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I went and tracked down A.C.E.'s take on sex ed. Behold, the entirety of the Birds and the Bees talk, in one diagram.  That is literally the entire discussion on sexual reproduction in the entire curriculum. Johhny Scaramanga explains it all. Johny Scaramanga posted:Here is what ACE tells students about AIDS. Try to read this while bearing in mind that you have only the vaguest idea of what sex is. The previous paragraph is worth a read too (see the scan at the end). It tells us that AIDS can be transmitted by sharing drug needles, receiving infected blood transfusions, or “being involved in sexual activity with an infected person.” No definition for “sexual activity” is given, and I can think of quite a lot of kinds of sexual activity which don’t spread HIV or AIDS. In my case my parents wussed out on giving me the talk, so I had the delightful experience of having erections for two years before I found out that I was not in fact dying from a strange shameful disease. Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 06:07
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James Garfield posted:What is it with the crazy right wing and still using Wade-Giles? Wade-Giles for Beijing is Pei-ching. "Peking" comes from an historical pronunciation of it in a southern dialect. Same with Chungking.
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Aug 21, 2014 10:46
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I'm just going to go ahead and guess that the answer to 29 isn't C.
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Aug 21, 2014 11:18
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This is all fascinatingly horrifying. The silence and isolation alone must be enough to drive you nuts. Glad you got through it, Prester John. Number 3: wait a minute, no he didn't! That one story about the young Jesus is all about him ditching Mary and Joseph and loving off to hang out with some dudes at a temple!
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Aug 21, 2014 13:20
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As someone who has worked with kids I can't imagine the type of person you would have to be to do your "job" effectively as staff at some of these schools. They read like indoctrination/child abuse factories, which judging from the thread, is what they are. The cruelty is astounding, as is the total lack of concern for what the kids are actually learning from this. I suppose that since fundamentalists are convinced that the end times are virtually days away at any given moment, actually giving their children an education for the future is worthless. Best to just teach them how to be obedient godly drones, nevermind the mental and physical abuse it takes to get them to that point. I'm very glad you have healed from all this, Prester John. I don't think I would have. Any information on the organisation behind ACE, who's making the money, and how? It would not surprise me at all if this was all set up for the financial benefit of some nasty old clan of fucks somewhere. I am also astonished that these schools are allowed to operate in the UK, as anyone not indoctrinated and with an ounce of awareness how ACE schools are run should have raised living hell for the people trying to push it into the country. How the gently caress it happened would be quite a story. ACE seems to have ran 10 schools in Norway at some point, but these schools were forced to abandon the PACE curriculum for not conforming to the country's standards of gender equality shortly after 2000. Here's something on it by Johnny (the Leaving Fundamentalism guy). Hopefully it's an interesting read, as Johnny tries to link it up with UK laws, which may also be applied to push those fucks out of the country: http://leavingfundamentalism.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/norway-banned-ace-could-the-uk-follow/
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Aug 21, 2014 13:30
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God. drat. I grew up an Evangelical of the Southern Baptist variety, and this is exactly the kind of poo poo my pastor growing up would warn children and families about as ways Satan can use and corrupt the Christian faith.
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Aug 21, 2014 16:40
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Are there telltale signs that would suggest someone went through A.C.E.? I have some cousins who were homeschooled by their very conservative southern baptist parents, and have always wondered what exactly went on. Two of the three wound up pretty well adjusted happy art nerds, and their parents are wonderful caring people, so I kind of suspect they didn't go through this horror show. But they certainly spouted loads of anti-evolution, anti-gay, "you're surely going to hell if you don't get baptized," stuff, and I know they used corporal punishment. They're from Tennessee, which I think is where A.C.E. is from.
