Status Updates From No Substitute for Madness: ...

He coached a basketball team. That year the school was being integrated with another school in the area. He wasn't sure who would show up but he said he ended up with 3 basic groups. One that was not very experienced but wanted to play (he said led by an African American student who broke the stereotype). A group of returning students who tried best. Last group showed up when they wanted non-conventional

They spent three days preparing for the water ballet they were putting on, with nurse in charge of it. They performed it as a story about pirates and natives, Ron was captain. Kids showed their swimming ability, especially spider, who at the end was pulled along by rope by the others. In the end one female camper said goodbye to Ron a way that might cause issues now. All boys in his group died within a few years.

There was a dance organized by one of the female counselors. Ron thought King and Queen would be rigged, but Queen was the nurse and King was one of his campers. It got the kids excited. Camp coming to an end, they had less than a week left. Camp director was getting ready for parents to come, kids were getting more stressed, Ron asked if he could keep pool open to show what kids had learned, director said yes.

Made acorn necklaces for the entire camp. Kids wanted to participate in mountain climb, Found ingenious way to climb mountain by tying them together. Camp director thought everything was getting too random, had them make labels for everything to show visiting parents. That night drunk nurse removed labels which made her a hero.

He is grouped with another counselor, together they have 5 campers. If they aren't using their real name they have an ironic nickname, such as a kid with no arms or legs named spider. They made necklaces out of acorns and so called themselves the acorn people, one of the kids came up with. Spider was able to swim by moving a specific way. Author becoming more comfortable with them.

In this section he is a camp counselor at a camp for kids with physical disabilities. Some of them won;t live very long due to disease. He didn't take the counselor job because he cared about kids but wanted a camp experience. He doesn't know how to handle them and gets frustrated.

It gets to feel even more fictitious and improbable, there is no way the school lets him have this much, and especially the family of the three girls who were skeptical, especially when he had them escorted out and barred from class, no way their parents didn't complain. Says, once he revealed what was actually going on, that people kept it a secret because of embarrassment, but what of those who did't participate?

Said Rabbi of one of the girls parents called, when Mr. Jones told him it was about criticizing Nazi behavior, Rabbi calmed parents. Said this was also how it had worked through clergy to calm fears. 1 student taking too seriously as "bodyguard". Mr. J. more comfortably in role of dictator. Claims a father who was a German POW broke into classroom. Claims it went to far but pushed even farther on Thursday.

I can see how peer pressure and feeling of community, could persuade many to keep going, but surely there was some rebel. Some students are more effective in structured environment. With how it is spreading through school I am even more skeptical of his claim of it not being made public. He assigned 3 "tattlers" but about 20 took it on themselves this I believe. He says three girls did tell their parents.

Reading this after the German movie adaptation of first chapter. Already was skeptical, he said he had been able to keep the experiment a secret for a decade, surely some students would have said something to their parents. On the first day of the experiment, he describes a rigid form of what they actually for classroom management, but teaching it in one day especially after the school year started, implausible.