“Hey, guess what happened today,” Tom called when he arrived home after classes one day in early April. “Media event of the year, so far.”
“Hi, darling,” Cynthia hugged him in greeting. “What are you so excited about?”
“That journal article we did. The students who run the journal had reporters looking for them today—they wanted interviews with the article’s authors. You know, the seven of us who put the research together and wrote it up. At first I thought I’d keep in the background but the journal’s editor talked me into giving an interview.”
“Really? Who was the interview with?”
“Several local TV stations. It’ll be on at six, they said.”
“Cool!” Roger had come in. “So that article must have made a splash.”
“Looks like it, since they wanted to talk to us. They asked us a bunch of questions and the journal did it like a news conference.”
Later they watched the news. The piece was introduced by the local anchorperson.
“In local news today, WAGZ learned about an article in the latest issue of a student journal published by Georgia Polytech, American Civics, which came out four days ago. The journal carries articles written by students which discuss current social issues and problems in American culture. An article in the current issue caught our attention as it is a study of the social problems that the Naked in School Program has caused in the country.
“Here to tell us about the article and its authors is our education reporter, Julian Sommers. Julian, why is this article causing such great interest?”
“Thanks, Robyn. Georgia Polytech isn’t a university noted for its expertise in sociological research; it’s one of the top technical and engineering schools in the country and not a source of important social research. Also, a student-run journal like American Civics isn’t the place where one would look to find important sociological studies either. But both the college and the journal have jumped into the sociological spotlight with this paper which describes some startling details that add to the woes of the Naked in School Program, one of the most controversial education programs ever begun in the U.S. education system.
“Last year we reported on the effect of the Program on student academic performance; that was a study also completed by students, but at Avery University, and that study showed that average student performance declined by a full grade after their high school implemented the Program. The study that was published this week shows that the problems caused by the Program aren’t limited to the high schools and student grades, they affect society in many ways too, some of them economically, and the effect is uniformly bad.
“Polytech allowed us to interview some of the authors of the study, those who could be reached in the limited time we had available. The authors are all students and it’s significant that all are engineering or computer science students. In other words, the work was all completed on their own and not as part of a course. We met with Thomas Emerson, Dale Masters, George Ulrey, Abbey Castile, and Sandra Toomey. Co-authors who weren’t able to be at the interview were Janice Bowers and Herbert Simpson. The co-authors conducted a group interview because they took time out of their busy days to meet with the media and we edited the interview to capture the most important parts.
Media representative: “Mr Thomas Emerson, you were the lead author?”
Emerson: “Yes, sir, more like the organizer and shepherd. Everyone did important work.”
Media: “Why did you write the article? If it wasn’t for a class or any academic credit, why did you all spend so much time?”
Masters: “I’ll answer that one. My sister was sexually assaulted while in the Program and I noticed that assaults associated with the Program seemed to be common. Tom had been working with a group of students at Avery on a study there about academic performance and he suggested that a group here at Polytech might do a parallel one on social issues. I was happy to join him. The others had similar reasons for being anti-Program.”
Media: “You mentioned sexual assaults were common. How common?”
Toomey: “I worked on those data. We had some 37,500 reports to work from; obviously these were anecdotal self-reports, but the sheer numbers probably balances out exaggerations. This wasn’t a true ‘scientific’ study—it was a kind of retrospective survey study. What we found was that the occurrence of rapes among students in the Program ranged between ten to fifteen times greater than the general population and over fifty times greater in the same demographic, that is, high-school students. Lesser sexual assaults were also about eighty times greater in that demographic. The number was 13,588 assaults described in about 37,500 postings.”
Media: “That’s an awfully large number. Could you verify any of those cases?”
Toomey: “No, that’s the limitation of the data we had to work with. But if you assume that if even as much as half of the reports were exaggerations, it still wouldn’t change the fact that the Program seems to be responsible for a significant number of assaults.”
Media: “The study mentions economic impact too.”