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Aug 21, 2014 17:15
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Kazak_Hstan posted:Are there telltale signs that would suggest someone went through A.C.E.? I'm interested in this too. If someone goes through A.C.E. from beginning to end, do they have any noticeable difference in their appearance or behavior? A person who goes through that kind of experience must come out really... different, somehow. Edit: re-worded that, trying not to cause any offense to the OP Coriolis fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 17:43
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Coriolis posted:I'm interested in this too. If someone goes through A.C.E. from beginning to end, do they have any noticeable difference in their appearance or behavior? A person who goes through that kind of experience must come out really... different, somehow. Well under the best of circumstances they would seem "off" somehow, more or less just like anyone else whom experienced considerable childhood trauma. They would probably be much more prone to dress business casual constantly and keep a "clean" appearance. Thinking about it I don't think there would be any way to pic an A.C.E. victim out of a crowd, you would have to have a conversation with them. They would have an unusual preoccupation with all things Jesus, moreso than even your average fundy type. They would also absolutely heel to authority instantly in a way that would strike a regular person as bizarre. Some I have known have a real odd vocabulary, likely from reading the King James Bible (And only the King James, all other Bibles are Satanic plots to lead true Christians astray). There would also be a really strong tendency to "witness" if they find out that you aren't saved. I mean really really strong tendency to witness, even on the job. (I've known many whom have gotten fired as a result of this and screamed persecution.) Let me tell a little story here to demonstrate just what I mean. Some years ago a woman became involved with the Church. Her husband was a very well known wedding photographer. (High end guy, like multi-million dollar Italian weddings in New York City high end.) Although they had no children, she started volunteering at the school and eventually roped her husband into teaching a photography class there a couple times a week in the afternoons. For the record, her husband wasn't too particularly keen on that church at all. After a couple years the Photographer started bringing some of the students along with him for wedding shoots as assisstants, which he payed them quite well for. This went pretty well at first, because A.C.E. kids are generally the model of proper behavior in public. He even started taking a few of these kids to out of state weddings. It was at one such out of state wedding that he had two children of some of the elders. It so happened that the catering staff at the reception had some openly gay employees. (You can probably see where this is going) This was the very first time these kids (about 15-16 years old IIRC) had ever seen actual gay people. And once they realized these caterers were gay, they started trying to witness to them on the spot. The details I have on how it all went down are a bit muggy, but I do know one of the kids wound up shouting "DON'T YOU REALIZE YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!?!" in the middle of the reception and causing quite a scene. The Bride and Groom were, well, pissed. To say nothing of those poor caterers. In the fallout the elders insisted the kids had done nothing wrong, so disgusted and astonished by the whole thing, the wedding Photographer discontinued both taking students with him on jobs and teaching the class in general. (With one exception, my younger brother, being not a brain washed bigot, actually continued working for him as an assistant for some years.) The elders could not let the loss of the photography class stand, so four of them wearing dark suits and carrying Bibles in hand showed up at his house. He made the mistake of letting them in. They tried to forcefully convert him on the spot. For hours. They would not take "No, now please leave my property" as an answer. He had to threaten? (I believe may actually have) to call the police to get them to leave. Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 18:25
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Reading this poo poo is making me feel physically ill, gently caress.  I always hated public school because I was an autistic as poo poo bully magnet but I'd take that any day of the week over this batshit insanity.
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Aug 21, 2014 18:43
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Thinky Whale posted:Number 3: wait a minute, no he didn't! That one story about the young Jesus is all about him ditching Mary and Joseph and loving off to hang out with some dudes at a temple! 
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Aug 21, 2014 18:45
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I went to a religious private school. It was quite nice. It was also a Soto Zen Buddhist one.
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Aug 21, 2014 18:46
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murphyslaw posted:
The company that publishes A.C.E. is called "School of Tommorrow" and was founded by Dr. Donald Howard and his first wife Esther. Its claimed to be used in 7,000 schools worldwide, but no one really knows. No one can even guess how many students might be in those 7,000 schools, because A.C.E. schools range from 3 students to 300 students. How the finances work, where the research comes from that goes into the PACE's, as far as I'm aware, nobody knows. Its all a hush hush secret kept amongst a very insular group of people. There is no transparency whatsoever and even asking for a little transparency gets met with cries of "OPPRESSION" and accusations of satanic plots. The best I can give you is this completely unsourced self published infographic about the history of A.C.E. Outside of the organization itself its about all anyone has. Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 19:19
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Prester John posted:Well under the best of circumstances they would seem "off" somehow, more or less just like anyone else whom experienced considerable childhood trauma. They would probably be much more prone to dress business casual constantly and keep a "clean" appearance.  drat, man. Really enjoying the thread, keep it up.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:25
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This is such a strange read. I used to be a hardcore fundy Christian and I remember running into people like this and being weirded out even with my skewed viewpoint. I went to a camp where the whole theme was that we were persecuted in an alt-future hell scape, and how we needed to prepare and watch out for these things. I thought that was brainwashy. Does ACE mainly do actual schools, or do they have a large homeschool variant as well? I'm thinking of one family I went to church with and how terribly ill educated they seemed. We were both in high school (or whatever the homeschool equivalent was for her) and she couldn't understand the concept of negative numbers.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:57
