absurdity of life, and some people figure anyone who does much have a hidden agenda since that aspect of life will never change. I have no interest in living in the past, but I am constantly reminded in my present life how people's sheepish behavior leads to the suffering and exploitation of others. Its because people choose to forget that history to repeats itself. Collectively people won't change, but some can. Most importantly I hope I can change and learn from my own experiences. Maybe in reaching out to people who have had similar experiences or a similar mindset I can do so.
I have always been different; I never really belonged to any distinct group, whether it be academic superachievers, the troublemakers, the class clowns, the athletic 'jocks', or the antisocial and socially awkward 'nerds'. Many years later I realized I am so fundamentally different that I can really change myself in any was to fit in to any group. I have a hard time fitting into groups because I just feel more comfortable interacting with people one on one and doing my own thing. I don't even think there is anything wrong with not fitting into a particular category or group or not being a follower.
I would like to think that there is more to life than getting needs met; I hate mindlessly going through motions and jumping through arbitrary hoops just to get my needs met or survive. For me to be happy, I have to understand what I am doing, the world around me, and other people. I also have to express myself genuinely and find out what other people think and feel. I have a need to fully engage the world and myself.
I hate having to self-monitor, micromanage myself, and constantly be evaluated by other people. I hate having to hide my true personality. For this reason I don’t want to ‘belong’ to a clique or group anymore, because to do so requires giving up some personal autonomy. I don't have a problem with people to do so, but I don't see why I must be like them. What bothers me the most about the herd mentality its its desire to assimilate everything to it, and to judge everything by its standards. I don’t believe I am going to get rid of TASIS, and I don’t need or want to. I think the same mentality that exists in TASIS can exist anywhere on earth, and it does. From my experience, I just noticed it was more pronounced at TASIS than anywhere else that I had experienced, even more so than the other cults I came into contact with.
Suffering in of itself will not make you a stronger or more moral person, and going against your true nature will destroy you. I have noticed that suffering doesn't even make people more appreciative of what they have, more understanding of other people, or more aware of their own failings. I have known as many people who have had hard lives who are horrible people as those who have had hard lives who are good people. If suffering were really that positive, the world have consisted entirely of high functioning saints throughout history. Depending on what exactly happens and the duration, it can actually make you worse or destroy you.
Discipline, structure, and challenges are good and necessary for people in order for them to maintain a sense of purpose and direction so that they can improve themselves. As with all living organisms, adaptation is part of the process of growing. However, coercing people into playing institution specific roles in order to exploit and control them will not procure ennobling qualities. At best all it does is condition people to survive in a very specific niche. Unfortunately, cults also drill into people that they have no worth or meaning outside of institution specific roles or performance. This has the devastating consequence of not only destroying a meaningful individual identity, but the ability the think independently and make healthy attachments to other people, and in some cases it can destroy the development of a personal conscience.
I am not a Communist; I don’t have a problem with the fact that there are people who make way more money than I ever will because of natural talent and/or hard work. I don't have a problem with authority, hierarchy or critisism either. I DO have a problem with people or institutions who think they have a right to use, lie, control, mistreat, and otherwise shit on people for their own self interest, by justifying that they are entitled to do so because they have other people's interest in mind/the greater good in mind/make more money/have a higher GPA/have more seniority/can run faster or because they are an “authority figure” or the guru. I also have a real problem with people who use idealistic concepts like “The Community/Common Good” to push their own self-dealing agenda. While not everyone is necessarily entitled to the same level of respect, everyone is entitled to some sovereignty over their lives as well as to have their boundaries respected. What I find so reprehensible about cults is that they deprive people of their sovereignty under the guise of some idealistic goal only so that they can take advantage of them.
It took me a long time to realize how my experience impacted me, and longer before I was able to organize my emotions and write anything down. When something traumatizes or impacts you very deeply, it can take a long time before you can step back in a detatched manner and understand yourself. After my experience I felt like I had to rebuild my personality from scratch. Living in such an emotionally sterile, repressive, and contained environment makes it difficult to develop as a mature and self-aware individual with a healthy identity.
I tried discovering and reinventing myself over and over again. I involved myself in various idealistic and yet shortsighted ‘causes’, but I realized I was only ending up in the same trap. It took me a long time to develop my own standards, and to believe that they have as much merit as anyone else’s, and that NOBODY has a right to violate my boundaries. IF I WANT TO MAKE HAPPINESS MY PRIORITY, THAT IS MY CHOICE TO MAKE. I WAS NOT PUT ON EARTH TO PLEASE OTHER PEOPLE OR TO PUT THEM BEFORE MYSELF. I DO NOT HAVE TO PROVE MYSELF TO ANYONE IN ORDER TO EARN THE RIGHT TO NOT BE MISTREATED.
One obvious consequence of systematic humiliation and isolation is low self-esteem. Total institutions such as cults will even teach that the feelings and self-interest of the members are irrelevant. Just to be tolerated, I would try to be as innocuous, accomodating, and non adversarial as possible in groups and with people one on one. I would micromanage my personality to be outwardly acceptable and I rarely challenged or questioned people. I would go out of my way to sell myself to people who really gave a shit less about me just so I could fit in and get my needs met, as opposed to just finding my own niche and working on myself. I didn’t disagree with people, state what I really felt, or even show vulnerability for fear of standing out even more. I allowed people to behave as though they were better than me.
I was a slave to other people’s opinions and feelings even years after departing TASIS. I still associated with anyone I could not only because I was lonely because I didn’t have the confidence in myself have standards and draw boundaries. I have learned that if you really want to be loved, you need the strength to accept be hated. Making yourself invisible will not get people to appreciate you or even accepted.
I don’t even think suffering is necessary to make you a better person. Positive experiences that expand your emotional and intellectual horizons are more likely to improve your happiness, functionality, and strength. There is a big difference between undergoing a challenge and being subject to oppression. Even stupid and emotionally shallow people can develop a high level of functionality provided they have the freedom and experiences to become aware of their strengths and limitations.
Often people relive the past and talk about how they would have done things differently. I have thought about that myself. I am amazed and disgusted by the pathetic lows I went to in order to avoid loneliness and to just have a warm body to associate with, which was a pattern I had to slowly wean myself from. I didn’t do enough when I could have done more. I over reacted when I should have just turned off and tuned out. Now as an independent thinking adult, I can wave my finger in disgust and ridicule at sheepish group behavior and my own sheepish group behavior. I have neither need nor desire to fit in, belong, and be respected. I look back and realize how immature I was.
But therein lies the problem. I was immature. I was kid and I was in an institution that completely dominated my life. I didn’t have the life experience, cognitive development, or social support to place any sort of distance and perspective on what was happening around me and to me. What was worse, the situation didn’t allow for it. If there was one thing I wish I had was for someone to provide me with some outside perspective, which is exactly the last thing a cult wants to happen. If I can have a positive impact on one person or just open up someone’s mind, it would be worthwhile. Even if TASIS is still not the same way that I experienced it, I hope that someone can learn from my experiences the same way that I have learned from others.
VI. BULLSHIT IN A NUTSHELL - THE IDEOLOGY OF THE SCHOOL:
Everything this school claimed about itself and the world was a lie designed to bring students in and make them compliant to the agenda and domination of the school. The school sold itself by preaching that having an international experience would help its students into better colleges wherever in the world they went for higher education. Being the international school that it was suppossedly meant that it innoculated a worldly sophistication that empowered the students in the classroom and that extended beyond. Such a sophistication guaranteed university acceptance and success. The school also claimed to prepare its students for college by having a more rigorous course load, providing better faculty, and teaching you the correct ‘values’ to succeed in life. Apparently the school was one of the best high schools one could go to in the world, and if you couldn't succeed there or be happy then there was something wrong with you.
