5 FIVE THINGS YOU WILL ONLY DO AT HYDE Malcolm Gauld ’72
Brother’s Keeper (BK): Our Guardian, Our Catapult
Five Things You Only Do at Hyde: Brother’s Keeper—Our Guardian, Our Catapult by Malcolm Gauld ’72, P-’08, P-‘10 Copyright 2017 Hyde Schools
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or nearly half a century, the students, faculty, and parents at Hyde Schools have strived to honor and uphold a community-wide concept called Brother’s Keeper (BK). On face value, Hyde’s definition of BK is simple enough: We help others achieve their best. However, as simple as this may sound, most Hyde students will tell you it’s the hardest thing they are expected to do. At the outset, it’s also the aspect of Hyde they dread the most. Then, years later, as alums, they commonly regard BK as the glue that holds the school culture together. Before launching into an explanation of BK, a disclaimer is in order: Hyde does not claim to be immune from disciplinary issues. The purpose here is not to righteously seize a high moral ground. Rather, it is to describe a path to a healthy, enriching, and inspiring school culture. To be sure, there have been times in Hyde’s history when the state of BK has been stronger than at other times. Similar to the golfer’s quest, BK symbolizes Hyde’s cultural par. The very act of striving for that par fuels a spirited, healthy school culture while simultaneously maintaining an effective antidote to inappropriate or abusive behaviors. Brother’s Keeper—Our Guardian, Our Catapult 1
On face value, Hyde’s definition of BK is simple enough: We help others achieve their best. However, as simple as this may sound, most Hyde students will tell you it’s the hardest thing they are expected to do. Brother’s Keeper: What is it? Forty years as a character educator have led me to a two-part definition of character: Our guardian against temptation; Our catapult to greatness. BK calls upon us to be both guardian and catapult to our peers. It demands, in turn, that we be open to those guardians and catapults who may invade our own personal space in support of our best. On the guardian side of the equation, if you observe Johnny smoking a cigarette, you have a responsibility to do something about that. You are expected to tell Johnny to turn himself in to the Dean and make it clear that if he doesn’t, you will. If you do not, and it later becomes known that you did not, you may well find yourself in the same disciplinary boat as Johnny. Of course, this expectation flies in the face of every teenage code imaginable. But that’s BK. Turning to the catapult side, as a student at Hyde (1968-72) I pretty much saw myself as a jock. Then, one day in art class, a couple of classmates challenged me to create a piece of art and post it publicly for all to see. This artistic challenge was way out of my comfort zone, but I accepted it and posted this very watercolor of the Hyde boiler room on the school’s public art wall. 2 Five Things You Will Only Do at Hyde
I make no claims as to its quality, but I did indeed put it up for all to see. It felt good to do so. And I would not have done it without my peers pushing me. That’s also BK.
Some BK History In Hyde’s earliest days, we students may have grasped some of BK’s purpose, but we definitely were not willing to force our peers to face expulsion for something we did not necessarily believe was wrong. It all came to a head in 1970 (my sophomore year) during an event known in Hyde lore as “The Bust.” Up to that point, as is true at traditional schools, kids were expelled for serious discipline infractions. The Bust uncovered the inconvenient truth that a clear majority of Hyde’s 120 students were guilty of something. Faced with choosing between steadfast adherence to precedent, expelling the violators, and thereby closing the school(!)… Or… looking at things differently, the faculty chose the latter, and BK was born. Hyde soon became a much different and a much better school.
From Resistance to Acceptance Students typically disdain BK in the early going. Either the student has violated school ethics and does not want to accept accountBrother’s Keeper—Our Guardian, Our Catapult 3
While kids may initially fight BK, most come to an ironic realization that part of its magic lies in the very fact that Hyde is such a forgiving place. ability at the hands of a peer… Or… the student has witnessed a peer committing a violation and is loath to face the messy social repercussions of acting as a “keeper.” (And in our modern world, mean-spirited content on social media can amplify those repercussions.) It is not uncommon for students to initially adopt a “see no evil” mode of operation where they follow the rules themselves but don proverbial blinders relative to the actions and behaviors of their peers. In recent years, we have increasingly observed a new factor contributing to student resistance: parent resistance. Given that today’s parents tend to be more concerned with the state of their relationship with their children than past generations have been, they can be deeply troubled by the prospect of their children experiencing any sort of anguish, to say nothing of that which can accompany BK. Parents have recently been known to ask, “Isn’t it enough for my child to be responsible for him- or herself.” To be sure, we don’t promote anguish, regardless of whether it occurs in the real or virtual world, but to answer the question in a single word: “No.” BK typically starts to make sense once a student accomplishes something personally significant. This causes him or her to realize that the positive peer pressure of BK played a key role in these accomplishments. During my daughter’s senior year at Hyde (2010), I had the pleasure of watching her lacrosse team win their 4 Five Things You Will Only Do at Hyde
league championship after trailing by three goals with less than five minutes to play. As they were hoisting the championship trophy, my guess is that they were pretty much liking BK. See for yourself:
These days we are increasingly seeing that parental endorsement of BK also demands the burden of proof. Whether in the form of academic improvement by their children or personal growth in their family, parents sometimes need to be positively surprised in order to appreciate BK’s deepest value. It’s hard to improve upon the words of Aristotle: “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” However, even some of BK’s advocates miss the fact that we also do something to reduce the bitterness. It’s called forgiveness.