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Shirec posted:Does ACE mainly do actual schools, or do they have a large homeschool variant as well? I'm thinking of one family I went to church with and how terribly ill educated they seemed. We were both in high school (or whatever the homeschool equivalent was for her) and she couldn't understand the concept of negative numbers. A.C.E. and ABEKA compete for the Homeschooler market, but my impression is that there are slightly more ABEKA users than A.C.E. users. What the actual numbers are no one actually knows, but A.C.E. does advertise heavily towards homeschoolers and was a pioneer in having an out-of-the-box curriculum for Homeschoolers. Edit: There are also a number of Homeschoolers whom use the A.C.E. curriculum but will still use an A.C.E. school for a few services, my family did this for a few years. I was doing PACE's at home but would still go to the school at the end of the year for assessment testing as mandated by the eeeeeevil state. There were some other A.C.E. users I knew whom would attend occasional field trips and the like with the actual A.C.E. school. Its a weird hybrid system but A.C.E.will let you do pretty much anything as long as you keep sending them money. There is not the slightest sense of quality control or oversight of these schools/homeschools. Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 20:04
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First amazing OP. Second, I have family the areas of Northeastern OH you brought up, mostly around Warren but as far west as Akron and going as far south as Wheeling, WV. They're all pretty fundamentalist. After seeing some of the images/materials you posted I think some of my cousins may attend a school like the ones you describe. I've heard some of the terms you posted said in conversation, most notably the "whacks" business. It bothered me at the time, but I didn't realize it was this insane. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it and I've got a feeling that if I tried to confirm it, I'd never hear from them again. I don't really ever talk to my aunts, uncles or cousins, I mostly speak to my grandmother who thinks it's all is a bit nuts and who is to some degree ostracized for that. I do know why this stuff is so big in Northeast Ohio though. Burnt Over District made it down to Northeastern Ohio, most of the time it's only rural New York that gets talked about when it's discussed, but PA and north western OH catch the effects. Many of the of the weird, very American often utopian, forms of Christianity (good and bad) come out of that, Mormons, Millerites, Shakers, and even the early progressive / Christian socialist movements.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:17
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BrandorKP posted:First amazing OP. I don't know your family obviously but separation from unbelievers/people who ask questions is pretty common with these schools. Here is the Doctrinal Statement from the school I attended. Crazytown, USA posted:
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Aug 21, 2014 20:29
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Prester John posted:The company that publishes A.C.E. is called "School of Tommorrow" and was founded by Dr. Donald Howard and his first wife Esther. Its claimed to be used in 7,000 schools worldwide, but no one really knows. No one can even guess how many students might be in those 7,000 schools, because A.C.E. schools range from 3 students to 300 students. How the finances work, where the research comes from that goes into the PACE's, as far as I'm aware, nobody knows. Its all a hush hush secret kept amongst a very insular group of people. There is no transparency whatsoever and even asking for a little transparency gets met with cries of "OPPRESSION" and accusations of satanic plots. This is really interesting (in a ghastly way). Thanks for sharing. The whole enterprise reads like a more religious, less obviously scammy scientology. The way it hides its history, organisation and finances behind theological arguments about the evils of record-keeping are laughable on its face and it is astounding that it is allowed to keep operating in that manner under the guise of religious freedom. ACE itself seems offensive to the very concept, being hideously doctrinaire and draconian about its beliefs, torturing children into believing exactly what they want with no room for dissent or independent thinking. Sounds like a group that very obviously should have been nipped in the bud in its infancy by the FBI or something, but have now metastasised into something very difficult to control. Wouldn't surprise me if people from ACE were a part of the evangelical lobby in the States either. Sounds like a lot of money could be funneled from those schools and into politics.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:30
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Thinking more on how to spot people whom have gone all the way through A.C.E., I would say they behave like the "Leave it to This video is the 30 year Anniversary video of the Cult/School I was involved with. Almost all of the people >30 in it are lifers, and I know virtually all of the adults interviewed. Watch how creepy and dead they look while they talk about how unique their church is because "its family", unlike those other church's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6r2YhlxnE4 For those not 
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Aug 21, 2014 21:26
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Thanks for posting the thread. I went fo an A.C.E. School in Southern California, but fortunately got out to attend public school in 4th grade. I'm not sur why my parents sent me. We didn't attend church regularly and I was often encouraged by them to be rebellious. Some highlights: First day of kindergarten we were told we were going to go to hell if if didn't accept Jesus as our lord and savior right now; Being encouraged to testify to the public school kids when we saw them at the park, which is where we regularly had our lunch (public school kids were generally seen as bad); Got demerits for coloring a color by numbers picture wrong (oddly I still remember this: it was second grade and I was annoyed because the instructions said to color a tree trunk green and the leaves brown); Getting demerits for bringing "Donald in Mathmagic Land" on VHS for some special E-level student movie day horse crap. I got in trouble because the film shows the Venus de Milo, which is obviously pornographic :eyeroll: Awkward sex talks at chapel in the first grade; And other delightful tales!