The reality was far from the professed image. It took competition, hierarchy, and role playing to the most extreme and counterproductive level: it brainwashed everyone into believing that the only purpose of a human being and measure of their worth is their academic, athletic, and social score on some checklist, as well as their unquestioning loyalty and compliance with the group. Essentially the individual deserved nothing in life. Everything, including dignity, freedom, and even basic respect had to be fought for tooth and nail and granted by some 'higher power' or 'superior'. Even then character and integrity of the individual meant nothing let alone uniqueness, inquiring spirit, and effort. The only way to judge a human being was by results and production, and even then it was purely on the groups terms. Ultimately, the search for knowledge and the realization of one's potential was completely subordinated to competing for points doing menial tasks. 'Learning' consisted of memorizing information and performing tasks to please teachers and authority figures. A good 'student' was someone who could easily be conditioned and never thought for themself.
Apparently, the only purpose for human existance is to conform, perform, and compete to gain respect and to place yourself into some academic and social hierarchy. The individual is merely an extension of the group. High school is “make it or break it”, and everything you do during high school will determine both your fate for the rest of you life and your worth. The path to success required accepting your conditioning at TASIS. Supposedly if you don’t go to an elite college following an elite high school, you can expect to spend the rest of your life as a pauper sweeping floors with immigrants from the third world.
The way the school structured the life of students made holding onto a strong individual identity extremely difficult. Even if a student didn’t buy into the dogma, the game still had to be played. Being an individual and pursuing your own agenda outside and separate of school life and the life of TASIS was nearly impossible. All of the assertions TASIS made about itself and the world were not only wrong, but were contradicted by the way the institution behaved. The assertions of the school were nothing more than talking points that made up the ideology of the school. TASIS was only interested in fostering loyalty and obeidance to the school, dominating students, and reducing students to interchangeable production units that wouldn’t question the agenda or operation of the school.
VII. FRAUD #1: TASIS WILL MAKE YOU 'SOPHISTICATED/COSMOPOLITAN/WELL ROUNDED/UNIQUE’, AND A BETTER PERSON AND STUDENT:
This argument is pretentious and ludicrous on its own merit; it’s like watching two people fist fight over who is more humble. When I attended, the school was always arguing that it made its students not just superior ‘academics’ but even better people with stronger characters. This was a major selling point of TASIS. The school convinced parents and students alike that having such “superior” personality traits would afford a competitive edge to students applying for university. Although I do believe that this was a deliberate and calculated marketing tactic to recruit and retain students, I also think the school genuinely believed its own propaganda. TASIS was always trying to 'distinguish' and separate itself to an extreme degree from other international schools, other school systems, and the entire world in general.
When you live in such a closed system with no access to outside reference points and you hear the same thing over and over again, it becomes difficult to be critical of your own little world. Its very common for cults to inoculate a belief amongst its members that the group provides something that no one else can. Like a lot of cults, I think TASIS worked so hard to convince people that the school was special, that the people who make up the institution ended up believing that as individuals they were special and more ‘unique’ by virtue of simply being a part of the institution. This reminds me of the way Scientologists think they become more creative as they climb the various rungs on the ‘ladder’ of their 'program'. (Scientology uses this analogy). Some Scientologists even believe that once they reach a certain level they can move objects with their mind!
You can fill someone with information, train them in a particular skill, and condition them to environmental constraints. You can modify the outer layer of someones personality by augmenting, mitigating, or even repressing aspects of their personality. You can even expose people to different experiences or violently inflict a break down on someone's character and mental functioning. Brain damage can permanently affect someone however, nothing will 'reprogram' someone's core character.
Computers can be reprogrammed because they are tools consciously and deliberatly manufactured by human beings to perform a specific task. They do exactly what they are told; human beings have free will. For that reason people have to want to change, and they have to want to change for the right reasons before they can do so. Changing behavior for some immediate reward is unlikely to result in a long term change of behavior. It is absurd to believe any institution can genuinely make someone more sophisticated, well rounded, worldly or unique on any meaningfull level. Exposure, experience, and training can make someone higher functioning, but it will not change the way a person relates to people and the world, and it certainly will not change their basic physicological needs.
Certain traits can be imitated for a period of time so as to create a particular image or impression, but meaningfull qualitative change is only possible through some sort of reflection and desire to change. Conditioning through an exposure to a variety of different experiences is not enough. If someone is primitive, one dimensional, and only interested in going through motions to get their needs met, no exposure to anything, let alone basic operant conditioning, will change their character or outlook. Even a high intelligence is no indicator of a more developed personality or a stronger character. Just because someone has more brain power doesn't mean that their emotional needs will be different from anyone else's. Needs are fundamentally irrational, and while they may be repressed they can't be permenantly changed through any process of reasoning. As the core of someone's character encompasses the needs of an individual, it to may be repressed or altered in the way it expresses itself, but it can not undergo any radical and permenant change. No institution, no matter how totalitarian, can fully penetrate someone's soul.
This doesn't mean that environment has no impact on someone's behavior or personality. Schools have a great impact on the bahavior of their students, especially since they are still developing cognitively and emotionally. This is even more so the case because learning is such a complex and multilayered process. In addition to having different personalities and intelligences, all people have different and unique learning styles.
Teachers can not change the content of a student's core or make them care, but their attitude and ability and the institutional opportunites and constraints greatly impacts the student's motiviation and expression of talents and abilities. Because there is no one good way of teaching anything, the most important quality in any teacher is to get students to engage the material and think critically for themselves. This requires a genuine interest in the students and the material, as well as a certain level of respect for the student's autonomy. Certain things need to be availible to make an education work, but ulitmately you get out of an education what you are willing to put into it in the first place.
While all institutions misrepresent themselves to an exent, the biggest hypocrisy of this school was that not only did it fail at providing the right environment for learning, but also the fact that it was the complete opposite of the way it represented itself. TASIS did everthing but respect personal autonomy. Emotionally, the school tried to turn its students into single minded unquestioning functionaries with a narrow outlook and a shallow understanding of the world, who believed that going through the motions as efficiently and obediently as possible in order to compete, performing for the group, and be rewarded is the only purpose of life. The two concepts fit together quite well because the real value of TASIS was winning, not self-improvement, which are similar and yet distinct.
The school is pretty much modeled on the 19th century British boarding school system only with a more pronounced ideological component; it conditioned students to be a mindless sheep that kowtowed to 'superiors', the group, convention, and subordinates all individuality to the herd under the guise of ‘excellence’, ‘school spirit’, and 'discipline'. Students were constantly compared to their classmates socially as well as academically. This may make sense at the graduate level where people in a particular program have similar ambitions and attributes, but it makes not sense at the high school level.
The philosophy of the school was that the US public school system 'spoon feeds' students so that they don’t actually work. TASIS claimed to provide a rigorous and meaningfully education. The reality was that teachers at TASIS just taught out of the book. This schooling model is based on the 19th century approach of rote learning and of the student being the empty cup to be filled by the teacher. Academically, the school wants you to be a mindless data processor and a vomit bag for useless information. Critical thinking about the material and applying it was not important. 'Understanding' the material meant memorizing it and being able to reproduce it fast.
When teachers do call on you in class they just want to make sure you have sufficiently memorized the material. There was no worthwhile discussion of any material to indicate that the students had digested any of the material. The perspectives of the students or even the way in which the material relates to the world was completely irrelevant. There was only one right answer or methodolgy to everything; the teacher dictated, and I took notes. I remember often times teachers would not answer questions, get angry, or they would even refuse to take questions after class. Teachers confiscated any cliff notes they come across because the teachers may have well have been teaching out of them. At college, cliff notes are sold in university bookstores. I even remember teachers who graded in as arbitrary a way as possible so as to keep grades down and to cover up mistakes made on their own tests that they created.
