Boarding School of Horrors: Difference between revisions

== Real Life ==

* [[Truth in Television]]—News reports of child abuse or horrific bullying at boarding schools are not rare.

* After attending a real-life version as a youth, [[Roald Dahl]] often used the trope in his fiction, including the Matilda example above.

* [[Piers Anthony]]'s autobiography "Bio Of An Ogre" relates his [[Nightmare Fuel]] experiences in [[Boarding School]].

* Connor "Khonnor" Kirby-Long implies his high school to have been one in the liner notes to ''Handwriting'':

* Two words; [http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jun/29/schools.uk1 Tranquility] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jun/29/schools.uk Bay]. Thankfully it's been [[wikipedia:Tranquility Bay|closed]], but the company that ran it, WWASP a.k.a WWASPS (World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools) runs other schools that [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|have been accused by many]] [[wikipedia:World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools#Controversy|of being abusive as well]].

** Speaking of WWASP, here's a story of one of the [http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/hk0xy/a_gay_teen_describes_her_experience_at_a_utah/ survivors of the program.]

* [http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/soulwound.html Native American boarding schools.] Starting in the 1800s, over 100,000 Indian children were shipped off to Caucasian-run boarding schools where they were force-fed [[Culture Police|Western culture]]—Christianity, the English language, Western styles of dress, etc. -- and forbidden from practicing their own cultural traditions, speaking their native languages, or [[Tear Jerker|even keeping their names.]] This ''in addition'' to the Boarding School of Horrors' usual parade of verbal, physical, and sexual abuses. This is why many Native American languages have died out — at these boarding schools, punishments for speaking Native languages ranged from [[Force Feeding|being forced to eat lye soap]] to [[Tongue Trauma|having a sewing needle pushed through one's tongue.]]

** A portion of Leslie Marmon Silko's ''Gardens in the Dunes'' is set in such a school, although the protagonists escape rather quickly.

* Recently systematic abuse has also been discovered in the Catholic boarding schools in Ireland, as well.

** This is pretty bad, but it seems to have caused a lot of people to forget about the older scandals that have dogged government and privately run homes for children for decades.

* Prince Charles has described Gordonstoun School as "Colditz in kilts".

* Solbacka, which inspired Stjärnsberg in Jan Guillou's novel ''Ondskan'' (literally "The Evil").

 

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[[Category:Drama Tropes]]

[[Category:School Tropes]]