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Aug 21, 2014 22:24
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I went to a start-up private Christian school between 6th and 8th grade. (2002-4) I think the reason I ended up there was primarily political (my parents are tea partiers and the local public school had a strike the year earlier) instead of religious (my dad never attended church, my mom occasionally). I see some faint parallels between the A.C.E curriculum and the ABEKA layout, like with sections overseen by a supervisor, but even the A.C.E has me going  I don't remember the blatant racism, sexism, and demands to submit to authority in my curriculum. It's like ABEKA copped the style but not the substance of A.C.E. None of those creepy comics, either. Holy poo poo, I feel bad for you, Prester.For some background. School I attended was non-denominational (2/3 Protestant, 1/3 Catholic). There were only four subjects: math, reading/writing, social studies, and science. I remember the science books (LifePacs) had nothing to say on creation/evolution. I was a pretty clever way of getting around the differences on view between Protestants and Catholics on the issue - it was assumed if you were Protestant, you'd learn about creationism at your church. If you were Catholic I guess you were SOL. The formatting of the answers in the was similar to the social studies questions in A.C.E, but as I said, not nearly as blantant about what the role of a Christian was in government or in demands to submit to God's and your elders' authority. Math was pretty awful, just from the viewpoint of how well the LifePacs were written (not very) and the fact that the headmistress (a former public schoolteacher) or the other two teachers had any experience or faniliarity with the subject. Corporal punishment was a policy of the school (parents had to sign off on allowing it every year, otherwise students faced expulsion), but it was very sparingly used. Detention during recess was more common. O should mention here that the schoolrooms were in the upper floor rooms with no windows. So taking away recess would frequently mean you didn't see the light of day for eight hours. This was more incompetence than malice, and after a few years the school paid the church to remodel and install windows. At any rate, the problem was that punishment was reserved for the on the four or five students who already had severe behavioral issues, and were sent to the school because their parents though that Jesus would cure them of all their ills. I'm sure being thrust into a new environment and frequently held apart from their classmates didn't help. One of those students (who my brother got back in touch with when he started college) ended up hanging himself earlier this year. In his last couple months my brother said he'd stopped showing up to class and had apparently become a total shut-in. But again, I think this was all the result of poor organization and incompetence, rather than actual malice. We did get to do some cool stuff, like learn how to raise a garden (we grew green beans, tomatoes, peppers, etc) and got to feed baby goats after they were born. I've largely buried the experience, I was the oldest person there by two years, and it ended up separating me from my peers for a couple years. By the time I reentered public school, practically all I knew about my old friends were their names. I think that's what I resent most about the experience. All this because teachers dared to ask for a higher wage.
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Aug 21, 2014 22:31
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quote:Got demerits for coloring a color by numbers picture wrong (oddly I still remember this: it was second grade and I was annoyed because the instructions said to color a tree trunk green and the leaves brown) So was this a mistake, and they essentially punished you for pointing it out? Or was this intentional, and the whole point was to force you into doing things even if you knew they were wrong, because you were directed to. One is sad, the other is terrifying.
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Aug 21, 2014 22:34
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Aerox posted:So was this a mistake, and they essentially punished you for pointing it out? Or was this intentional, and the whole point was to force you into doing things even if you knew they were wrong, because you were directed to. Good question. I wish I knew the answer to that. Maybe both? Also, at the school I attended, the E-Level students were allowed to answer flags and excuse other students to check their test results, or sign off on pages. I remember walking around in second grade feeling like the cock of the walk because I could, at E-Level (and I was almost always E-Level - yeah, I was a goody two-shoes know-it-all), lord it over the fifth-grade A-Levels. Talk about some sick poo poo. Too bad ACE wasn't around yet, or the Stanford Prison Experiment could have been the Stanford ACE Experiment. Holy poo poo, I just now recalled that merit levels also corresponded with bathroom privileges. So, if I remember correctly (it's been almost 30 years), the E-Level kids could excuse themselves. C's could use the restroom on an unlimited basis, but had to flag for it. A's I think had just a few a day.