Quantity and speed trumps quality and all academic work takes place within a narrow framework. Grading is based soley on the ability to regurgitate the opinion of the teacher and memorize useless facts that the teacher thinks are important. The material studied in itself has no value or purpose; the only point of it is to serve as a medium for assessing and ranking the productivity of students. All of the grading seemed to be strictly on a material covered basis; even in English classes material that was at best tangential had to be memorized. Being a good student means that you are a fast information mill that can take on a large workload, not being able to think independently and critically, apply information independently and usefully for yourself, or even care about the material. Thoroughness only counted towards quantity, not understanding something from many different angles.
In fact, most of the testing is done in a way so as to make sure that students aren’t 'cutting corners' and skimming material. Being able to talk about one aspect of a work of literature or the importance of a particular historical event was not important. I even remember that a lot of the teachers would not tell you exactly what they wanted you to regurgitate because as far as they were concerned you had to know the text book/work of literature through and through. You were not learning the principles behind something or how to do something. You were not even learning facts for the long run. You were just expected to store and process information for the time period in which it was deemed necessary. You were basically expected to memorize as much of the material as possible. At the same time, there was no room for differences of opinion or approaching things in a unique way. All TASIS does is turn you into a number crunching, regurgitating, soulless automaton that spent all their time on school work.
And because most of the classes were graded on a curve, a very low curve, the only way to do well was to kiss ass and prove to the teacher that you ‘understand’ the material better than your classmates. Content of thought, meaningful application, or depth of character is irrelevant. Questioning, let alone disagreeing with teachers, is not a good idea because it means less material for the class to get through and review for memorization. Even current affairs in British politics was never related to the material we studied. If you tried to get extra help because you were struggling in a class, the teachers would treat you like shit because it meant extra work for them. The teachers picked which students they did and did not like early on and nothing really changed. Those that they didn’t like they would belittle and mistreat. Even concepts like the fulfillment of one’s potential paled in comparison to ‘school spirit’, ‘being a team player’, and class rank.
Upperclassmen were given privileges and positions of power in the form of ‘student prefects’, held positions on ‘disciplinary committees’, and had their own recreational areas. Upperclassmen would also routinely harass lowerclassmen. There were thousands of pointless rules that serve no purpose other than to crush all individuality and to give authority figures and excuse to harass you. I remember not being allowed to take my jacket off on hot days before 12:00 PM and getting in trouble for taking my jacket off after I spilled a drink on it. The workload along with all of the ‘extracurricular requirements’ are kept at a level so that your entire life is dominated by the institution.
There were an endless amount of brainwashing meetings in addition to the weekly Wednesday propaganda meetings to promote ‘school spirit’ and the ideology of the school. At these meeting the score and details of every single game of every sport were publicly announced by the team captains and heads. At these meetings awards would be given to ‘outstanding’ students and faculty. The school would also propagandize through numerous meetings that it was better than any other American or international school anywhere, and that America was an ignorant and backward place. I find it funny that a place that prides itself on being so cosmopolitan and sophisticated would resort to the sort of ignorant bashing that it would ascribe to another society. Why would any institution that promotes being well-rounded, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan push any one single ideology whatsoever? What was even stranger was the fact that the school did little to integrate itself into the neighboring school systems and society. To be quite blunt, in spite of being ‘international’, the school was as inward looking, insular, ignorant, arrogant, and as cut off from the rest of the world as any cult you could imagine.
I found the social aspect of TASIS to be the most alienating aspects of school life. People in general, and teenagers in particular, split up into broad groups to make friends. People tend to want to associate with people who are most similar to them, even if it is purely on a superficial level. As with all schools, the top of the hierarchy consisted of the athletes, who were the largest and most pronounced social group.While this will never change and is not neccessarily a bad thing, if taken to its extreme it can be extremely divisive. Because of the smallness of the school and the high turnover, the only way that I could even be noticed was to belong to a group. Most people simply refused to talk to people out side of their own group, and most of the people within their groups were not even close friends. I wouldn't even say that the people I associated with were my real friends. They were just the only people who would let me tag along.
I know this situation exists everywhere. People are pack animals, and they will adapt to their environment. There is nothing wrong with people associating with other people just to feel safe. The problem was that the competitiveness of the school, its isolated atmosphere, and the fact that everyone knew everyone elses buisiness worked with the social situation to make a really toxic environment. Another problem was that the cliques revolved around lifers who were students who have spent most time in the school and who have family connections to the school. If you do not find a clique, then you are absolutely nothing. The school taught 'being a team player'. Being different is looked down upon. If you are different in any way or unconventional, you will stick out like a sore thumb and you will be ostracized and shat on. The school isn’t big enough and it certainly isn't supportive enough to be able to make a niche of your own if you are different. The isolated, hierarchical, and cult-like group mentality of the institution only enhances this. Because of the amount of time spent around school activities such as homework, required after school activities, required 'community service', and required school meetings, having a personal life that doesn't revolve around the school is impossible. The social situation was just another way that TASIS dominated my life and reduced me to an invisible number in a hierarchy.
Consequently, when the school used phrases like ‘well-rounded’ what they really meant was being able to compete in multiple areas, not having multiple interests or being a person of deep character. TASIS didn’t want its students to have interests outside of school. They wanted their students constantly immersed in school activities, competing with each other, and sizing each other up. Well-rounded meant being able to compete athletically and academically, not having a wide variety of interests and views, and it certainly didn’t mean being a unique individual. Being a unique individual with an agenda and life separate from school is something that was crushed out of you.
VIII. FRAUD #2: UNIVERSITIES CARE ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMIZED, UNIQUE AND WELL ROUNDED 'TASIS 'PeRSoNaLiTY' ' :
Not only did TASIS argue that studying abroad at a private school such as itself will make you more unique, sophisticated, and well-rounded, but that by having attended such an elite school colleges will be beating down the door to accept you. In other words, TASIS leads to Harvard. The unique angle of TASIS was that it claimed to be providing a classical well rounded 'humanities' education with an 'international' ie more sophisticated/worldly bent that distinguishes its students and makes them stand out from the competition. Supposedly, all universities just assume without examining an individual that living abroad makes you more academically inclined, worldly, sophisticated, and an astute thinker.
Going to private school and studying abroad will not help you get into a better college in and of itself and colleges do not hold TASIS in any high regard. Living abroad does not change the emotional content of your brain and it doesn’t alter the intellectual capacity to perform academic work. In fact, nothing will. College administrations are not interested in gimmicks. The bottom line is that they want to know you have the capacity and potential to perform academically; that’s why standardized tests such as the SATs exist. What universities care about the most in general is SAT scores followed by your GPA. Admissions boards have thousands of applications to go through. They are not going to read every application in its entirety. If your SAT is way out of range, they will not even consider your GPA.
TASIS argued that your other things can make up for your SAT and GPA, but it’s not true. Colleges will only take other considerations, such as your recommendations and your personal statement into account if your SAT and GPA are on the borderline between acceptable and unacceptable scores. If you have to write an essay for your college application, the content of what you write will speak volumes more than some international badge that states “better” or the fact that you went to TASIS. If it really comes down to the point where you are on the borderline, colleges in the US will value ‘diversity’, but what that will boil down to the most part is race more than where you applying from.
I am not saying this to imply that there is anything wrong with studying in a foreign country. The problem comes in when TASIS screws your GPA in order to take total control of your life and then justifies it with their ‘international’ and ‘preparing you for college’ pep talk. It’s a fraud perpetuated to bring people into the school and to get them to accept their roles as ‘students’.