Forgiveness & Consequences In the 1990s, during one of Hyde’s decennial NEASC accreditations, the visiting committee paid particular attention to the legend of Hyde’s “harsh, unforgiving” disciplinary program. At the end of his visit, the committee chair exclaimed, “This is the most forgiving school I’ve ever seen! It’s definitely more forgiving than my school.” Brother’s Keeper—Our Guardian, Our Catapult 5
While kids may initially fight BK, most come to an ironic realization that part of its magic lies in the very fact that Hyde is such a forgiving place. (Although I grant you, it may not feel like it when you’re out shoveling walkways in February after a Maine snowstorm.) Most traditional schools would have difficulty adopting the BK concept because they tend to cling to an archaic policy of expulsion. (I call it the “Cops & Robbers Syndrome” – the kids are the robbers and teachers are the cops.) Some schools have even been known to “look the other way” when they suspect that students may be violating behavioral standards, choosing “out of sight, out of mind” over getting down in the proverbial muck of underground student behavior. While students cannot reasonably be expected to turn their peers in for fear of putting a permanent stain on their records, Hyde’s experience proves that if the schools will change, the kids will follow suit.
The Alternative to Expulsion So… If a school doesn’t rely on expulsion, how can it appropriately penalize transgressions? At Hyde, should you find yourself on the receiving end of BK, you will likely be “campused” and/or spend some time on what we call Work Crew. This may find you cleaning windows, picking up litter, or raking leaves during times when your peers might be kicking back and enjoying themselves. While physical labor has a bad rap these days, we’ve come to 6 Five Things You Will Only Do at Hyde
BK seeks to create a community of people who care for each other, who make it both safe and an expectation for all members in the community to take risks and pursue their personal best. value its therapeutic, restorative effect. In any case, at the end of the day, you do have a choice. After all, if you truly detest manual labor, then you need only heed an old adage: If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Although expulsion happens at Hyde, it is rare. (I sometimes quip, “At Hyde we may not expel you, but we may make you wish we did.”) It might be possible to have authentic Brother’s Keeper with a more moderate commitment to kids… but I doubt it.
BK Post-Hyde During a recent alumni weekend, we presented an assembly of recent Hyde alums talking about the application of Hyde’s lessons to the challenges of the outside world. During the Q&A phase of the meeting, one student pointedly asked the alums, “Do you really do Brother’s Keeper in college?” One of the college students replied, “Definitely.” Nearly all of the other alums on stage nodded in agreement. Clear was the stark difference in mindsets between the questioner (a new student with doubts about BK) and the “answerer” (an alum who could identify with the questioner’s doubts). The student meant, When you see kids breaking rules, do you turn them in? The alum, thinking on a deeper level (and having been Brother’s Keeper—Our Guardian, Our Catapult 7
knocked on his tail a time or two in college), observed that college becomes both easier and more productive with an established network of ambitious, responsible, and supportive peers. And that may be the whole point in a nutshell.
BK In Today’s World BK seeks to create a community of people who care for each other, who make it both safe and an expectation for all members in the community to take risks and pursue their personal best. Here are three reasons why we need it more today than ever.
First, there are some downright scary social problems that have become all too common in our culture. Just this summer (2017), we all saw social media videos of Florida teenagers taunting and laughing at a drowning man, offering no assistance before he ultimately died in their midst. We also followed the trial of a teenage girl who coldly encouraged her boyfriend to commit suicide by asphyxiation which he ultimately did. We have read the newspaper accounts of abusive, predatory sexual behavior on the part of students and faculty at some of America’s most elite and presti8 Five Things You Will Only Do at Hyde
gious private schools. These and other incidents point to an obvious conclusion: It is not enough for teachers and peers to look out separately for the best interests of young people. We need to all join with each other and do it together. We need synergy. Second, this is not “your father’s marijuana.” Not only are edibles and “dabbing” incredibly easy to conceal, all of today’s options are far more potent than yesteryear’s. Since talking with experts at both the Caron and Hazelden addiction treatment centers about the latest findings relative to drugs and teenagers, I no longer support the rite of passage, “kids will be kids” stance. It’s an important battle to wage. And in that fight, “cops & robbers” is tantamount to a pea shooter. Third, the boarding school world in particular has been rocked by recent media exposés concerning disturbing stories of sexual abuse by teachers and underground student-on-student sexual assaults. While no school is immune, a strong BK culture makes it very difficult for egregious, harmful, abusive behavior to continue for any sustained period of time before it is revealed to the community. And people are far less likely to engage in negative behavior if they sense that that behavior will not remain an underground secret. As important as clearly understood and faithfully followed reporting procedures concerning such abuses may be, we must not forget that they are curative. They occur after the fact. A healthy BK culture is preventative. It has the potential to arrest unspeakable abusive behavior before it occurs. That reason alone makes BK essential to Hyde and worthy of consideration by any school. n
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