Posted on 08/10/2003 4:09:37 AM PDT by ijcr
When Holly McGuire begged to be taken home, C4's reality TV show seemed doomed - but then she learnt her lesson.
It appeared to be a TV experiment too far. Reality television seemed finally to have overstepped the mark last week, after a programme taking 30 teenagers back to life in a 1950s boarding school drove one girl to break down in front of the cameras.
Holly McGuire burst into tears and begged her mother to take her home on Channel 4's controversial series, That'll Teach 'Em, after being shouted at by the matron when she complained of a stomach upset.
Described by family friends as 'the most confident 16-year-old we have ever met', McGuire's on-screen collapse suggested the programme's goal - for modern children to accept 1950s classroom discipline - was doomed to failure.
But in fact it has been something of a success. McGuire has undergone a minor transformation. Instead of being traumatised by her experiences, McGuire has since written to her parents claiming that she prefers it to her normal school life.
In the letter to her mother - some of which had been censored by the school - McGuire says she feels the harsh regime of the school has changed her for the better.
'The teachers are very strict, as you can imagine, but they are fine as long as you obey the rules,' she wrote. 'It is actually, dare I say it, quite fun.
'I do feel guilty for how upset I must have been,' she added. 'I am much happier now. People keep telling me the transformation is unbelievable, which it is; you can't wipe the smile off my face these days.
'We have been taught how to knit and do hospital corners,' she said. 'You won't be able to recognise me when I get home - graceful, elegant and tidy, it doesn't sound like Holly!!!"
She even claimed to have developed respect for her teachers, expressing particular admiration for her English teacher, Dr Elizabeth Pidoux.
'I am being taught deportment, which is how to stand and walk properly. We are taught by our English teacher,' writes McGuire. 'We have all decided to model ourselves on her when we are older - she is fantastic.'
The letter comes as a huge relief, not just to McGuire's parents but to Channel 4, still smarting from a string of accusations that they have damaged other children by playing social experiments with their lives.
Last May, Ryan Bell, an underprivileged, 16-year-old boy, was said to be distraught and traumatised after his expulsion from Downside boarding school, in which Channel 4's Second Chance programme had enrolled him.
Channel 4 denied the charges, which nevertheless echoed those made earlier in the year, when the channel broadcast Girls Alone, a follow-up to Boys Alone, which put a group of 10- and 11-year-old boys in a house for a week to see how they would cope.
That'll Teach 'Em has installed the 40 teenagers at a state boarding establishment for four weeks of sharp discipline and academic, old-fashioned endeavour.
Sarah, McGuire's mother, admitted that, when she first dropped her daughter off at the school, she was apprehensive about how she would cope in the environment.
She said that, in the hall where the parents finally left their children, she herself jumped to order when the headmaster walked in. 'When Holly left the room, I was at an all-time low,' she said.
McGuire has had a particularly difficult year: her father, Chris, almost died last September when he suffered a brain haemorrhage.
But in a special note that her father received last Friday, McGuire wrote that 'being here has enabled me to appreciate you and I feel it a great privilege to be your daughter.
'I am so proud of you for your strength and courage - your determination is so evident in everything you can do. I just want to let you know how much I respect you.'
Sarah thinks that something in the school had led to her daughter being able to state her feelings in that way. 'Before she might have thought it, but she wouldn't express it,' she said.
I'd like to envision a Reality Prison, not broadcast on TV, where inmates are held in 1950's conditions. If successful, this could be cloned all over.
Do I hear 1792?
BITS
I guess he didn't mind picking up the soap for the big boys, then.
This went on for about ten minutes; finally, the cat tired of the game and bit the lizard in two and gave it a careless toss into the weeds.
Nurse, increase his meds, please.
(And I thought it was spelled Professor. Am I the first to mention that?)
Do I hear 1792?
=========================
(grin) Well, as long as it doesn involve dentistry...or surgery.
its,it's...you're,your,yore...wear,where,ware
homonyms can be fun
Sure they can . . . if they're all real words. "Professer" isn't. At least it's not in Merriam Websters Online.
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