Matt Hoffman remembers a young girl at the Elan School who suffered from curvature of her spine. She was about 14 years old, he said, and couldn’t stand up straight.

Her fellow students, in an instructive lesson, forced her to crawl on her belly across a room, screaming at her the entire time.

It was an awful sight, he said, and something he can’t forget.

Hoffman, who now lives in Virginia, was enrolled at Elan in 1974 when he was 15. He left in 1976.

He doesn’t remember what lesson was being taught when the girl was forced to crawl, but he does remember that early in her time at Elan, students tied together a crown of tampons dipped in ketchup and made her wear the thing on her head.

They also subjected her to general meetings, where students and staff confront noncompliant students by yelling at them until they admit to bad behavior or other errors.

“They would funnel this energy onto one focal point, the person receiving a general meeting,” Hoffman said, and scream until spittle covered the person’s face.

He remembers an occasion when two male students ran away so suddenly they didn’t have time to grab their shoes, and ran barefoot into a winter night. “They got as far away as Vermont,” he said. When they were located, Hoffman and another student were required to go to Vermont and bring the runaways back.

He remembers the student-led behavior modification techniques were “quick with the handcuffs, quick with the boxing gloves and quick with the electric sauce,” a mixture of ketchup, cigarette ashes and many other things poured on an offender’s head to humiliate the student.

“Elan made good people do horrible things to other good people,” he said.

He said the school’s methods also caused students, himself included, to attack other students.

Hoffman once assaulted another student with a knife. He doesn’t remember the circumstances but hoped the attack would get him kicked out. Instead, he said, “it bought me an extra year there.”

Hoffman, who is among a group of bloggers who for years have been waging an online campaign to close the school, is happy the school is closing.

It won’t erase his memories or change his experience, but he said he never thought the school provided therapy for students. The atmosphere, from his memory, was sadistic and violent.

To read more stories about The Elan School and from the students who went there, visit sunjournal.com/elan.