Thread by @metaning

28 years ago, I graduated from #ShoreSchool - a fact I, frankly, don’t like to admit do. From the first day term 2 year 9, until I had a mental breakdown and tried to quit 2 weeks before my trial HSC, I was subjected to (multiple) daily verbal abuse and physical assault…

…constantly hunted in corridors, and grabbed by the hair, and hurled around, and against walls, labelled a “faggot”, for the crime of a *haircut*.

Yes, apparently, there are “gay” haircuts.

#ShoreSchool

That school was expensive, even then, and two generations of my family had all pooled resources to cover the fees - I was a third generation student.

It wasn’t until my (separated parents) father, having finally found out, after I told him I was “quitting”…

#ShoreSchool

…what had been going on all these years, and called the school threatening to bring the police in, that anyone on the staff showed even the slightest care about the situation. #ShoreSchool

Gay teachers had said nothing, had watched the abuse, and done nothing, for fear of their own careers. I wasn’t even gay, but I experienced 3 years of daily, sustained violent homophobia.
#ShoreSchool

I was the top Visual Arts student most of my time there - first in Visual Art, and recipient of the annual Art Prize in year 9, 10, 11 & 12.

Would the school have tolerated that shit if it was happening to the captain of the Rugby team? Of course not.

#ShoreSchool

Why didn’t I speak out, you ask? It’s simple - every week, often twice a week, we were indoctrinated with the School Verse from the bible - the part of the bible that the school felt best summed up the values it wanted for “Shore boys”… #ShoreSchool

Said bible verse was 1 Peter 2:

“Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing…

#ShoreSchool

…For one is approved if, mindful of God, he endures pain while suffering unjustly.

For what credit is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God’s approval.”

#ShoreSchool

This sermons purpose, was to indoctrinate malleable minds into not speaking out, not standing up for themselves when they suffered the sort of injustice the school’s systems - teachers, Sargent-Majors, Prefects visited upon anyone who wasn’t a perfect “Shore Boy”

#ShoreSchool

It was a system designed, and implemented to break children, and remake them.

#ShoreSchool

A very specific case I experienced… There was a year master there, a Mr Hawkins, and he was the year master for 12th grade. He had a dislike of me, and would express that dislike in front of other students…

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One day, as Mr Hawkins and I crossed paths in front of and in earshot of a group of students who had been most responsible for bullying me, for destroying the schooling my family had sacrificed to attain, he pointed at my haircut, which so offended him, and said…

#ShoreSchool

“Next year, I’m going to GET you. Next year, you’re MINE!”

He was going to be my year master next year, he was looking forward to it.

He as good as rang the dinner bell, and declared Open Season on me.

#ShoreSchool

The abuse ratcheted up. No doubt emboldened, my primary bully, a 6 foot tall athlete would grab me by the hair, wrenching me round, often causing my to lose my footing, pushing me into walls in the stairwell corridors.

One day, after I snapped and returned fire…

#ShoreSchool

I simply spun and kicked him in the butt - a mosquito attacking my Everest, he looked at me, said “thankyou” and proceeded to punch me 3 times in quick succession in the face. My ears were ringing, I was seeing stars…

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The sum total of repercussions he received was a 3 hour Saturday Detention, which some other students implored me to plead that he be allowed to forego.

And it was this that lead me to give up, and decide to quit…

#ShoreSchool

It was at this point, that my father, whose initial response was outrage that I wouldn’t “tough it out” changed his tone when my mother explained to him just how dire the situation was - and thats when police involvement was threatened…

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At that point, the school’s attitude changed, and Mr Hawkins, now my year master, in whatI recognised as being one of the greatest acts of hypocrisy I had ever seen, said “if only you’d told us, we could have done something bout it.”…

#ShoreSchool

What I wanted to do at that point, was grab that evil fucker by his lapels, and hurl him off the Benefactor’s (science block) central stairwell.

Perhaps I had a cutting comeback pointing out his hypocracy, but I just don’t remember how that conversation ended.

#ShoreSchool

I spent 10 years, thinking about these experiences daily. The anger, the guilt that I hadn’t spoken up, wondering what could have been if I had a chance at an actual education without trauma.

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It wasn’t until I made a conscious decision not to attend the 10 year reunion of my yeargroup, that I was able to stop thinking daily about what had happened.

Almost 30 years later, and that school’s deeply sick culture has not changed in the slightest.

#ShoreSchool

What’s some other things I remember from my time at #ShoreSchool

Oh yeah, we had one guy in our year who liked being called “Führer”, and wanted to start an organisation called the (IIRC) “Anti Asian Front”, whose primary activity would be “Operation Anti-Slanty”

…I heard secondhand a number of years later, he only dated asian girls… not sure how true that part is.

#ShoreSchool

There was an end of term general knowledge test last day before holidays, and somehow one term, half the kids in the room threw their screwed-up test papers at the asian kid in the class… they seemed to find it terrific sport…

#ShoreSchool

Next term, said kid came prepared - he had a pistol-sized pump-action spud-gun that shot little plastic pellets, must have had dozens of rounds of ammunition capacity…

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So after the test, all these kids screwed up their papers to throw them, cause apparently it was a “tradition” now, said kid pulled out his pellet-gun and started firing.

“Oh no! It’s the fucking VC” from multiple people…

So yeah, it’s THAT kind of place.

#ShoreSchool

We had an insane Canadian science teacher, possibly the only aggressive Canadian in the world (off the ice rink), hence why he wasn’t allowed in Canada any more. He would punch the desk hard enough to make the windows rattle to get the class’s attention…

#ShoreSchool

…if he caught a boy not paying attention, he would creep up to them, like a ninja, and physically lift them out of their seat by the hair where sideburns (that were not allowed) would grow.

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Another teacher, a language teacher who had plainly been broken by his time there, once threw a chair out of a second story window.

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Well it’s been an interesting 24 hours, to judge from the outpouring of support (and a couple of media enquiries).

So in solidarity with comrades who’ve had similar experiences (cause it’s a depressingly common story with private schools)… #ShoreSchool

So… the Australian edition of The Daily Mail picked up on the story, and asked me some followup questions. Obviously there was some editing of the answers I provided, so here they are in full…

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Q: How did teachers respond to the bullying?

A: I can only comment on my direct experience - I don’t recall any teacher doing anything helpful with regards to bullying, until after a complaint was made… (cont)

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A (cont): …The teachers attitudes, certainly the year masters, were, in my opinion, contributors to it.

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Q: Did you ever feel like skipping a day of school or find ways to not go to school to avoid the bullies?

A: I probably had higher than average absenteeism.

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Q: What were some of the things the bullies would do?

A: Verbal abuse, pushing, shoving, messing up, or grabbing and pulling around by the hair. Things that might seem inconsequential…

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A (cont): …, that if you were to complain might be dismissed with some platitude about hardening up, or standing up for yourself. However,… (cont)

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A (cont): …when the person, or people doing it are physically larger than you are, when it happens several times a day, day upon day, year upon year, the effect becomes cumulative.

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Q: How has this affected you in your adult life?

A: I suspect similarly to anyone who experiences a childhood in which they’re bullied, or made insecure in their world. …(cont)

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A (cont): …With a good high school experience, I might have gone on to university straight away, who knows where that might have lead - career, family, mortgage, the full suburban horror of “The Australian Dream”.

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The sheer amount of response this received, I feel I have to emphasise, my original thread was a stream of thoughts, very late at night, about events that were 28-30 years ago. Details are obviously *to the best of my recollection*. It’s not a forensic history.

#ShoreSchool