I remember the 1987 [North American] GBC meeting in L.A., when RupanugaPrabhu convinced its members to get feedback from the kids about gurukula.What a concept. Anyway, they passed the request on to the North AmericanHeadmasters meeting held in Lake Huntington about nine months later. Ihad attended that meeting as well. From there it was assigned to Badrinarayanaof San Diego. He wrote it up--in about ten minutes. Badri asked me to passit around to the kids attending the 1988 Ratha-yatra. I took about a weekchasing everyone down but I did get most every kid who came that year tofill it out. Mandalibadra and his dear mother, Rasa Manjari, were a greathelp and compiled all the scribbled responses into the computer. It alsotook about a week. Thank you Mandali and Rasa.

Respondents attended the following gurukulas:
Atlanta / Bhaktivedanta Village (near Fresno, California) / Dallas/ Denver / Detroit / England / Gita Nagari (Port Royal, Pennsylvania) /Hawaii / Lake Huntington (New York) / Los Angeles / Mayapur (India) / Miami/ New Mayapur (France) / New Vrindaban (West Virginia) / New York / Philadelphia/ Seattle / Tennessee / Vancouver / Vrindavana (India).

General problems:
There was no love, affection, kindness, or respect ever given. Theschools were run like Marine camps except we were all small children. /Incompetent staff. Lack of funds, stifles individuality and natural humanimpulses. I could go on forever. / Rebelliousness. / Fuckheads for teachers.I was constantly being beaten for no reason. / Not enough time spent withparents (Sundays only). / Health, being dominated, getting picked on. /They didn't teach us how to deal with the outside world. They put karmisdown too much. We were taught that boys were such terrible people. I thinkthat because we weren't taught about drinking and drugs, that's why somany of the gurukula are so into it. / Nosy teachers, boy girl relationships,lack of personal independence. / Too harsh on boys about Krishna consciousness./ Teachers were not trained, children were hit, negative atmosphere. /Too strict. Treated us like children of slaves by way of food and clothing./ Health. I get malaria and nobody does anything about it. Nobody notifiedmy parents. At first the kids in my ashram took care of me, then I washelped. / Six to seven year old kids were forced to wake up at #:#0 AM,eat food they didn't like, and chant when they didn't want to. / Majorityof teachers were unqualified. Too much violent forcing to follow rulesand regulations. / Lack of qualified personnel. / Food, teachers, academics,living facilities, almost everything. Beginning education was a littleweak. / Attending ashrams too early, very strict teachers (too violent).Too much stress on small children on sex and relationships, absence ofparents for long periods of time, and untrained teachers. / Just abouteverything. / No knowledge of how to deal with children. / Too far fromparents. / Mistreatment, abuse, mental abuse. / Not enough time spent athome. / Too strict. / The gurukulas forced the children to do things theygeneralized too much. The gurukula staff held back natural feelings andreally made the children paranoid of many different things such as howkarmis see them, etc. / People always hit. / No problems. Had my sikhapulled out a couple of times in Dallas and B.V.

Positive points:
My vocabulary was greatly enhanced. / Comradely, close friendships,clean regulated living, discipline. / You got to be with friends a lot.But then being together a lot got on your nerves. / Girls got along nicely./ Being vegetarians. / Great friends, devotee association, good Krishnaconscious morals and principles. / We learned how to develop relationshipswith each other. We were taught how to share and get along with each other.We now have a good religious background. General studies. / Morning program.Some things learned about being strict devotees. / Gave me a lot of responsibility./ Discipline. / Living arrangements and concern and labor. The sports time./ Everybody was usually good friends and enjoyed being together. / Goodteachers academically - wise but Rupa Vilas later found out that they weresexual molesters. / We got to play a lot of games, go on field trips, etc.Kids were the most positive points. / Fireworks, new friends, spiritualteaching, and self control. / Close relationships with teachers. Havingall the children for brothers and sisters. / Being taught such strong moralprinciples. / Friends, recreation, some good training, good experience,good memories. / Friends, self control. / Made many friends. / A lot ofspiritual guidance. / The knowledge we got. / We got a good education andhad many friends of our own age. I also got a very strong Krishna consciousbase for my life. / I heard a lot of good things. / The positive pointswere that there was always the association of devotees. / My friends. /Learned self-control, cleanliness, learned the philosophy, learned howto deal with people.

