Running Down Of The Bulls

Back in 1987, the Stock Market had crashed somewhat. It was not a good job market for newly-minted college graduates like me.

I planned to go to law school in a couple of years but wanted to work for a while, have some fun, and then figure out next steps. I eventually, mid-June, landed two positions. By day, I was an Estimator for the painting side of an up-and-coming construction company whose owner had another property management firm he was heading which took the majority of his time. That company wound-up making him a multi-millionaire and it is quite likely I could have risen with him had I stayed. He wanted me to work the painting crew for a spell so I could learn this side of the company from the inside out. I balked. I felt like I would wind up painting for a living when there were no jobs to bid. I was being groomed for bigger things he told me. I just had nagging fears that I would become a painter over the long-haul due to shifting winds.   

At night and weekends, I worked at a Reform School called Glen Mills Schools (the mascot, the Bulls). My mom was a social worker in Delaware County who suggested I apply there and my jock background, size, and just out of college, made me the type of candidate that Glen Mills Schools would hire as Teacher/Counselor. I had little aspirations of working with kids over the long haul, particularly adjudicated delinquents, most from hard and harsh inner-city environments. So, by day I was an affable and genial Estimator for a painting and construction company, meeting with mostly upper-middle class Main Line wives during the day to bid projects. As it was, I left after a year to work at Glen Mills during the day when an AM position open up.

By night for the first year at GM, I was a 23 year old kid handling, with a couple of other staff, the welfare of some close to at-risk 60 adolescent boys in our Unit on our shift. I was too young and too inexperienced to really understand how sketchy it was. Particularly, over the weekends when it was I and one other staff member. A dude about as green as me. Despite some truly harrowing situations, I managed to work there for two years, moving down to day staff and teaching/counseling as well as being an assistant coach for the Community Basketball team. Glen Mills paid poorly and trained its staff weakly. So, those fundamental flaws pretty much cast a die that made it unsustainable over the long-haul. Professional people don't tolerate low wages and although some stick around because of altruism, mostly what happens is that it becomes a dead-end job for those who may not have other options. At-risk kids need the best staff, not the left-overs. Or, the staff member who works for a year or two and then rolls, just as he begins to develop his professionalism and know-how. Management didn't really care and that created the undoing.   

For those of you from the Philly area, you have probably heard that Glen Mills was shutdown by the State of Pennsylvania recently for documented incidences of physical abuse that were stonewalled by administration but eventually came to light like stars in the nighttime sky which formed a constellation of truly awful acts towards teenagers. I am in no way defending what Glen Mills allegedly became. It bothers me immensely, however, that onlookers paint Glen Mills as uniformly bad for decades. That is simply not factual. It was, during my tenure, much more of an asset than a debt in juvenile delinquency treatment.     

I can speak categorically that I never witnessed any, not to mention the widespread abuse, in my Unit. I heard rumors about other Units on campus but for what I did with my fellow staff members in our Unit, we were above board and not abusive. It was very confrontational. It was not a good place to be a negative kid. We made their lives hard. With the goal to break them of negative behavior that would likely land them in jail as adults if not changed. Consider the consequences. Kids killed or sent to the Big House. We were in a war for their lives and time was short. I had students who were murdered or got murdered. Until you deal with what we dealt with, you should hold your tongue.     

Yet, even as a young man I saw the seeds of destruction that were being sown in the mid to late 80's that eventually grew into a poisonous environment. It was one of the reasons I left Glen Mills when I did. I realized I had no future and also surmised that the ethic of untouchability that the administration practiced would come back to haunt them. And it wasn't the abuse of kids that worried me as a primary concern. But, abuse certainly would sink its ship.

Like Penn State and the Catholic Church, Glen Mills administration and management, had become a law unto themselves. Answerable to no one. That bothered me. One day I happened to be up at the Administration Building and walked into a Team Leaders meeting that was just concluding and saw paperback copies of Machiavelli "The Prince" book strewn about on the conference table. As a former Political Science major, I had a more than typical awareness of the book and what its central message was: How to deal harshly with enemies and retain power. I was a bit shocked to see the book being read by management and a part of me died that day in terms of Glen Mills. I firmly reject the might is right thesis and don't consider it naive to base one's institutional defense on right is might. 

Although I had a lot of street smarts to learn at Glen Mills, I did have an academic bent and what I witnessed that day disturbed me. The message was clear. Glen Mills though it was untouchable.  No one is untouchable. We shall all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ and give an accounting. Institutions rise and fall. The individuals within however are eternal. I weep that the school has fallen and been gored by its own hand. The sweat shirt above is one of the few relics I have retained for over three decades. It is in rags yet it points to a time where all was not in ruin. 

P.S. My dreams of becoming an attorney evaporated when I really considered the value of what I do. I realized that although I liked the idea of going to law school and being trained to be an attorney, I was fairly certain that the contentious and conflict-oriented state of current jurisprudence wasn't for me. I deal with a fair amount of conflict now but it is often to assist in the reduction of conflict, not redoubling it.