IX. FRAUD #3: THE REPUTATION OF TASIS WILL GET YOU INTO A BETTER UNIVERSITY:
In fact, going to a private school in general doesn’t improve your chances of getting into a better college. The better the college, the more likely that student from private school will be applying, and the less ‘unique’ you will appear. Colleges actually expect better grades from students who went to private schools. This leads me to my next point.
What helps you get into college is decent grades, which TASIS completely screws. You are given an Auschwitz-like workload; I had to work more hours in TASIS than I did as a professional adult. The school argues that grades are so deflated at TASIS because the school and the teachers are better. According to TASIS, teachers in the US give all students good grades and consequently the grades are meaningless and nothing is really learned. Conversely, teachers at TASIS ‘actually take their jobs seriously’ and ‘provide honest feedback that prepares students for what lies ahead in college’. Apparently, most US public school students are completely shocked and overwhelmed by college. So the logic goes that by deflating grades, TASIS prepares students for college.
Actually, I would argue that grades at TASIS were so deflated for two reasons: teachers had to grade students on a low curve and the school could be more selective about its students. Its not until you get into graduate school that you are graded on a curve. There was nothing better about the teachers and as I have stated before I really feel like they could have cared less. Instead of actually teaching material and engaging class participation, teachers were overseers, supervisors, and prefects overseeing students self-teaching.
Because the grades at TASIS were so deflated, many students were forced to take AP classes so that they can get standard AP grades. However, because of the size of the school, the AP classes available are limited. Most importantly, being forced to take AP classes on top of all the other ‘college level’ classes only increases your work load exponentially, and even the AP classes the grades are ridiculously deflated. The school said it made its AP classes extra hard so that the students do well on the final AP exams. I don’t see the point in screwing the grades of students solely for the purpose of doing well on AP exams. A college is not going to look at a student with a “D” who gets a 5 on an AP exam any better than a student who gets a B for the class and a 4 on the AP exam.
If your grades are screwed, then you will be completely out of range for the colleges you wish to apply for. Unless a college administration is intimately familiar with the school, they have no way to know for a fact that the courses you took in high school were at ‘the college level’ as TASIS claims. How can one high school out of millions around the world be known by even a handful of universities? In the United States alone, there are about 2,500 universities. There are thousands more throughout the rest of the world. How can any significant number of those schools be familiar with one small high school in particular? Is there any high school, let alone private high school that will not be playing the same game of selling its students to colleges? It makes no sense. In any university around the world there are plenty of students that apply from foreign countries. Applying from abroad doesn’t make you unique to colleges as TASIS would like you to believe. This too is a fraud perpetuated to bring people into the school and to get them to accept their roles as ‘students’.
X. FRAUD #4: TASIS PREPARES YOU FOR COLLEGE, WHICH PREPARES YOU FOR LIFE:
The philosophy of TASIS is that being able to memorize facts, blindly follow rules and authority figures, working fast, and staying busy makes you a good student and a good person. Being a good student in turn means you will do well in college, and doing well in college means you will succeed in the professional world.
In this day and age, high school is worthless in the work force. Even college degrees are becoming less and less valued as more and more education is being demanded and more and more people go on to higher education. High school will never prepare you for the work force. The only thing high school can prepare you for is collegs.
Granted the world is entering the service information economy. What employers care about the most is being able to multitask, being organized, and processing information quickly. If the course load at TASIS didn't involve studying 18th century literature and medieval Europe, but rather Microsoft Excel and accounting, then I might say that TASIS might be preparing you for the 'real world'. It wouldn't be preparing you for college but it certainly would be offering the most grueling boot camp to condition you for any crappy job that awaits you.
Truth is, there are a lot of crap jobs out there. Even one's that require college and even graduate degrees. But all jobs, no matter how intellectually stultifying require self-management. The ironic thing is that despite the grueling course load at TASIS, as a student I was so micromanaged that I really didn't learn how to manage my time at all. In particular I never learned the long term self-management which is required in BOTH college and the professional world. Not only is memorizing details under pressure a very small component of learning, its even neccessary to becoming productive in the workforce. Using your intellect to become more efficient is just as important as being fast in order to be productive.
Such an insipid process of learning not only reduced the intellectual task of learning to the mental version cleaning toilets, but I had no freedom to prioritize, schedule, or sequence anything. I just had a ton of petty scutwork to be due everyday that I was ultimately unable to do. Ultimately it was because I had to prove to teachers that I was staying busy that I never got to intellectually engage the material. The bottom line was my 'learning' consisted of having to memorize something new every night.
Yes there is a lot of reading in college, but you have much more freedom to choose when and how you will read and how you will study. There is much less grading, the semesters are longer, AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE CLASS EVERY DAY. Typically most students are in class 15 hours PER WEEK. This is because much of the learning you do in college revolves around research that you do on your own time. The classroom is the time for students to share their perspectives or results with other students and discuss them. The bottom line is that there is much less scutwork and almost no daily scutwork, and the teachers want students to intellectually engage the material on their own terms.
There is very little rote memorization or menial mental tasks in college; as long as you grasp the basic concept behind the reading and pay attention in class you are fine. Most of the grading focuses around term papers which are long term projects loosely supervized by professors. Most of the thinking in college is either theory, critical thinking, and the ability to make an argument and back it up, or the ability to repeat some sort of process in different contexts or using different data.
The most important way to prepare yourself for college is to develop your critical independent thinking. This will help you obtain a deeper and broader understanding of any material, the ability to recognize patterns and construct concepts to explain them, conduct independent research, think outside of rigid paradigms, develop your own learning style, and the ability to apply knowledge. None of these things were taught at TASIS, and in fact they were even discouraged. All the work was so devoid of meaning and context that it amounted to heightened mental activity much more than substantive learning. Information went as quickly out one ear as it had gone in the other, and nothing built upon anything else. Not even a basic tangable skill, other than the ability to generically process information faster was obtained.
In college, even my most ideologically biased professors graded based on the ability to think creatively and make a good argument, even if it conflicted with the teacher’s world view. The professors I disagreed with vehemently would give me lower grades for certain papers I wrote where I disagreed, but they gave me enough credit for class participation and my knowledge of the material to give me a final grade that I felt was fair.
College is a completely different ballgame from most high schools(and not just TASIS) and universities know that. ‘Lower tier’ universities knowingly accept a greater proportion of ‘lower tier’ students knowing full well that as a consequence a greater proportion of their students will drop out. I know plenty of people that did well in high school and failed miserably in college, and even more that sucked in high school that did well in college. Getting through college requires a lot more emotional maturity, involvement in the material, and long term self-management of your time.
I managed to do fine in college skimming through half the material and most students do. Most of my introductory courses were multiple choice tests. In the higher level courses in your major, most of the grading is based off of two exams and one research paper. The quizzes that do exist are there to make sure that you are not completely blowing off the reading. Typically, you are expected to have a firm grasp of the material and the concepts which are tested by two exams. Then you find an area of the syllabus that interests you and write a paper.
One could argue that most public high schools don’t prepare students for the type of work involved in college, but then again PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS DON'T CHARGE MONEY, PRETEND TO BE BETTER, GIVE YOU AN UNMANAGEABLE COURSE LOAD, RUIN YOUR SOCIAL LIFE, DESTRYO YOUR PERSONALITY, OR CLAIM TO BE EXCEPTIONAL AT PREPARING YOU FOR COLLEGE. MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, MOST HIGH SCHOOLS DO NOT DESTROY YOUR GPA AND THEN CLAIM THAT BY DOING SO THEY ARE PREPARING YOU FOR COLLEGE.