Ashrams, positive points:
There were some, but they never lasted. / Nice teachers in New Vrindaban,nice facilities. / Cold showers. Many friends, sadhana (daily meditation),philosophy, fun, learned to get along well. / Discipline. / Having so manyfriends. It's really nice to have so many friends today that I know canunderstand me because they all went through the same things I did. / Greatexperience, fun the sisters I never had. / Fun. It's okay if gurukula isa marine corps if they do it nicely and not by the hand. / Clean. / Morediscipline. / Everybody was usually good friends and enjoyed being together./ Growing up with close friends. / Friends, sports, sharing, good Krishnaconscious training. / Made close friends. / A lot of friends. / Discipline,knowledge, friends. / I grew up with many friends and I am sure I willnever make friends as close as these during my life. / Made very very unbreakablefriends. / There was a feeling of closeness between the people in the ashramlike a family. / Friends.

Ashrams, negative points:
Incompetent staff. Fanatics. Uneducated / Teachers. / Strict disciplinein Lake Huntington. / Everything. / Too many kids with one teacher. Toomany people living together. / No quality control of teachers. No lovefor kids. / Not spending enough tie with our parents All the parents aretrying to make up the time that they didn't have with their kids. A lotof kids have resentment against their parents because they felt abandonedby their parents. Can you imagine being thrown into an ashram and havingto be expected to get along with a bunch of kids? Children are supposedto be disciplined by their parents. However you are treated when you area child is how you will be when you grow up. / Missing parents. Other kidspicking on me and each other. Sometimes too crowded. Teachers wanted toknow too much about the kids personal and private lives. / Unfair - teacherswere partial to one group and hated another for no apparent reason. / Toocrowded. / Too many. / Sucked. No privacy. Teachers were always peekingin on us. / Teachers burned out, got frustrated and usually took it outon the kids. / The teachers were too careless. / The food, the teachers,the strictness, the paranoia. / Practically everything. / Boys and girlsnot learning how to relate to one another. / No dedication from the teachers.Bad untrained teachers unfamiliar with children. Nosy teachers. Not enoughindependence. Favoritism. / Nearly everything. / Teachers were too strictor mean. / Not enough sleep. / Physical and mental abuse. False accusations./ Teachers doing bad things. / The teachers would always suspect a childof doing something wrong and they were too strict in suppressing feelingsfor the opposite sex. / Abuse, torture, people not understanding, beingmolested. / Teachers didn't know what the hell was going on. They neededtraining.

Academics, positive points:
We came out with a good vocabulary. / Read a lot. Have a good vocabulary./ Good, up to date books. / Philosophy (only thing taught). / We were allahead in our reading. / A lot of personal attention. Pretty much up tostandard. / Classes. / Spiritual enlightenment. / Mayapur was really easygoing. / Philosophy. / I learned creative writing good. / Good readingand writing level. / We learned a lot. / Philosophy. / Up to standard./ Up to standard. / Fun recreation. More attention from teachers. Shorterclasses than public school. / Religion, philosophy. / No homework. / Bhagavad-gita,Sanskrit. / We received an excellent education and could move at a fastpace because it was tutorial. / Learned things. / I learned really fast.

Academics, negative points:
No emphasis on writing, math, science, literature (u.S.) or Englishgrammar. / Incompetent staff. Insufficient and faulty teaching techniques./ People were made teachers just because they happened to be living nearthe school. / Short hours, kick back. / Never learned anything. / Not muchlearned. Awful math, science, English, etc. / Terrible. No organization./ There wasn't enough emphasis on math. A little lax in some ways. / Over-instructionabout the same matter. / Everyone was behind in math. Once a bunch of Americankids had a teacher who was Bengali (Balarama). Not one of us could understanda word he said. / B.V seemed to be two or three years behind grade. / Booswere not up to date. / Didn't really learn anything. They would read tous while we were sitting around telling dirty stories and talking aboutgood fights. / Too much emphasis on Bhagavad-gita, etc. / A very unbalancedsystem. / Most of the kids weren't in the right grade. / I was in fifthgrade math for four years. No experienced academic training. / Could havebeen better. / No steadiness on teachers' part. / No dedication from theteachers. / Bad tempered impatient teachers. / We were in the wrong grades./ Not enough academics. / Mathematics should have been taught better. Didn'tlearn enough. / The system slowed people down, didn't teach them enough./ We didn't learn much. The teachers were jerks. / The teachers didn'thave any idea of what they were doing. The grading system was messed up.