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Aug 21, 2014 22:42
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Venusian Weasel posted:
MY understanding is that A.C.E., ABEKA, and Bob Jones were all in a race to be the first to create a curriculum. A.C.E. won that race, and has always prided itself on being the "most Conservative". ABEKA is indeed an A.C.E. clone, but they lost the race because they bothered to fact check poo poo and weren't willing to go near as far into Fascismville. Bob Jones's curriculum requires actual teachers and actual classrooms and to my knowledge has never really caught on a big way, despite being far superior to ABEKA and A.C.E. There is a Scholarly article out there that goes into great detail, but it doesn't seem to be available anymore. I was however able to wayback machine the first page.  If anyone knows how to find the rest of this that would be awesome, I desperately want to read this article as it apparently goes into the competition between Bob Jones, ABEKA, and A.C.E. that went on behind the scenes. Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 23:44
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Prester John posted:MY understanding is that A.C.E., ABEKA, and Bob Jones were all in a race to be the first to create a curriculum. A.C.E. won that race, and has always prided itself on being the "most Conservative". ABEKA is indeed an A.C.E. clone, but they lost the race because they bothered to fact check poo poo and weren't willing to go near as far into Fascismville. Bob Jones's curriculum requires actual teachers and actual classrooms and to my knowledge has never really caught on a big way, despite being far superior to ABEKA and A.C.E. GONE Ghost of Reagan Past fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 23:56
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It's available here, though obviously you'll be much happier if you can access it via an institution rather than paying whatever it is they'll charge you for access otherwise. For some reason the initial page misidentifies the volume the article is published in- it says volume 49, but it was actually printed in volume 50.
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Aug 21, 2014 23:58
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Got it, you guys are awesome.
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Aug 21, 2014 23:58
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Prester John posted:MY understanding is that A.C.E., ABEKA, and Bob Jones were all in a race to be the first to create a curriculum. A.C.E. won that race, and has always prided itself on being the "most Conservative". ABEKA is indeed an A.C.E. clone, but they lost the race because they bothered to fact check poo poo and weren't willing to go near as far into Fascismville. On the subject, it was incredible to me how striking the similarities were between pre-war German education (as covered in great detail in Alice Miller's For Your Own Good) and the A.C.E. system. I'd recommend reading if you can find it.
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Aug 22, 2014 00:04
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Prester John posted:The elders could not let the loss of the photography class stand, so four of them wearing dark suits and carrying Bibles in hand showed up at his house. He made the mistake of letting them in. Tell me I'm not the only one who thought this sounded like a setup for some mafia-esque assassinations. Really great thread, bro. I'm lucky my parents weren't anywhere within a million miles of this batshittery 
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Aug 22, 2014 00:11
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Save me jeebus posted:Good question. I wish I knew the answer to that. Maybe both? Quick question for you and any of the other Goons whom attended one of these schools, what was integration into Public School like for you?
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Aug 22, 2014 00:28
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Jesus Christ. Sure there are, in fact you just used them at the beginning of your post
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Aug 22, 2014 01:05
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Aug 22, 2014 01:37
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You are a God sir.
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Aug 22, 2014 01:43
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Shirec posted:I went to a camp where the whole theme was that we were persecuted in an alt-future hell scape, and how we needed to prepare and watch out for these things. I thought that was brainwashy. I remember getting sent to some day camp run in/by a church one summer as a kid- there was a little bit of structure and the occasional activity, but a pretty high percentage of the day was just sort of doing whatever you could find to do in the church. One of the things I remember (alongside what in retrospect was a Boulderdash clone rethemed around Moses) was a series of books about the coming future where a resurgent Roman empire had driven all the Christians into hiding, and it was just incredibly depressing because every few chapters some Christians were captured and dragged away to whatever. I thought for awhile that maybe it was one of those stupid things your brain thinks it remembers but you just made up as a kid, but now I'm not so sure.