XI. FRAUD #5: TASIS IS THE BEST HIGH SCHOOL YOU CAN GO TO:
Quite frankly, I think its a myth that private schools are inherantly better than public schools, and I think its a myth that 'elite' schools provide a superior education. The same applies even for colleges and graduate schools. Ivy League schools are ranked as better because more of their students graduate, and because more of their graduates students are successfull in their careers. Is this because the faculty and the resources provided are better? I don't think this is neccessarily the case. No matter how good a teacher is, a student will only progress as far as he or she is willing to go.
"Elite" schools have better statistics because they are more selective of the students they take in to begin with. In addition, the Ivy League community is a small but very powerfull and well connected network that helps its students get into valuable possitions. In fact, many of the best colleges are known for the research they produce, not how well they teach their students.
The idea that a high school can provide that much better of a teaching environment is absurb. TASIS propagated that all of its students went on to college. That doesn't say anything about the school. All the students that went there planned to go to college.
There are only three ways a school can be better; its teachers, its students, and its available resources. The teachers at TASIS well no better than the teachers in most US public school systems, and were nothing compared to college professors. Private school teachers are certainly not paid any better than teachers at public schools in the US. I really didn’t feel like any of the teachers at TASIS enjoyed or cared about their jobs. Most of them seemed miserable, resentfull, and bitter. I certainly didn’t get the impression that they liked or cared about their students by the way they treated them, let alone their jobs.
I know there are plenty of students in every school system who don't care. But it seemed like the teachers favored the students who were most popular, who spent the longest amount of time at the school, or whose parents taught at the school (all usually ran together). It’s not like teachers in public school systems are bad. Even in bad inner city schools in the US (or wherever in the world) you are going to run into idealistic teachers who are there to make a difference in the lives of children.
Next to none of the teachers at TASIS inspired or even encouraged me in any way. Most didn't even respect me. At best I felt like I was just another task for them. At worst I felt like they were going out of their way to belittle me and let me know how much of a burden I was to them. I even felt that they made students feel pathetic and showed how little they mattered in order to motivate the students to 'earn' the respect of their teachers, which of course involved performing utterly meaningless scutwork. Many of them had an attitude about being seen after class or during office hours no matter how hard you tried. Many of them treated me like I was stupid and lazy and not worth their time.
Many would accuse students of being lazy, which I found ridiculous considering the amount of work they gave out. I think that they felt like a student in trouble on meant more work for them. I understand that the teachers were probably not paid well, but they didn’t have to be such pieces of shit. In fact, the teachers who had taught there the longest were usually the worst and also the nastiest, but received the most ‘acclaim’ from the student body and faculty at propaganda meetings solely because they had spent the most time connected to the institution.
The one thing I am most grateful for about my professors in the colleges I attended was their passion and their ability to inspire me, get me interested in the material, and to get me to think about the world. I didn’t have any professors in college who didn’t have enough time to talk with me after class as well as during office hours. Not only did they help me to decide what I wanted to do with my career, but they helped me to come to an understanding of myself and the world. This might not mean a lot to many if not most people, but it meant a lot to me. Even if you think of education as strictly a vehicle for economic advancement and training, it helps to know what your interests and strengths are so you know what field you are going to excel in. It's when your young that you have the most time and ability to really discover your talents and work on the.
The second claim that the school makes is that it is exclusive because it is selective of its students. The only thing that the school can claim makes it 'exclusive' is that the institution can choose which students to accept. But when you look at the students you realize that even this is grossly exaggerated. The school might have been selective but its student body was by no means 'elite'. A lot of parents send their kids to boarding schools for disciplinary reasons and because they don’t want to deal with them. The school is a dumping ground for kids whose parents don't want to take care of them. The school appeals perfectly to such parents as it allows parents to feel that they are proactively taking care of their children by giving them a good education, when in fact they don’t care. The fact that the school becomes the parent of the student only amplifies the cultish nature of the entire 'community'.
Yes, there are plenty of dolts in the US public school system, as with any other public school system in the world. Let’s face it, most people are not going to college. Then again, from my experience, there were plenty of dolts at TASIS. In any public high school in the US you have regular, honors, and AP classes. If you care about school and are smart you won’t be taking classes with people who don’t care or are not looking to go to college. One thing my experience has taught me is that you can get a good education out of public or private, expensive or inexpensive colleges or high schools provided that you apply yourself. The idea that your chances of going to college are hurt because you go to public school in the US is nonsensical; millions of students end up leaving public schools in the US to graduate from college and
*gasp* even go to Ivy Leagues.
The third way any school can be better is with regards to the resources it provides to its students. At TASIS, the courses available were limited, and the general requirements were numerous. The counseling I got was absolutely crap. I could have gotten better advice talking to a wall. There wasn’t even a writing center. The only good thing about the school was the relatively small class sizes, which was completely negated by the teaching style and philosophy of the entire school.
XII. FRAUD #6: IF YOU FAIL AT TASIS, YOU FAIL AT LIFE:
On many levels and for many reasons this myth bothers me the most now. I know plenty of students who did poorly in High School who went to community colleges and ended up transferring to really good universities. In fact, most students I knew transferred schools within college for financial reason or because they got into a better school or a school they liked more. Unfortunately, even a bachelors degree is becoming less and less valuable in finding a job. Graduate degrees and certifications are becoming more and more required to obtain good jobs. A high school degree on its own is useless, regardless of what high school you go to.
Not only did nothing of what I learn help me in college, but none of it translated into a job related skill. Employers want practical skills to perform specific tasks and skills that translate into productivity. Although you don't learn a lot of practical skills in college, you do at least learn some basic ones and you gain some exposure to the workforce. The most important thing I learned in college what how to research, think for myself, be self-directed, and teach myself things. As I previously mentioned TASIS prepared me for none of those things.
Employers do not look at high school academic records. There is nothing in your high school record that will indicate any ability to perform any of the jobs that are worthwhile. Most of what you need to know for your career you learn on the job. Even your college academic record becomes irrelevant after a number of years in the work force. Nobody is justified in telling others that if they don’t do well in high school or if they don’t go to a good high school then they are screwed for the rest of your life. It’s bullshit.
There is so much more to life than high school. High school is not the end of your academic life and its not even close to the beginning of your professional life. It’s not even the beginning of the beginning. Many people don’t find their niche in the world until much later on in life. I know many adults who went to graduate school that ended up hating their academic careers and jobs and changed fields completely. Many people change their career paths latter on in life, and go from a career in finance to culinary school. Many people never find their niche. Don’t for a second believe that because you haven’t discovered your strengths and talents in high school that you are a failure. TASIS only did this so as to break you down psychologically and emotionally in order to get you to accept your treatment.
Anyone who believes they know what they want to do with their life in high school is seriously delusional. You haven’t even had enough life experiences to know who you are as a person and what your true strengths and weaknesses are. Plenty, if not the majority of adults made most of their friends after high school. Unless you are going into politics, popularity doesn’t count for anything in the adult world. Even then it’s nothing like social dominance game in high school. People don’t know who or who you don’t hang out with and they don’t care. Don’t believe that your success, both social and academic at high school is going to determine your fate for the rest of your life. Don’t for a second believe that failure at TASIS will mean you will never be successful or be happy.
I knew at the time that I was extrely unhappy with with my life and where I was. But I didn't have enough life experience to understand myself or my situation in any depth. Nothing I did seemed to really ever satisfy or interest anyone for very long and I had no real control over anything. Everyone has already made up their mind about me and their own life and were only concerned with fullfilling their agenda. At the same time it didn't really matter because nobody cared about me regardless of how well I did or tried. When people cared it was only because I was doing something for their agenda.