What would you change?
I have already improved by getting out of gurukula. / Scheduled strictacademics. / the teachers should be trained how to teach properly. / Girl,boy relations. Teachers. / We need more academic studies. / I would improvethe prasadam and change disciplinary tactics. / Everything. They neededsome more certified teachers. / Just about everything. / We need some teacherswith some brains. / Most everything. / Academics, prasadam, and ashramfacilities. / The teachers and the food. / Almost everything. / Have theteachers and schools accredited. / Get professional qualified academicteachers. / Nearly everything. / I wouldn't ever go again or send my kids.They need to learn how to teach the religion and not shove it down yourthroat. / The teachers' attitude. / Only use people who want to teach,no beating, force feeding food, or eating off floors. / They just neededto have more advanced teachers who could take us to high school. / Teachers./ I would definitely change the way they teach the children how to be devotees,especially in the older children's program. Everything as it is and was,was forced upon them whether or not they responded to it. / I would changeall the abuse. Give to the older kids who had their lives ruined withoutan education and now are struggling on welfare with kids. / I would havesent all of the teachers to school. Too many people looking for a placeto stay where they didn't have to go out on sankirtan rather than beingthere to teach.

What did you like about the ashram teachers?
In absolute fairness, nothing. / Some of them cared a little bit. /They tried real hard to train the girls (Laxmimoni). / Nothing. / Theyhad a lot of patience (only the ones in L.A. The ones in Seattle were allassholes. / Some really cared about us and what was happening. / I likedit when they were fair and fun. / I liked the Mayapur gurukula teachers./ Nothing. / I can't remember. / Sometimes they gave a slight effort. /Each one was different. Some were nice and some were mean. / Nothing. Iprefer the more lenient ones. / Most of them really tried their best. /I only had one ashram teacher and I think she's great. / Nothing. / Nothing./ Nothing. / I thought they were good until the age of ten. / I generallytry to like most people and the teachers are no exception, but I was ratherscared of them much of the time and I tried my best to please. ThereforeI had basically good relationships with my teachers. The woman who taughtour ashram took the place of our mothers to some extent because we livedwith them for so long. / Nothing. / Sometimes the ashram teachers werelike mothers which erased the tension of being away from home. / A fewof them were good friends.

What didn't you like about the ashram teachers?
The were incompetent, abusive, violent, and they all had deep psychologicalproblems. / Fanatical. Not properly trained for their work. /They werecrazy. / They were always very frustrated, meant at times --unhappy. /Anger. Couldn't engage kids properly. / Very unfair, favoritism. They didn'ttake the time out to understand us as individuals. They didn't try to figureout our emotions and feelings. / They were a little too strict and theydidn't know how to deal with us. / Too rude sometimes. Favoritism. / Meanand too strict except for Shastra. / They beat the kids. They were devoteeswho didn't have anything else to do. / Their breath, nails, and underarms./ They always thought of themselves first. / Most of them felt and werefree to deal with us in any way they saw fit. / Everything. Molesters physicallyand sexually. / Some of them should have never been working with children./ Too forceful, bad tempers, too nosy, weird imaginations, yelled too much./ Everything. / They were rude and nosy. / They were too strict. / Fakefavoritism, they whipped us with belts. / They could be unfair and rathermean at times. Everything. / The teachers would beat the kids unnecessarilyjust because they happened to be in a rotten mood or they were angry andthey needed someone to take their anger out on. / They didn't understandand were abusive. / Too strict. When they couldn't handle something theywould freak out.