Emerson: “That’s correct. Many victims of assaults needed medical care. There were over 6,000 cases of psychological trauma reported and about 10,000 cases of physical injuries; and both of those kinds of injuries needed medical care. These were not injuries from assaults, but from other causes like being forced to play sports while nude or trauma or infections caused by the sexual molestation that the Program forces its participants to endure. Then we found numerous cases of students being put on anxiety meds to get them through their Program week. So those are some of the kinds of medical issues and they all carry significant price tags. And we need to add to medical costs the legal costs to society of having to prosecute those who broke the law, or costs to parents who had to sue for their child’s injuries—and defending all those accused, too. We have no way of quantifying those costs, but they are surely high.”
Media: “Psychological problems were one of the issues we associated with the Program from its beginnings. You mention that in the paper too.”
Emerson: “Yes, the data supported that assumption also. Reported psychological problems among high schoolers in the Program were about fifty-five times greater than the matched demographic in the general population.”
Media: “We also had reports of suicides among teens having increased.”
Ulrey: “I spent a lot of time working on that issue but we couldn’t draw any conclusions since only three reports of suicides appeared in the postings we analyzed. But the national data we got from the CDC showed that there were many more teen suicides than those three during the past two years. We did notice that the suicide rate among teens went from about 11 per 100,000 in the year before the Program began anywhere, to about 15 per 100,000 starting in the year after the Program was rolled out. That’s a circumstantial association, though, but it implies a 35 percent increase in teen suicides.”
Media: “You mentioned the CDC. How were they involved?”
Castile: “Yes. I researched the CDC data; they were extremely helpful in getting us epidemiological data matched by demographic for the closest categories we could get to theirs. And Janice and Herb were our data-crunchers. They were the ones who pored over the 37,500 reports to filter out the problem categories we analyzed. Their work was a key for the article.”
Media: “How representative do you think the student reports on which you based your data are, in terms of total numbers? I’m asking what fraction of the students of these high schools wrote about their experiences?”
Castile: “That was fascinating. Let’s see, in rough numbers, there were something like 15 million public high school students in about 26,400 public high schools. Private schools didn’t have the Program. Based on the numbers of student Program participants each week, we calculated that about 45 percent of the entire national high school population took part in a Program week over the study period. The rest were never in the Program, they escaped high school without ever having to do it. And of the students who participated, 1.6 percent of them wrote some kind of report on the website where this information was collected. We could analyze only about a third of those responses, those were the reports of an incident that fell into one of the seven social problem categories we had identified. So all of the negative information about the Program comes from a tiny number of responses. Which implies that a much larger number of students must have been affected, since it’s well known that voluntary responses to polls and such only represent a very small number of potential responses.”
Media: “So what did you conclude about the Program after you analyzed all of those reports?”
Emerson: “Who wants to answer that one?”
Toomey: “Sure, I’ll do it. We believe that our article clearly shows that the Program has resulted in a huge economic cost to the country in terms of dollars spent for medical care and legal costs, plus a huge social cost in terms of health, educational, and psychological harm to Program participants.”
Emerson: “So we urge that people read the article for themselves; it’s on line on the Polytech website. They were kind enough to put a link to it on the home page.”
Media: “Thank you, then, all of you, for your fascinating work and for talking with us this afternoon.”
“Well, that was how the press conference went, Robyn. We spoke to some of the officials at Polytech; apparently they were totally unaware of the study that these students were doing, but they were absolutely delighted with how professionally it was performed, and of course they’re thrilled with the public attention their university is getting as a result.”
“Thanks, Julian. We understand that people are flocking to Polytech’s website to read the study, so if the site is slow, be patient. It should be interesting to see how supporters of the Program react to this latest attack on its educational value. And in other local news...”
“Oh... my... God!” Cynthia exclaimed. “You were totally brilliant, Tom... and the others... freakin’ awesome! Can I touch you? Seriously, this has to be the final nail in the Program’s coffin.” She hugged him. “You’re a genius; I think I’ll keep you.”
“Well, that was all your idea, Cyn. You and Rog set it up. You were talking about attacks using flanking moves. Hitting them with student resistance was a frontal attack, but your also going after the basic idea underpinning the Program—what did you say the Marines called that? Going after their logistics, destroying the reserves. Wiping out their ability to counterattack. Shit, stop me—I’m getting carried away with the metaphors, aren’t I?”
“No, no, Tom, I love it!” Roger said. “We’ve gotta make you an honorary Marine kid, you know.”
“Well, I’m not at all far, right? My dad was a Navy pilot and my step-dad was Army,” Tom grinned.