Everyone was too concerned about their own survival to really care about any one else or think about anything in depth. What mattered to the faculty was whether students made their jobs easy and made the school look good. What mattered to the students was whether other students were a tool or an obstacle to competing in and climbing the social hierarchy. If someone made you look good you would try to associate with them. If someone was beneath you in the hierarchy you could step on them to make yourself look better. In one form or another, everyone was a stepping stone to someone else. Outwardly, everyone seemed to be fully content feeding off each other, running through the same rat race, and proving to be more devoted to the group.
Competition is a natural part of every aspect of life in this world, but the school managed to take it and amplify it to a whole new order. The fact that the school controlled every aspect of life fundamentally changed the nature of relationships between people. The system worked so that it was very hard to isolate yourself from it without completely isolating yourself from everyone else. The institution demanded total control and for the most part it got it. It seemed that no aspect of my life didn't relove around servitude, obeidiance, competition, and self-denial. There was no place or time I could comfortably be myself.
At TASIS asking hard questions about life or engaging in meaningful dialogue was the last thing anyone wanted to talk about. Nobody wanted to show any vulnerablity. Everyone was so preoccupied competing, vying for social dominance, maintaining an aura of invulnerability, and conforming to the will of the school that there was no way to be noticed and get any attention unless I participated and 'went with the crowd'. I was so desperately trying to get my very basic needs met that I was reduced to an animal. I didn't even know who I was, what I wanted, or what I believed.
I always thought of myself as an independant critical minded person; I can’t believe I allowed myself to get so caught up in the propaganda of the school. There was no way to emotionally distance myself from any of the things I was being told or the things happening around me. I am just as disappointed in myself as other people for not responding in a more dignified fashion, but I didn’t have enough experience or maturity to even begin to comprehend how on my own.
Everyone, including the people I got on better with, were thoroughly indoctrinated and playing the same game. There were a lot of people I felt disappointed by, but then I look at the situation and myself and realize I cant be too surprised. The same forces were acting on everyone. As a teenager your inexperience, your heightened need to fit in and seek approval, and get your social and even sexual needs met can make you vulnerable to being taken advantage of by other people. At any point in life, loneliness can warp your personality; the consequences are even worse when you are young and naive.
I felt miserable, alone, alienated and mistreated, but worst of all I learned very little of value. I can understand the concept of sacrifice for long term gain or for a genuinely greater purpose. The only way individuals or group make progress is through some sort of sacrifice. Unfortunately, there was no gain, long term or short. Being at an ‘international’ school didn’t have the same credentials with universities as I was led to believe, and it certainly didn't help me with anything else in the long run. I wish I could say that my experience made me a better person, but it didn’t. It took me a very long time before I became even close to having a good understanding of myself or the world around me.
I felt like there was something wrong with me and yet I could never figure it out or find a way to remedy the situation. As unhappy as I was, it would take many more years before I realized that I got absolutely nothing out of my experience and that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with me to begin with anyway. The entire time pretty much amounted to a big zero and a waste. None of the ‘hard work’, living up to other people’s expectations, or failed attempts at fitting in paid off. I tried prostituting myself to teachers and students alike to get my needs met and succeed in the short and long term, and I got neither. Just being different hurt me, and yet nothing I did helped me to fit in. I wasn’t even mature enough to find some functional way of going against the grain.
Some people might say that I was too sensitive and that it was just a part of life that is difficult for everyone. Everyone has their own issues and people to deal with, and life is full of minor injustices. However, it is much easier to ignore other people and the injustices of your life when you are not at their mercy and when they are not stopping your from getting your needs met. If you are not getting ANY of your needs met, including your basic needs for attention and security, and you have no real freedom, dignity, or meaningfull purpose, there is no way to be happy. The bottom life was I was not getting any of my needs met, there was no way to stop the institution from dominating my life, and I had no one I could trust.
Everyone needs to be able to take care of themselves and put one foot in front of the other, but success doesn’t just have to be defined by your GPA, elite membership, salary, or some athletic plaque, and neither does happiness, self-worth, or life meaning. Your job, your social status, what other people think about you and even your role in a group do not have to define your identity, and your religious membership does not have to define your spirituality or relationship to God. I refuse to allow other people to dictate my identity and sense of self, or how I should feel and what I should like.
Competition for limited resources for survival sake is what drives this world; everything else is just a pretense. It may also be very well true that most employers don't really care what your opinion is and that the bottom line boils down to efficiency and organizing and processing data as fast as possible. Most people don’t like their jobs and most people end up choosing among the limited options they have available. This has been the way it has been for the vast majority of people since the beginning of time. But most people don't allow themselves to be defined by their jobs; why allow as school to define you?! Even the jobs that demand you work 80hours a week tend to compensate their employees well. Not everyone can be the best, inevitably most people compete just to survive, not to prove a point. Your best sense of identity and source of strenth is knowing yourself, which is the reason why cults attack that first!
I know people who argue that like any other school it was just preparing you for the 'world ahead'. Even if this is true, you can acknowledge the principles by which this world operates without internalizing them. Throwing yourself into a tank of sharks might not always prepare you for being thrown into a tank of sharks. Although your life may be constrained by the principles of the world, there is no need to religiously worship them or judge yourself by the principles by which the world works. You might never change the world, but that doesn't mean you can't live by your own principles. Most of all, I believe no human being should have all aspects of their life dominated by an institution, mistreated, or exploited.
I am sure some people who were able to play the game, conform, and compete had a good time at TASIS. There are plenty of people who are happy being in their cult, or even their own small isolated reality. Most of the people I know in Jehova's Witness are EXTREMELY HAPPY, but it is still not for ME. Jehova's Witness is not neccessary or even good for everyone. Everyone is different. As in any society, in the end it boils down to where you are in the social hierarchy, whether you are getting your needs met, and whether you are exploited or are exploiting. All human experience is subjective.
The bottom line is that whether you like it or not, no experience at TASIS or any particular high school is going to guarantee any “success” in your academic or professional career later on in life. Nothing can guarantee success in life except your own persistence. I can’t even put where I went to high school on a resume when I apply for a job anymore. After a certain point in life, high school doesn’t matter at all. If there is anything positive I learned from my experience, it is that it is not worth doing something that you don’t enjoy if you are not compensated appropriately for it. Going through motions just to please other people who don't care about your feelings or self-interest will end up destroying your personality. As with anything else, if you do hate it at TASIS, either don’t stay, or don’t care; you are not going to get anything out of it, ever.
I had other experiences brushing shoulders with cults, as I hopped from one cause and purpose to another, however I never stayed in them long as none of them had any real domination over my life or my future. I turned to these groups to fill a void and make sense of my life, only their ideologies and sense of idealism became transparent quite quickly. I can't deny how much of my life I have wasted anymore. Writing has been the best way to gain perspective and provide myself with insight. What separated TASIS from other cults was that it really had a lot of coercive power. Even if you didn’t fall for any of the manipulation the school or the peer pressure, the cult still had the ability to dominate your life against your will.
As I have previously stated, cults are organized in many different ways and offer many different things to people. Some cults promise to empower you and some promise to bring you closer to God, while others promise you nothing other than their sincerity in fighting for justice and social/political change. There is no template for a cult and there is no easy way to identify a cult unless you to an extent get involved. Cults are dangerous because its not until you get involved that you realize what you are dealing with. No organization ever states "We would really like to recruit you into our cult! Could you spare a second?"!
However, all cults are seductive in that they claim to offer something unique whether it be ‘insider knowledge’, ‘enlightenment’, ‘fulfillment’, ‘belonging’, ‘special powers’, or even an alternate way of living to people who feel that they are missing something in their lives. A lot of people like the security and simplicity that comes with believing in an ideology. However, not even a well intentioned and wise person or good philosophy can make you more effective or happy with your life. Certain people and ideas can be guides and knowledge is power, but the results come from you. The ability to apply knowledge can only come with life experiences; there is no sussinct answer to all of lifes problems.