What did you like about the academic teachers?
Tusti was the only one who was qualified to teach anything. / Nothing./ They tried their best. Learned about Krishna and Bhagavad-gita. I waspretty happy until twelve years in school. / According to the circumstancesthey did the best they could. / They were okay. / I liked it when I actuallylearned something from them. / Nothing. / They really did try sometimes./ Gave a fairly good effort to teach. / Mine were all the same. Not toogood, not too bad. / Nothing except for the good grades. / Not much exceptfor my mother was very good. / Some tried their best. / Nothing. / Easy./ You could have very friendly and personal relationships with them. /Some of them were understanding. / Nothing.

What didn't you like about the academic teachers?
Blackpool hotel roomsThey had their heads up their ass. They had no teaching experience.We were all victims of their experiments. / It was more the program thanthe teachers themselves. / They were there. / Some of them were also myashram teachers. / No patience, no real teachers,  not paid enough,no good math teachers. / They didn't grade us fairly. We didn't have enoughcompetition. / They were too involved in our ashram life as well so theywouldn't separate us from our ashram selves. / Lack of material studies./ Some of them were incompetent of teaching and would get angry too easily./ Didn't explain anything. Didn't know how to teach. / Untrained. / Theydidn't know what the difference was between an adult, a child, and sometimesa dog. / Didn't give much emphasis on regular academics but very much onKrishna conscious topics. / They just shoved books in our faces and didn'texplain. They usually weren't very experienced. We had to learn for ourselves./ Except for several rare cases. / They tried but didn't know how to teach./ Not trained well enough. / Everything. / Most of all that was taughtwas Krishna conscious. / Weren't professionals. / My academic teachers./ All of my academic teachers were not qualified to be teaching and thereforeI basically taught myself because I was so frustrated by them. / They didn'tthink learning material courses were necessary so we didn't learn so much.They were all under too much pressure. / They probably didn't know whatthey were supposed to teach.

Additional comments, prasadam (food):
I used to watch it being prepared by filthy, greasy Indian vagrantswho had no knowledge of cleanliness and who wouldn't dare eat their owncooking. / Fine. / It was as good as it could be when cooking for 150 people.But not in Vrindavana. / Good chapatis, otherwise middle-class. / Needsimprovement. / Mostly good here in L.A. but other places not. / No qualityfood in Vrindvana. / Children shouldn't be forced to eat things they don'tlike (eggplant). If they knew we didn't like things, why did they cookthem? / Most of the time it was good in L.A. / Okay. / Bad. / Vrindavanawas terrible. / It was different in the different schools. In Vrindavanathere were many insects, worms, and rocks in the prasadam. / Too much leftovers./ It was okay except for India. / Mostly quite poor. / YUCK! / Needs morevariety. The bugs were unhealthy and inedible (Vrindavana). / Pretty good(my mother was a teacher in the school). / It was up and down but neverthat bad. / Okay. / We should not have been forced to eat what we didn'tlike. / Yuck. / No variety. Boring. / Fattening. / Generally good. / Itwas mostly good in B.V. / In most cases, the prasadam was less than upto normal standards. Kids were forced to eat prasadam they didn't ask forand so on. It was awful tasting a lot of the time. / When I got it, itwas good.

Medical:
Some of my very close friends were almost killed by the medical aidgiven to them. / Sufficient most of the time. / Didn't get any. / Needsmore attention. / Yoga should be incorporated. / We never had physicals.I had allergies and no one ever bothered to take me to the doctor. / Tookpretty good care of us. / Needs improvement. / Terrible. / Primitive. /Never needed it. / Pretty good. / Never had any experiences with that./ Needs more attention. / Was basically taken care of. / When we neededit, it was there. / Not good enough. / Chant Hare Krishna. You're notthat body, was basically all the medicine they gave. / No comment. / Okay./ Good. / As far as any medical needs go, there is no such a thing. I gotvery sick in many gurukulas and the ashram teacher would send me away withouteven any medicine or any treatment. I took care of myself. In gurukulathe children watch out for each other's needs and sicknesses. / Okay.