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Aug 22, 2014 02:02
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My wife and I were both enrolled in ATI as children which is a slightly more academically rigorous but no less creepy version of A.C.E. It was the curriculum founded by known lecherous gently caress, Bill Gothard. ATI went a little further in that it had it's own paramilitary group, the ALERT. Both my wife and I came away with some pretty deep emotional scars.
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Aug 22, 2014 03:16
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Prester John posted:MY understanding is that A.C.E., ABEKA, and Bob Jones were all in a race to be the first to create a curriculum. A.C.E. won that race, and has always prided itself on being the "most Conservative". ABEKA is indeed an A.C.E. clone, but they lost the race because they bothered to fact check poo poo and weren't willing to go near as far into Fascismville. Bob Jones's curriculum requires actual teachers and actual classrooms and to my knowledge has never really caught on a big way, despite being far superior to ABEKA and A.C.E. Okay, since I grew up in the non-A.C.E. parts of curriculums (ABEKA, Bob Jones, and Saxon who are known mainly for their math), I wanted to actually clarify the typical viewpoints on this. - Both are generally taught in Christian schools that aren't as outright insane as A.C.E. schools but beyond the rabbit hole of a local catholic school. They're, relative to A.C.E., less completely batshit. - ABEKA isn't an A.C.E. clone. It actually masquerades as legitimate and could be theoretically used in an actual school for some classes up to a certain point (their math and phonics/grammar are actually very well done. History and science less so) - Bob Jones is an ABEKA clone and is generally worse in everything except lit. - Your average Christian school actually picks and chooses the books based on the teachers and which books they like better. In a lot of ways, your average christian school teacher has a lot more power than a public school teacher on this sort of thing because they directly ask for the books every year based on which approved publisher they want. This may not seem like a good thing, but certain areas that are less subject to crazy town (Math mainly and a bit of English) benefit from this and actually get taught decently. - In general, if you talk to the teachers in Christian schools who aren't Young Earthers or who hold some more liberal viewpoints, you'll hear the following general assessments which I would agree with having seen or been through the majority of my education within them.. ABEKA has by far the most rigorous math up until the high school level when they go into crazy town. Pro Click right here. Bob Jones and Saxon math are comparatively easier. Frankly, ABEKA did a drat good job getting me through pre-algebra then immediately went to poo poo when algebra I hit. Bob Jones does a slightly better job with literature, largely Christian lit or direct Bible verses, whereas ABEKA focuses more on grammar and doesn't often directly interject religious examples into things like learning to diagram sentences (i.e. ABEKA is less ham handed with their practice problems). ABEKA grammar is, to this day, the reason I pretty much never proofread my essays just because of how fundamentally beaten in the concepts get. The sciences don't hit crazy town until around 7th grade when you get into life sciences and earth science, where you start getting YEC boilerplate stuff and they jam crap like how to decide what fertilizer to use in so they can fill time as a result of not teaching evolution. Lots of just random rote memorization of things like flower parts, atmosphere layers, and that sort of thing. Mostly multiple choice and True or False where you correct false statements to make them true. The history programs are extremely bizarre. World History is often standard Christian apologetics (i.e. Crusades were because of the Muslims. Rome was awesome when it was Christian. Russia lost their way because of godless communism. that sort of thing) and generally focuses on instances where Christians are considered persecuted (literally the "fed to the lions type) or instances where it was just an important discovery (Finding the Americas) It goes to poo poo though, when you hit U.S. History, which, since I'm at home and can stare at it, I'll rattle off some of the wonderful things my 8th grade U.S. history book said (ABEKA): Founders were all godfearing men seeking a place of worship. We won the War of 1812. Coolidge and Hoover totally didn't gently caress the economy. FDR only succeeded because of the war effort. Trail of Tears was great because it led Indians to Christ. Great Awakening was like, the most important thing ever (it literally takes up 1/12th of the book with its own chapter talking about things like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"). We totally didn't gently caress minorities with internment or anything because there were groups like the Nisei that fought for the US in WW2. Containment was a moral failing. Reagan won the cold war. They're weirdly friendly to Jimmy Carter though. But what's really interesting is that a lot of the tests involve memorizing random quotations or famous one-liners and what people did rather than why anything happened. That's where the A.C.E. parallels come in mainly, and most teachers loving hate teaching ABEKA and Bob Jones history and science because of how boring it is even if they follow the viewpoints in lockstep. - Bob Jones isn't any less geared to homeschooling than ABEKA. The reason Bob Jones isn't as popular is complicated. Your average kid in Christian non-A.C.E. school/homeschooling is there for a couple reasons. These parents want their kids hearing about God, but these are generally suburban Evangelicals who think of