No group or institution has the answers to make the world a better place, or can make you a better person or make up for something that you find lacking in yourself or your life. I am wary of any group or ganization that constantly drives a hard sell of being unique or offering a unique opportunity, or any group or organization that places that much of a demand and restriction on your life. I find that even people who are constantly trying to impress me rub me the wrong way. I am expecially skeptical of people and groups who use emotional manipulation and personal attacks on my character in order for me to do as they please. Simply put, no institution or group on earth is that unique or worthwhile that you should subbordinate your life to it, or that you need to be miserable to stay in it. The only thing that can be unique and worthwhile are people. Organizations should exist to serve them, not the other way round.
The hallmark of a good person is someone who can respect someone or something that they don't understand. I would argue that any group that refuses to respect differences between people or the autonomy of the individual to think and feel for themselves is not good. I hate cults because they make everyone see everything in black and white terms, they shun meaningfull dialogue, and they place their agenda about the self-interest of individuals. Even though some if not many people might thrive in enviroments that dictate what they do and feel, cults in their very nature are oppressive and opposed to individual freedom.
Specifically with regards to TASIS I would argue no school is so exceptional that it can make you a better student. The education you get from any school is not only as good as the effort you are willing to put in, but also the willingness and ability to explore yourself and develop your mind and personality. Even the differences between Ivy League colleges and 'lesser' schools is greatly exagerated. Most professors possess a good degree of intelligence and talent. The premium you pay to attend those schools is for the notoriety and to be with students who are smart and/or come from money. Going to an Ivy League school doesn't change you in any way that will make you more successfull. Getting into such a 'good' school just means you already have a greater chance of success in the first place. Furthermore, any High School that tells you that it is that great and unique is probably completely full of shit.
There is no way to make anyone cult proof. All people can be suckers and blind followers. I can't help but take a healthy skeptisism towards life; question everything and seek to understand everything. I don't even trust doctors and lawyers; I always get a second opinion and think for myself. 'Experts' make mistakes and deliberately mislead people ALL THE TIME. For thousands of years 'experts' believed in witchcraft and that the world was flat. For that reason I am also skeptical of people who don't like it when I ask questions.
I don't even trust or believe people who are good and have good intentions. Even they make errors of judgement. Do your own research and think for yourself. Everyone is biased and everyone has an agenda. Everyone might have snipets of truth but everyone also has an axe to grind; only you can piece everything together. At the end of the day even if there are people who love you, the only person who can really look out for your self-interest is yourself.
I wrote this page primary to express my experience. However, it is not my intent to merely document a part of my life or write an autobiography. While everyone's experience is unique and all people are different in some way, most people face some universal challenges and share the same needs. On the most basic level, all human beings have needs that require other people to fullfill. As group animals, not only are we are dependant on each other for attention and sex, but even our basic survival. In groups people can accomplish things they can't on their own. There is power in numbers. There is also safety in numbers.
However, we are also dependant on other people for our higher order needs as well. No man is an island onto themselves. Even if one turns to the religious concept of turning away from 'wordly temptation' and comfort even to the point of accepting death, one must still confront the fact that on some level all human beings have some needs whether spiritual or material.
Cults are fascinating because they are an example of extremely disfunctional group behavior. They serve as a great example of what happens when our primal instincts turn against our very survival as individuals and as a group. As we are group animals, a lot can be learned about the human mind by observing people operating in groups. Both survival and group behavior are at the core of human personality. Consequently, while I am interested in the subject of cults, I would like to think that the subject I address is both broader and deeper.
I wrote this page primarily as a way to understand myself. Catalogueing ones thoughts are a great way to see the big picture in one's psyche and the world at large. I also wrote this in order to reach out to people who think like myself, even if they are a very small minority. While I don't claim to be infallible or unbiased, I think it is good to share my knowledge, experience, and perspective with people who may take value and insight from what I say. Maybe someone will look at what I have written and take it further and conduct their own research or shed their own insight.
On the macro level, I think that if the right research is to be done people must be willing to challenge their assumptions about human nature. It seems to be a popular misconception that cults are fringe entities that engage in atypical behavior. I think such ideas are both a sad testiment to how little we still really know about human behavior as well as how uncomfortable it can be to examine ourselves carefully. The ideas from the enlightenment of the rationality of man, the 'perfectibilty of society', and inevitable progress of society still dominate contemporary discourse.
However, it is not just the science lab but also from our history that we can see how irrational human behavior is. The 20th century has seen cult like political parties take over entire nations, transforming them into totalitarian societies that have wreaked death and destruction. Even with the collapse of Nazism and the Soviet Union, regimes like North Korea and Iran remind us that history doesn't not neccessarily progress for the better in a linear fashion. At the same time research has also indicated that stateless societies were far from ideal, and contrary to the myth of the noble savage.
I strongly support anyone who is involved in cult research or cult recovery therapy and the field of pyschology in general. Science has bearly scratched the surface in understanding the human mind. I think research into cults and activitism is in particular valuable because it can so easily be cross referenced and used for other areas of research and anti-cult activism can be linked with other causes. Cults are a great example of an intersection in research of politics, sociology, and psychology.
People join groups for a wide variety of reasons. In my experience, joining any group has only gotten me so far with regards to finding worthwhile people and personal satisfaction. Belonging to a group will do nothing for your higher order needs such as love, meaningfull friendship, happiness, or a sense of purpose. You can meet people by joining a group, but it will never guarantee you friends. People also join groups in pursuit of some cause, which is fine provided that you don't surrender your autonomy and life to the group. As an example, fighting for social change is noble, but I am skeptical of any group that has a radical agenda or that demands total commitment to its cause; its hard enough trying to change your own life and make yourself happy.
The only way to really belong to any group is to conform your soul and surrender your own sovereignty. Conforming may get you accepted, but at a price. You can never be true to yourself and a group, and no comprimise will satisy either party. Belonging to a group will always mean that you place the needs and values of the group before those of yourself. You either have to be obeidance or lack a critical mind. It goes without saying that belonging to a group will also never get you appreciated for who you are, but only what you do.
It makes sense to join a group to get a need met, but no one thing you can do will make you happy or successfull, no one can give you 'special powers', and that no group will ever truely love, accept, and appreciate you for who you are. The inverse is that you can take things that work for other people and apply them to yourself, but their are no panaceas. Everyone is going to have a different solution based on their own uniqe needs, temperament, and life circumstances. All you can do is be true to yourself and work on yourself, empower yourself, and live up to your potential.
From observing other people I have come to the conclusion that living up to your full potential and finding people that truely accept you for who you are is a long, lonely, and arduous process of self-exploration that can take years and requires a lot of patience. A lot of people get by using shticks, gimmicks, and angles, but such methods tend to be limited. Even people who are naturally talented spend years of hard work getting to the zenith of their careers. It took me years just to become satisfied and confident with myself, but I don't feel satisfied with my life yet. Some people never even understand themselves completely let alone discover their full potential.
The only way to even begin on that process is in an environment that at the very least provides some level of autonomy and where you do not have to worry about getting your basic needs fullfilled. Even the most talented of individuals need support and guidance to achieve their goals. I also feel that you should excel in things because you intrinsicly derive some pleasure or benifit from it, not to satisfy other people. If you feel the group or institution you are in does not respect your differences or autonomy, let alone foster or cater to you as a person, I can't see how you will get anything out of it.
Society can't function without rules, but I don't believe that anyone is under any moral obligation to fit in, approve, pretend to be happy, or make sure that other people are in approval of their beliefs or personality. In my experience people who tell you that their goals, values, or needs are more important than yours, are either trying exploit you or they just don't care about you. Even if you join a group to help other people, you can never help other people unless you can help yourelf first.