“Well, bub, we’ll accept the Navy bit, but don’t try to make me accept that Army is equal to Marine, ok?” Cynthia growled.
“So you gonna do the evening talk show rounds now that you’re famous?” Roger kidded.
“Shit, I just want to get back to my real school work. That article did take a lot of work, and the others did a super job, too. Hell, after the interview, the head of the Humanities Department asked our group if any of us wanted to change majors—he said he could offer economics, sociology, even poly sci. Someone said they were nominating the paper for some kind of award. I just hope the fuss dies down soon.”
The fuss didn’t die down, at least not in the media nor in the public at large. Within a week of the media coverage of the article, parents all around the country were descending on their children’s high schools demanding that their running the Program be terminated while political commentators of all persuasions were clamoring for its elimination. Lawmakers were scrambling to introduce bills for its end and state governors were considering issuing executive orders to prevent schools from running it.
Several weeks after the Program had virtually collapsed all around the country, Roger and Cynthia’s education team was required to demonstrate their team’s class project at Merritt High in an anticlimactic series of high-school classes.
The team had finalized the ideas that they had developed into the outlines of their three classes. The class objectives emphasized relationship building and developing personal regard and respect for others, and was designed to be presented mainly in the high school’s psychology and health classes. The team had also come up with an auxiliary module to be presented in the physical education classes. In all of these classes, touching was to be encouraged as a powerful form of non-verbal communication and part of the health curriculum would include lessons in basic, non-erotic massage techniques which could be used for both relaxation and relationship building.
They took the classroom modules they had developed to Merritt High, and Denise and Kevin were recruited to help in the classes as peer demonstrators—their prior experience as Program helpers in their former high school plus their experience with tantric yoga and massage made them a natural choice.
Since this class was taking place during the final month of the school year, Cynthia’s team had chosen students from the fall term’s incoming freshman class—the middle schoolers who would become the freshmen. Permission to do this was granted because, as Roger pointed out, all of the students in the current health class had been together for the entire year; they knew each other very well, and the team’s curriculum was designed to show relationship building among a group of students whose members didn’t know each other very well. Since the high school drew its students from a number of middle schools, many students wouldn’t know each other, so they got permission to work with the eighth graders.
Cynthia’s group set up their health class and PE class as a workshop for the week after solving some logistical details about when and where the class would be held.
Soon the first day of the workshop arrived and the students filed into the room. Cynthia’s team was there with the Merritt Health teacher who was acting as a monitor/chaperone.
“Okay, students,” Cynthia announced as the kids entered and looked around, confused at seeing gym mats instead of desks and chairs. “Please go to a mat and sit down, six people to a mat.”
There was the predictable shuffling and muttering as the kids tried to sort themselves into groups, friends trying to stay together.
“Now I notice that most mats are segregated by gender,” Cynthia smiled at the group. “Most of you wanted to sit near someone whom you knew and were comfortable with, correct?”
Murmurs of assent came from around the room.
Roger then spoke. “Soon you’ll be in high school, and in high school you’ll be making all kinds of new friends and learning about social and school relationships. In this class we’ll begin to show you a little about making connections with the people who’ll become your new friends. Everyone, move into a circle on your mats facing inward. Now hold hands with those on each side of you. In the next several minutes, tell your friends your name, age, and your middle school.”
Rhonda walked into the middle of the group of mats. “Now you all got a card with a number on it when you came in. Look up—see the number on the sign hanging over each mat? Get up and go to your numbered mat....”
When they got there, she went on, “Hey, isn’t that interesting! How did that happen—equal numbers of girls and boys on each mat!”
There were titters at Rhonda’s comment and the children stared bashfully at everyone other than the kids on their own mat.
Rhonda went on, “You can sit, now. Girls, move to sit across from a boy on your mat. Sit closer, everyone, because you’ll take each other’s hands in your own, and look at your new friend. Or maybe this is even an old friend. Now introduce yourselves as you did on the first mat and this time tell your friend something about yourself, like a sibling or a pet or a favorite music group.”
After a minute of murmuring sounds, Rhonda resumed.
“Now, while keeping your eyes closed, both of you, girls first, feel your partner’s hands, get to know them. Touch them all over, over the palms and fingers, as much as you want, and try to memorize how they feel.”
