S4E5 Fight Club for Teens: Surviving The Elan School

Switchblade Sisters Social Club

Hope you’re all doing well, keeping it cool, and staying far away from places that require you to request permission to go to the bathroom from 11 people. Yep, you read that right – welcome to this week’s episode on the Elan School, a so-called "therapeutic" boarding school that could have doubled as the training ground for your nightmares.

Picture this: the isolated woods of Maine, where trees outnumber people, and “rehabilitation” was synonymous with psychological warfare. The Elan School promised troubled teens a second chance, but its methods were straight out of a dystopian novel – think forced labour, humiliation, and bizarre punishments that would make even the most hardcore reality TV producer blush. Ever heard of “The Ring”? It’s not just a movie. At Elan, students were actually pitted against each other in what can only be described as "Fight Club for Teens."

The school operated in total secrecy for decades, and it only closed after the digital age finally gave former students a voice. Could something like this happen again?

Sources

2017 The Last Stop - about the Elan school for behavioural Modification surrounded in controversy

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/police-looking-into-claim-linking-82-death-forced-fighting/

https://www.sunjournal.com/2016/03/13/family-asks-really-happened-phil-elan-school/

https://www.sunjournal.com/2011/03/23/elan-school-closing-web-campaign-shut/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/good-news-bad-economy-kil_b_162696

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueCrime/comments/qdd8zu/1993_murder_of_17_yo_dawn_birnbaum/

https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Dawn_Birnbaum

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/01/a-miscarriage-of-justice/304759/

Duck in a Rincoat by Maura Curley

https://web.archive.org/web/20081204131734/http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/070325elan.html