Clothing:
What a joke! We never had shoes, ALL clothes were ripped, worn, andfilthy. In the winter rains, we were always freezing with inadequate protectionfrom the weather. / Where I was it was all right. Received a few saris./ Could care less. / Shouldn't make girls wear head scarves at all. Shouldn'tmake boys wear dhotis. / Devotional clothing should be encouraged. / Atage 11, we had to wear saris and cover our heads. That was a little hardand weird. / Needs improvement. / Adequate. We all had yellow dhotis. /There was no freedom in the dressing code. / Depended on the school. /All right. / All right. / Was forced to wear dhotis. / Pretty good. / Wasour own responsibility, but when I was seven I wasn't allowed to wear shortsor my hair down. That was a bit extreme. / Green dhotis in India due toblue soap bars on yellow cloth. / Saris and dhotis should not have beenrequired. / Parents always got their children clothes and we got providedwith new saris every year. / Some of it was provided. / Very limited. /Given too sparingly. Not allowed to wear western clothes. / Ragged out./ Colorful and comfortable. / Okay, but didn't like the sudden mandatorysari dress code with shawls. / Good. / Shitty. / Not enough and coupins[yogi's underwear] were a real problem.

Living facilities:
In the summer the generator was going out and in the winter, at 3:30AM, we were shoved into an ice bath that even the teachers wouldn't dareenter. / Fair. / It was too crowded. It's ridiculous when there's ten peopleliving in one room. No privacy. / Nice. / No comment. / Way too crowded.Eight people to a room. My own feeling is that in the west there shouldnot be ashrams, just academics! / Clean, roomy. / Too crowded. / Sometimescrowded and overly smushed. In B.V. nice and comfortable. / Could be better./ Minimal, an 8 foot by 10 foot room with up to eight kids in it. No heatingin winter, and it got cold there. / Not bad for a boarding school. ButMayapur was so interesting. We had cow manure on the floor, etc. / Crowded./ No privacy. / Less than descent. / Pretty good. / England, excellent.Lake Huntington, okay; Detroit, lived in our own homes; B.V. good. / Likea jail. / Just fine. / Not bad at all, besides lack of heating. / New Mayapurliving facilities improved greatly and our gurukula building was very goodstandard. Nice new furniture, carpets, etc. / Didn't bother me until Iwas older. / VERY BAD!!! / Often cold. Too many people together. / Dirty.Too many cockroaches. / Too many people in room. / Good. / Okay. / Theliving facilities were less than standard. There was in most gurukulasseven to eight kids per one small room. In one gurukula we didn't evenhave a bathroom in our house and we had to go next door to do everything.In the winter time, it would be too cold and they wouldn't spend moneyto warm the places up. We had to take freezing cold showers in the winter./ Roach motel.

Notes and comments:
I was a victim. / Some teachers were vicious. If you didn't like somethingthey would make you do it and vice versa. / Married many kids when theywere too young. / I hated when the teachers would confiscate our moneyand other personal items and use it for their own personal gratification./ I would just like to say I know there were problems with our schoolsbut there is, even with outside schools and many children who grew up withpublic schools and normal living conditions have many of the same oreven worse problems. The really big difference for me was that my motherwas always there for me and she really cared for me. She was there forme even though she was told not to be. It was because my mother was thereand because she cared that it made a big difference. She was responsible.Parents assume too much trust on the gurukulas and didn't bother to tryhard enough to change things if they did. My mother made sure that I gota little bit of both worlds. I think that was an important difference betweenme and many other students. / Some of our teachers were so mental and confusedthat frequently they would have spasmodic attacks in front of us and usevulgar language. Not very exemplary for the pupils. Occasionally a goodteacher would pass through but they would get totally bummed out by ourbehavior. Our not so good behavior was due to bad experience of teachers.We were, in a sense brainwashed because the teachers were so dogmatic andwould even (well most of the time) refuse to discuss the outside worldand the facts of life. We were to secluded and isolated form the outsideworld so when we entered it we went wild. / I would change the way thegurus treated the girls. Ramesvara used to come in and watch the girlsdress. / The teachers were to be the students' parents but you could seea big difference between how they dealt with their own children and howthey dealt with their students. / Most of the nicer teachers turned outto be child molesters.