The team watched as the girls did as she had commanded. The girls were stroking their hands over the boys’ hands, over their palms, fingers, and backs, and then running their fingers over the boys’ hands, letting them play lightly over wrists and palms. They were pleased to hear little sighs of pleasure from the children as they did this.
“Okay now, boys, take your girl’s hands and do the same, keeping your eyes closed.”
The teacher slipped up to Cynthia during this exercise.
“What’s this about?” she whispered.
“Something I remembered from drama classes. An old theater trick; it loosens up two people who don’t know each other very well for when they have to do a scene where they have to kiss or be intimate,” Cynthia whispered back. “It makes people feel very close—the hands are really a pretty erogenous organ, actually.”
Three minutes passed, and Rhonda spoke again. “Now, with your eyes still closed, tell your partner something about what you noticed about them; boys go first. What did you notice about the girl whose hands you are holding? What she’s wearing, about her hair, how her hands feel... No peeking! ... Next, it’s the girls’ turn now.”
After a few minutes, Cynthia picked up the instructions. “Okay, now that everyone is an old friend...” Laughter. “...let me introduce Kevin and Denise, they’re seniors here, and will help us with some of the things we’ll be doing. They’re going to sit on the mat here and I want you guys to copy how they’re sitting.”
Kevin and Denise sat facing each other, cross-legged, knees touching.
Roger now spoke. “Now, people, watch how they’re placing their arms. Hands on your friend’s shoulders and arms touching along their lengths. Sit closer if you need to. Close your eyes and listen to your friend’s breathing for a minute.... Now, without opening your eyes, I want each boy to tell his new friend what he thinks the scariest part of high school will be. You can whisper, and even though I know that there’s nothing that can really scare a boy, right?” Giggles. “...that there’s something about high school that has you, well, just a bit concerned, okay? Girls, remember, this is a secret, okay?”
“Yeah...” “Sure.” “Whatever...” were heard.
Cynthia continued, “Okay, girls, tell your friend something to make him feel better, more confident, how you can help him, or why he shouldn’t be concerned.... Good, now switch roles and girls, tell your friend about something about high school that you might find scarey.... And boys, now, tell her how you can help her.”
The session continued, with the touching contact between the students getting increasingly intimate; finally, the girls were sitting between the boys’ legs, their backs resting against the boys’ chests and heads leaning together, while they held each other’s hands and were asked to whisper to each other the happiest thing that ever happened to them.
There were some reluctant kids who resisted close contact; Kevin and Denise sat with them, held them gently, and softly urged them to relax and let themselves be touched by another child. Denise’s special gift of emotional projection and Kevin’s calm confidence soon worked to make even the most shy child respond.
Then the partners were shuffled and it was poignant to see how the first pairs had made a real connection and were reluctant to be separated.
“Yeah, we know, guys,” Cynthia said with a sad expression, “we’re being meanies. But you need more than one friend in high school, you know...” Laughter. “Of course, you will always have a special friend, and if you’re super lucky, even more than one special friend. So let’s meet your new new friend now....”
The workshop continued in this fashion, managing to get a third pairing in before time ran out. The following day was the PE element, and Roger and Cynthia had brought ideas drawn from Marine combat confidence training, where teams of four students worked together to solve and assist each other in overcoming various physical obstacles, to the gym and athletic field.
On the third day, the touching contact was supplemented by introduction of the idea of “trust” in both a verbal and tactile context, and the children were encouraged to share minor secrets with their partners and engage in some role-playing to demonstrate how damaging gossip and rumor-mongering can be to trusting relationships. Kevin and Denise demonstrated the idea of tactile trust by enacting a PG-rated petting scene, with Denise explaining the limits of her trust of Kevin’s actions. Thursday’s PE course had a few more difficult physical problems and used teams of two to solve them.
On Friday, the class covered massage techniques. The students had been asked to wear gym clothes or even wear swim suits under their clothes if they felt comfortable going that far. The Avery team was gratified to see that virtually everyone had chosen the swim-suit option because they all peeled off their outer clothes for the class. Two girls didn’t, but when they saw what everyone else was wearing, they were regretful they hadn’t worn suits too. But Roger was prepared; as the Merritt swim coach, he had a number of girls’ swim suits available and the grateful girls were able to change into them.