Bob Jones as the worst kind of Christian school and try to avoid the connotation (i.e. appearances matter). Nobody hears about Pensacola (Abeka's college) as it has a different name so it isn't as taboo as the school that famously hates things like interracial dating. That coupled with ABEKA starting first and being generally cheaper to buy gave ABEKA the lead. - Both programs are basically slave labor jobs for students at Bob Jones and PCC, making them far cheaper than private schools while allowing a stay-at-home parent (which these demographics generally have) to handle schooling. - Both programs are designed to hook kids into their views and learning methods by high school age, equipping them so that they can only succeed at schools like Bob Jones, PCC, Patrick Henry, or Liberty because of their lack of exposure to most forms of upper division academic thought. The important thing to note about all of these programs is that, save for the history, the elementary programs don't actually do that lovely of a job with kids. They're not good, but these curriculums don't really get dangerous until about 7th/8th grade with their misinformation and lack of education. That's part of why the program works and how they make the sell to parents. I guarantee if a huge chunk of the parents who use these programs understood what they taught towards the end and the disadvantage it leaves their children at, they wouldn't use it, but that's part of why the market is so insidious. The deeper you get into these programs, the farther behind your kid gets and the more they crave this type of education where it's mostly memorization and review of the same facts and problems over and over year after year. They don't teach analysis of literature or how to critically read. They don't teach certain parts of discrete math like set theory. They teach conservative history and ignore science that doesn't support YEC or Republican politics. Basically, the jumping off point is around 7th/8th grade. I got out at the end of 8th grade, and it was a difficult adjustment to public school. However, it was still completely doable at that point. By contrast, friends I had who left later did not fare as well, and 1 out of the 12 or so I still occasionally bump into has made it to a level beyond remedial community college (i.e. none of them are in 4-year schools or trade schools because they simply weren't qualified). Essentially, though the program seems ironclad, there are very simple ways of dismantling things like this largely just by getting kids out in time. The reason A.C.E. is so much worse is because it lends itself to the dependency factor much more quickly than other programs. It teaches in the same method the whole time and starts out at full insanity, whereas ABEKA and Bob Jones ease in and focus on generic elementary concepts before introducing their ideologies at a later time. A.C.E. doesn't have the K-8 period where it still covers mostly the same material as public schools; it never pretends to be legitimate. It's purely for the purestrain crazies and people who buy into the "school of the future" marketing. So, while ABEKA and Bob Jones are not by any means without blame or fault for this, they aren't doing the same level of evil and damage that A.C.E. is. They're bad, but the program the OP has shown and explained is far far worse than any other fundie education program out there. TheGreyGhost fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 04:20
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Prester John posted:Quick question for you and any of the other Goons whom attended one of these schools, what was integration into Public School like for you? I attended a private christian school until halfway through sixth grade that used abeka. I remember before starting public school being terrified because everyone was telling me horror stories about how horrible its gonna be, I even remember another student telling me I better carry a knife with me everyday to protect myself. Then after I started it was just no big deal. I just thank the gods I got out when I did before having to come to terms with myself being gay. If I had to go through that at that place I don't know if I would have survived.
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Aug 22, 2014 04:21
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Prester John posted:Quick question for you and any of the other Goons whom attended one of these schools, what was integration into Public School like for you? I think I was lucky that I integrated into public school pretty early. I did have some social conflict, but I found my group of friends pretty quickly, too. Eventually was moved into the accelerated programs in the public system where I got to actually do some problem solving and thinking instead of just memorizing crap and then barfing it back out and loved it. Again, though, I'm not sure my parents knew what they were getting my sister and I into. They're both Freeper-lite authoritarian boomers, but aren't really religious. So I didn't have that reinforcement at home to really make the brainwash stick - quite the opposite, I was a really rebellious little poo poo.
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Aug 22, 2014 04:28
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Save me jeebus posted:Again, though, I'm not sure my parents knew what they were getting my sister and I into. They're both Freeper-lite authoritarian boomers, but aren't really religious. So I didn't have that reinforcement at home to really make the brainwash stick - quite the opposite, I was a really rebellious little poo poo. I wonder if this is the key for not falling for the indoctrination. My parents also always encouraged me to be independent and a free thinker.
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Aug 22, 2014 04:30
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