The Horace Mann Community

    The communications between and among alumni of the Horace Mann School, following the release of Sunday's New York Times story on prep-school predators, has been remarkable. The astounding outpouring is indicative of the motto we all learned there: "Great is the truth and it prevails..." even if it takes awhile to come to light. Numbering in the thousands, the comments on the paper's site, among Facebook friends and in emails between fellow classmates, the notes of outrage,  emotional conflict, sadness, anger and support  point most interestingly to the strength of the community itself. 

    "Once an HMer, always an HMer" some say. We look out for each other. We have a common ground, a shared history that runs deep.. One of my high school friends came to this apt conclusion: we are the stewards of the school. It is up to us, as alumni, as stewards,  to help turn tragedy into opportunity. It is up to those who can to help not only shed light on the past but make a future path more traversable for the victims, for those hurting and those current students and alumni who may need help to make sense of this.
     Synchronicity is the appearance of two or more events that seem to occur together by chance.  It's really so interesting to me at this juncture, as I am about to change my career path entirely to focus on education, that this occurred now. In August, I begin a Masters/PhD program that specifically deals with social change in education and the behavior of "communities"  as they pertain to teaching/learning environments. Well if what has transpired in the last few days isn't right up that alley, I don't know what is. How's that for synchronicity? 

     I keep going over and over the whole thing from the perspective of the culture in which we thrived versus the culture of today. It's difficult to view the past through today's lens, as they are, for sure, not "apples to apples." Our days were marked by a unquenched thirst for freedom, independence, breaking stereotypes, going beyond boundaries -- intellectually, sexually, physically-- smashing mores and taboos. We questioned. We asked. We experimented. And some got hurt. 

     I just read some research on the fact that in educational studies, the "psyche" of adolescent girls in academia wasn't even covered as a subject until the 1990s. So what we all were going through in the 70s to early 80s was truly ground-breaking -- from breaking the paradigm of the one-gender school behavioral system to elevating girls in academia to the sexual revolution to trying to figure out what gender "equality" was all about. 

     Clearly there were black holes into which jumped some deviant opportunists, predators.

     This is all so very interesting and sad...yet it is setting the stage for a giant leap forward…

     Yes, we need to be the stewards.

   
     So fucked up isn't it?? But so, so powerful. 

The Horace Mann School for Boys

I attended the Horace Mann School for Boys for my last two years of high school. Yes, it still was called a "School for Boys" as they had not yet had time to change all their collateral material prior to their admittance of girls. That all changed during the first year of co-education in 1975. 


In tomorrow's Sunday New York Times magazine, the cover story is entitled "Prep School Predators: The Horace Mann School's Secret History of Sexual Abuse". 


The story was posted online a few days ago. A lame note disclaiming any responsibility ( as these events happened in the past, prior to the present administration)  went out to all alumni and parents prior to its publication. The avalanche of stories, support, horror, sadness and other emotions that have been streaming online ever since is quite extraordinary. It has churned up so many memories, so many emotions for all of us, clearly. In fact, it points more toward the strength of the bonds most HMers have felt. A kinship. A shared community. A lifelong bond for most of us.


Sadly, not for those who were abused.

I have to say that I have always proudly "worn" my HM badge, most importantly, for its significance to me as being one of twenty girls to graduate in its first co-ed class. One of twenty girls to have been part of an "old boys'" network, with all that that meant. It has helped and even defined my life's work, often at the forefront of a lot of situations where women were very few. It helped me in innumerable ways to compete and thrive in a man's world. And a big part of this was gaining a certain "street smarts" when people came onto you or acted in ways that were uncomfortable. It's really not "new" news, is it? I think this stuff has really gone on forever.

Girls have long been subjected to the kinds of things admitted in these discussion threads.  I got those same back rubs by teachers.  During my junior or senior year, my mentor at WNEW during an internship off-campus locked me in his office and started groping me. I was shocked. I demanded he let me out…and the shame of that was so unbearable that I never went back to that TV newsroom again. No teacher at HM even questioned why I left that internship, which they knew was so important to me.

One of the best parts about HM was the access to being in a "man's world." Being taught by all these old world "eccentrics" was par for the course-- and the most energizing aspect. Sadly, some of those "eccentrics" crossed the boundary into criminal behavior. 

Stories will be coming out from those abused. And I hope that those who have kept this inside for way too long will have the benefit of being able to find peace somehow-- through discussion, through shared history, through being able to vent. Others have already begun to comment on the "sexual hotbed" environment they assume it was. It was NOT that.

For the victims, being able to vent it is really cathartic and important. For those suffering any kind of abuse today, it is so important to share in order to dispel the shame.  But to think that it doesn't go on today is unrealistic. To think this only happened "back in the day", is silly. Human nature has a dark side. It will continue. It's just important that people can share and not feel that they cannot talk about it. Shame is a killer.  

Love is a Game-Changer

Mia Love has a killer smile and a winning personality. Who, you ask? She's from Utah. A Republican, Mormon...and Black. Born in New York to Haitian immigrants, she just may be the first African-American GOP Congresswoman ever to be elected in the US. She's already been the first Black Mayor from that Grand Ole Party elected in Utah and, mark my words, she's going places nationally. Love is most certainly a game-changer.

But the game-changing aspect is not simply that she may be the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress; it's that the Republican party itself is actively transforming itself before our eyes. Mia Love is not an anomaly but part of the new face of the party. She is 37 years old, in an interracial marriage, mother of three, living in Utah. Imagine the possibility of a not so distant future in which Mitt Romney wins, becoming the first Mormon President. His VP, the very conservative Marco Rubio from Florida, a first-generation Cuban American, is as right-wing as we have in this country. But he's Hispanic and will sway voters on that fact, irregardless of his views. Congresswoman Mia Love will be leading the charge for family values, fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility.

I will relish the photo the GOP will flaunt of the Romney family standing tall with the Rubios-- Marco and Jeannette, his blond, former Dolphin cheerleader wife and their four kids next to the interracial Loves. That's America today and it's not the Dems that will be leading.

The GOP bombed with Sarah Palin in the last election. But with LOVE on their side, success may be at hand...Dems need to pick up the pace if they think otherwise.