Roger and Cynthia led the students through what they had learned in the tantra massage class, less the overtly sexual elements. They allowed the kids to choose their partners for the first massage round, but mixed up the pairs for the second and third rounds. Each massage session ended with the person who performed the massage lightly resting on his or her partner’s chest, heads together while they embraced, and the massage recipients were asked to whisper in their partner’s ear what they liked best about the massage. Kevin and Denise demonstrated on each other, and close to the end of the class, caused a real sensation when they demonstrated the yab-yum posture and its variants while Cynthia made it very clear that this technique was for those in committed relationships and demonstrated the culmination of trust, respect, and affection.
The sessions had been videoed using discreetly positioned cameras, and various education faculty from Avery as well as the Merritt faculty and administration viewed the recordings. After the week’s workshop, the children who had participated were interviewed about their experience and were bubbling with enthusiasm; many had made very close friends and none wanted the classes to end. From the students’ perspective, the class was a resounding success.
Reports from the workshop student’s middle schools the following week were similarly glowing. Teachers reported that their students showed an unusual degree of trust and respect among themselves and many demonstrated a remarkable amount of affection for most of their peers.
The high-school teaching staff members were astounded at how well the students had responded. After the Merritt Health and Psychology teachers had done their one-on-one interviews with the student participants, they met with Cynthia’s team, members of the Merritt administration, and several Avery education faculty. The Health teacher who had monitored the workshop, Miss Davis, gave the group her impressions.
“I’m actually speechless about what I observed and even more so after interviewing those kids,” Davis told the group. “But I can’t be speechless now—I have to say something, don’t I? That was simply astounding. Let me see—yeah, there was one thing that almost all the kids mentioned to me that kind of sticks out. You guys had an early question—something about what there was about high school that was the most scary. In our interviews, almost all the kids remembered that particular question and told me that there was no doubt, it was the Program; they were scared to death about it and were overjoyed that it was no longer happening. They told me that they would have done anything to avoid being in the Program. Their biggest fears all had to do with how they’d fit in; how they’d be accepted by others. And they were so scared that if they had to be naked, they’d be, well, exposed, okay? But fitting in was still the big, scary thing about high school. Almost every kid mentioned that.
“But then, they said that after the classes went on—and this was amazing, since almost every one of them said something like this—that they learned to trust the others in their class and got to know them very well by being so close to them in a non-threatening way, that when the massage part happened on the last day, everyone felt so comfortable about taking their clothes off and having other kids touch them and massage them, that it made them feel really good. A few kids actually told me that they had gotten to feel so good about their bodies that they might have even gotten nude if they were asked, but some said that they were very happy that they weren’t asked.”
Davis went on. “When I asked what had changed for them; why were they scared at first but accepting at the end, they all told me that they felt so comfortable with the others; everyone was trusting and respectful; they were concerned about how each other felt, and actually had enjoyed the touching intimacy they had experienced. And especially enjoyed the working together as teams doing physical things. Some were very tearful that they wouldn’t get to see their new friends again as a group until high school starts in the fall; many had made very close friends and planned to try to see each other during the summer.”
Mr Jordan, the psychology teacher, had several observations too. “I saw in the videos that a number of kids had difficulty at first with the close touching exercises. That’s a common issue that psychologists deal with and can imply difficulties in forming intimate relationships as well as other problems. One of the issues that the original Program was supposed to address was to overcome such matters; get kids to accept touching, intimate touching, and address other things like modesty, and create an environment where trusting relationships would form between the children. We now know how badly the Program failed at doing those things and in retrospect I can see why.
“But your methods aren’t at all new, you know. It was in the 1960s, actually, sessions kind of like what you did were known as ‘encounter groups’ and I think it was in 1967 that a guy named Paul Bindrim started workshops with the participants being nude and sessions included role-playing involving various experiences and they did touching exercises too. This kind of naked psychotherapy eventually faded away until its proponents brought it back—and we know its reincarnation as the Naked in School Program.”
There were cries of amazement from the group.