I learned that no matter how hard I try, I will never 'fit in' to any group because I am just not naturally a sheepish follower and I desire more than just getting my primal needs met; sheepish people are good as sniffing non-sheepish people out. Being a sheep requires never thinking about things in any deepth, abstaining from meaningfull dialogue, and not genuinely caring about other peoples feelings.
I will never again conform because I am lonely or because I wish to avoid being judged. I realize I will be judged harshly and unfairly no matter what I do. You will never please everyone as all people have their own values and prejudices that are based off of their own unique life experiences and needs. The only way to win the approval of more people is to hide who you really are, which will only in the end destroy you. Sadly, most people are quick to judge based off of superficial and arbritary criteria without getting you know let alone understand other people. However, I now would much rather live with people's meaningless judgements of me than destroy myself as a person.
I look back at how I hid so much of my personality so that I could get attention without showing any vulnerability. Its only after years of experience that I realized how counterproductive that was. Today, I wouldn't even dream of trying to associate with the same people from my high school. The only reason I even held them in any regard back then was because they were getting their needs met and I wasn't, and because they had a certain level of power over me.
Outside of high school and perhaps modern politics, popularity doesn't matter. Social dominance does still matter, but you don't have to be 'liked' by people or be able to run fast in order to be socially dominant and get your needs met. High school just happens to be a time and circumstance when those human instincts are at their most primal and distilled. In fact, in the adult world(and to a much lesser extent childhood), having social dominance will not even make you popular and 'liked'. Many of the most socially dominant figures in history had many enemies. Even in high school there was always a few large althetic guys or really attractive girls who are so devoid of a personality that even shallow social climbers would avoid them. Having social dominance or power will get people to respect and fear you, and will even get your needs met, but it will still never make people accept you for who you are. Either way, your high school popularity ranking means didley squat.
Fitting in may make you "popular", but it will never make you any real friends. True friends are found, they are not made. True friends will accept and understand you for who you are because on a fundamental level they think and feel in a similar way as you but they also appreciate your differences. True friendship between two people has to be based on more than the ability to get each others needs met; its has to be based on empathy, understanding, and respect. Anyone who calls you selfish for not putting their or the groups needs and goals before your needs and goals is only trying to manipulate you. They are not your friends. True friendship is a partnership in which two people get their needs met together by empowering each other and not just feeding off of each other. No individual, group, or institution deserves to dictate your self-esteem based on what you provide for them, and no one should dictate your conscience.
XVII. HAPPINESS:
On a personal level I am in no position to provide particular advice to anyone. Everyone has different temperaments and needs; what works for me might and probably will not work for a lot of people. I don't think anything you do can guarantee you satisfaction. Many if not most things are 'neccessary but not sufficient' in order to get what you want. You can only work to create the conditions that bring happiness and success about. I don't even know what works for me, but I gleaned a few things from my own experience.
Competition is an unavoidable aspect of life. You may choose to ignore it, but it will not ignore you. Most of the time it is what drives people to improve themselves and excel. But when it consumes every aspect of your being I feel it becomes a destructive force. When you become so wrapped up with competing with other people both to get needs met and also for its own sake, you can lose sight of your own talents, interests, and happiness. For me, I can not be happy unless I have some degree of personal satisfaction and purpose with my life. Caring about more than just survival and getting needs met is also essential to having meaningfull, productive, and fullfilling relationships with other people. It doesn't surprise me that the same people who are focused on 'winning' and competing are often not intererested in meaningfull relationships; hence why I feel caring about what they think about me is self-defeating.
'Success', however you want to define that, requires some degree of self insight and personal satisfaction anyway; I can't see how you can be successfull unless you have a real good idea of your strengths and limitations and have a certain level of self-confidence. I think it also requires being hard nosed and self-driven. Many successfull people find a small niche to which they are uniquely suited and to which they can dominate. The most successfull people like Donald Trump and Bill Gates are those who are willing to take big risks and go into uncharted territory. Those kinds of people don't have to find a way to do something that everyone else can do but only better because their pool of competion is so much smaller. Breaking to the will of the group is not the only way to thrive.
I will not allow people to mold me into their own image. I do not accept that being different makes me defective. I will never conform because the group claims it has more purpose or worth than the myself, because it doesn’t approve of me or value me, or because it won't accept any other values than its own. I would rather just strike out on my own and try and find my own niche. In fact, I would rather fail trying to rather than trying to fit into someone else's mold. Is it worth getting more of your needs met if you are miserable in the process and are not growing personally or professionally? I think most people, though they might not act it, would agree that every individual that is trying to fulfill his or her potential and who respects the boundaries of other people has value.
I have learned that if other people don’t respect me without taking the effort to get to know me or talk to me because I do not meet their expectations, then they are not worthwhile people. If they don't respect other people simply because they are different or think differently, then they are bad people. Everyone has an opinion. Ultimatately I treat other people's opinions as irrelevant unless they are willing to engage in meaningfull dialogue with me. I am not interested in what people think about me 'at a glance'.
The biggest regret of my life is that I never took enough time to really explore and develop my talents. The best investment in life is in yourself; you can depend on yourself more than any other person and no matter what happens, you will have to spend the rest of your life with yourself. Even once you finish official schooling, the professional world requires constant self-training and continuing education. I over invested in other people and underinvested in myself. I have sworn to myself to never allow other people to waste my time again, especially when I could be working on myself, empowering myself, and making myself happy. I am not going to put the same level of effort into people anymore, unless they demonstrate to me that they are worthwhile people and that they are willing to return the favor. I have just as much right to demand that people sell themselves to me as they demand that I sell myself to them. I don't even want to prove that I am trustworthy, that I have character and integrity unless they can return the favor. I don't care how lonely, weak, desperate or needy I get, unless my life depends on it I will not surrender my autonomy. Nobody has anything so unique that I should be with them even if doing so makes me miserable or they mistreat me.
There is nothing wrong with pursuing your interests and finding out what you believe, even if it makes you different or unconventional. The world operates on self-interest; why should I put the self-interest of strangers or an organization before my own self-interest? And if I haven't made up my mind, then I haven't made up my mind. I don't trust people who force me to take a position or side, who demand loyalty, map out my life, or who force me to live up to their expectations and values, or agree with them.
From now on I place my empowerment and happiness before winning the 'respect' and approval of other people. Everyone has to conform and censor themselves to an extent and in particular situations; society would fall apart if we didn't. But there is no functional value to living your entire life according to someone else expectations or just to please other people and serve their self-interest. No single persons values and opinions are so infallible that they have the right to force the world to revolve around them or to make other people feel like shit because they don't live up to them, and no one deserves happiness anymore than anyone else.
I don't expect people to like me or agree with me, and I really don't care if they do or don't. Many common situations require a degree of self monitoring, but I am not going to try to change or micromanage my personality to please other people. I don't even want to change their opinion of me or have them understand me, and I have even lost interest in even trying to influence people or even establish meaningfull dialogue. As long as they leave me alone and work with me to help me get what I need I don't care. Nobody has the right to mistreat or take advantage of someone else just because they fall short of some personal standard or value system.
I am not advocating rebelling, standing out for its own sake, or being an anti social asshole, I am just not interested in molding into the form that society deems fit. Its good enough just being happy doing your own thing. Unfortunatley, you may find that you feel more lonely, and you may wish deeply to be ‘included’ into the group. However, as Fredrick Nietzsche stated, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” The companionship, safety, and comfort of the group is merely and an illusion that exists only provided that you play a role. Good people and true friends will get to know you, listen to you, and care about you for who you are and not just what you do for them.