“Yes, it’s true. That’s the root of the Program. The psychologists who’ve been its champion are those who studied the naked psychotherapies of the 1960–70 era. I was curious, so I checked out their backgrounds. Anyway, getting back to the kids here and the touching. What Cynthia’s group did, using Kevin and Denise to work with the reluctant kids individually, was as insightful as it was effective. I don’t know what kind of magic Denise has, but her ability to get those kids to respond to her was simply awesome. There’s about a dozen of them who love her dearly now, and Kevin was equally great with the boys. He turned their shyness and uncertainty to a willingness to be open to doing the class activities. We teachers need to talk to those two to get some pointers.
“So the major goal of the Program was to have the children overcome their natural modesty and reservations about interacting with others. The techniques we saw demonstrated by Cynthia’s team showed conclusively that by allowing the children to form bonds of trust and respect in a natural way, the result is that using the techniques they developed can far surpass anything the Program had ever achieved. And we saw the results in such a short time, too. Think about how effective using these techniques could be if they’re used for an entire term. We need to adopt this curriculum for the fall and see how some of the ideas can be used in all of the classes, not only in Health.”
Cynthia looked over at Roger and they exchanged glances; then she looked at Rhonda, who nodded.
“Our team found something we never expected when we were working with the kids,” Cynthia said slowly. “Roger and I were adamantly opposed to the Program from day one and our objections were based on the moral codes we were raised under. We set out to prove that the Program was completely evil and I think we were successful doing that—but we’ve since learned that it wasn’t the Program itself that was inherently evil; it was almost always the way the Program was implemented that made it so. For example, we saw that at Parkside High, they ran a version of it that the kids mostly accepted and apparently even enjoyed doing parts of the Program. And at that school, student average grades didn’t suffer as badly as they did in the national average.
“Also, our assistants, Kevin and Denise, provided some essential insights into ways of helping kids work through their own psychological and social problems in dealing with unpleasant situations. And our team noticed, while we were working with the kids, how as they grew in their trust, respect, and understanding for each other, how their modesty kind of melted away among themselves. During the massage part, some of them asked if they could take off their swim suits—they said that wearing any clothing was uncomfortable and didn’t feel right.
“We were blown away at that! It meant that our central assumption, the idea that nudity itself in the school was wrong, was fundamentally incorrect. What we learned from the kids in the workshop showed us that possibly our curriculum, which was supposed to be a solution to the question of how to instill respect among student peers and create a well adjusted adult, could be enhanced or supplemented. If we allowed the students to explore the limits of their own comfort in their interactions with each other in carefully controlled settings, we might get even better results. And these interactions wouldn’t necessarily preclude nudity—our students made it very clear that some of them would be comfortable being nude within their group.”
Rhonda continued. “Yeah, and that wasn’t expected at all. I experienced a class at this school last year; it was the first high school class that I ever observed in my ed program. And it was the weirdest class; the teacher forced the entire class to get naked and immediately do sexual things to each other. The students were embarrassed and humiliated, and afterward they were angry and resentful. But as juniors, most knew their classmates very well; but did they truly know them? They didn’t, not enough so that they had developed a relationship based on trust and respect.”
She went on, “So when I was helping in this workshop, I was amazed that the kids actually wanted to be more intimate with each other. I asked the kids very discretely if their desires stemmed from sexual impulses and they all emphatically denied that; the sense I got was that the touching exercises just felt all wrong being done over clothing. That the kids felt that an important part of the bonding experience was missing. So Cindy suggested to our team that our curriculum could be supplemented with the idea of optional nudity in controlled conditions.”
“Yes,” Cynthia resumed her comments. “We need to think about Rhonda’s observation some more. And from what we heard back from the middle schools, where the kids in the workshop were treating their classmates who didn’t attend with almost the same trust as those that did—that suggests another model for teaching the freshman health class over the first term or full year. Don’t keep the same students in all the classes. Shuffle the class enrollments so that within the first month or two, try to get every student into classes with as many new people as possible. So instead of creating bonds among the kids in single classes, everyone in the whole freshman class gets the opportunity to become close to everyone else.”
The Merritt teachers began excitedly discussing Cynthia’s suggestion and pulled Mr Leeds into their brief conversation.
After a few minutes of talking among themselves, Mr Jordan commented to the entire group, “I think I know what Rhonda was talking about in the class she observed. I heard about some of the things my predecessor did in his psych classes last year. And I agree with Cynthia that most of the problems with the Program—many of them, anyway—resulted from excesses by teachers and administrators, not to mention the Program office itself. But I really like Cynthia’s idea, and I’d love it if she and her group would work with us to develop these classes for next term. Is it possible for them to get academic credit for such a project from Avery?”
The Avery education faculty assured Jordan that this would be arranged, provided that the school would commit to following through so that Cynthia’s team’s work could be written up as a study in curriculum development. Mr Leeds assured both the Avery group and his teachers that the Merritt administration would commit to include the curriculum that Cynthia’s team would develop into their classes for the following term.
Meanwhile Cynthia had been in an earnest discussion with her team members. Then she spoke to the group.
“Rhonda and Jesse told the others in our team that they noticed something about the massage session and Alan agrees, based on what he saw, too. Rhonda said that she noticed that the kids sensed that something in the bonding experience was missing. I felt something lacking, too, and maybe it’s this: when I had my first massage experience—it was in a group session, in fact—I felt a connection to the others in my massage group that I had never felt before. We were friends before that session, but afterwards I felt I had a real emotional connection to them. But I was totally amazed that some of the students in our workshop told us that they might be willing for some of the massage parts to be while they were naked! And some even asked if they could take off their suits right then! This was from kids who said that they’d be scared about being in the Program, too.
“So there was something else happening in the workshop, something we don’t quite understand yet. We’re going to have to look into the idea that extraordinary levels of trust can be developed in the bonding exercises we had the kids do. I think we must have broken through some social barriers in some way. You know, in my introduction to social nudism I saw pretty quickly that interacting with others while naked breaks down all kinds of social barriers; everyone’s exactly equal, and that tends to foster trust among the group. Hell, I never thought I’d say this, but I guess there’s something about the damned Program that kind of makes sense now. Maybe nudity has a place here, but not forced nudity.
“It looks like our curriculum could be supplemented with the idea of optional nudity in controlled conditions. We won’t be saying in the final report that nudity has no place in this curriculum. It actually might have a place, but if nudity is allowed as part of the curriculum, it needs to be judiciously implemented with its use stemming naturally as an outgrowth of the students’ development of trust among themselves. We’ll need to tweak our curriculum to allow the nudity when it’s educationally justified. Since it’s apparent that adult society in this country as a whole has become generally accepting of more nudity in public, just like in Europe, maybe this is the wave of the future. We’ll find out if this possibility is true after a whole class gets to participate.”
Cynthia’s professor and the Avery education faculty who had become involved in assessing the team’s project had been highly impressed at its results during the week’s workshop; they suggested—demanded, actually, that the project be worked up to be submitted as a paper to a major education journal. The team’s grade for their project? An A+.
Cynthia’s team spent part of the summer working on the revised curriculum and during the course of the fall term they monitored its effects on the students in the new freshman class. Although some adjustments needed to be made to various elements of the curriculum and to certain classroom procedures, everyone involved was gratified with its successes in meeting virtually all of the curriculum objectives. After the term was over, enough data had been collected to allow the full study to be written up.
In their journal paper, Cynthia and Roger made certain to point out that in using this curriculum, all of the objectives of the Naked in School Program could be fulfilled, indeed, surpassed, without the need for nudity, mandatory or otherwise, and that the use of nudity in helping teens develop into socially well adjusted adulthood was only an option, and not an essential one, of their curriculum. Schools could choose to use the nudity component to supplement the core curriculum when its use would enhance the students’ socialization experience. The curriculum they developed for the Merritt High School classes was subsequently widely adopted nationally and became known as the Avery-Denison Program.
Thus ended the social experiment that brought forced nudity, together with the creation of an environment that tried to change society’s moral codes, to the nation’s secondary schools in an attempt to make teens more open about their bodies and sexuality. It was ended at the hands of some of its intended victims: a few determined students, who were thrust unwillingly into a situation where their deep-rooted moral code was challenged. They fought against almost insurmountable odds to preserve their personal honor, fighting back against the forces of authority by mobilizing every weapon at their disposal. Our heroes had learned how to defend their honor, battling the toughest of odds, from the best school of fighting tactics—the U.S. Marine Corps.
In the end, it was the Naked in School Program versus the Marines. Did you have any doubt at all which would be the ultimate victor?
End
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