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Accelerated Christian Education Social Studies PACE 1086 (1990, p.29) posted:The government must be responsible to the taxpayers who provide the money that the government spends. Since that is true only taxpayers should be given the privilege of voting… Talen Lee posted:In what almost every reasonable person considers a school, with a curriculum and with oversight and with staff, there’s this phenomenon of social collusion. Even if you don’t plan for it, most of the time, people observe work, and they observe students. Being observed influences how the students react, and the work being observed will shape in the mind of the teachers the ways to interact with those students. This is an ecosystem of attention, where people are disposed to pay attention to one another’s interactions, and where information passes from point to point without any deliberate design. Teachers in these contexts will see students as students, and they talk about them with other adults, often other teachers or professional educators of some stripe. In these systems, with information flowing from place to place as reports, double-checking or just plain gossip, make it hard to maintain a truly oppressive level of control. Welcome to the thread for discussing what is arguably the single worst schooling system that has seen appreciable adoption, Accelerated Christian Education. As you can see above the curriculum is extremely racist, but the fun does not end there! It is also Misogynistic, anti-science, anti-gay, and extremely This discussion is interesting for a number of reasons.
I will open this thread by laying out the history of A.C.E, the As a personal anecdote, the A.C.E. school I was educated in from kindergarten through eighth grade suffered a small fire and all my records were destroyed. As a result I have literally zero school records prior to entering a public high school in my ninth grade year. On top of this, as a result of the sort of religious policies A.C.E and their ilk put forwards, my parents refused to allow me to get a social security number (precursor to the mark of the beast) until I was 18 years old, which was in the year of our lord 2000. Rolled together this has made it virtually impossible for me to pass any serious background check, and I have had to deal with rolled eyes whenever I had to explain "No seriously, I didn't have a Social Security number until I was 18". While this has made my life rough, my parents did the same with my three younger siblings, whom in the post 9-11 world found it nearly impossible to get social security numbers at the age of 18. (My siblings remained in an A.C.E. school until they were 18, l was the lone exception.) My Father was eventually forced to basically forge documents in order for my siblings to be able to get Social Security numbers, so that they could get proper photo ID's, so that they could get little things like jobs and drivers licences. When you start to delve into the world of Southern Baptist Fundamentalism, these sorts of stories are nowhere near as rare as one would hope. Documentation on School of Tomorrow (Publisher of A.C.E.) is scant and the overall picture is often difficult to put together. Even with Google finding things as simple as a collection of the infamous "comic" strips that pepper the curriculum or quotes from the actual textbooks (called Packets of Accelerated Christian Education or "PACE's") can be frustratingly difficult. Determining the exact number of A.C.E. Schools or students in the Us is currently impossible, only School of Tomorrow knows, and even they may not really be sure. In fairness it has gotten noticeably better over the past couple of years, likely as a result of slowly growing awareness, but overall the amount of data publicly available is pretty abysmal. There are also very few people discussing this issue publicly. With that said this OP is likely to be one of the single best general overvieww for A.C.E currently in existence, documentation and awareness is just that bad. Originally released in 1970, A.C.E. (Published by School of Tomorrow) is probably the most widespread Christian based private education curriculum in the United States, and has made inroads into many nations around the world including England, China, and (surprisingly) Africa. Arguably it is the most widespread curriculum of its kind in the world, but certainty is impossible because detailed statistics are either closely guarded secrets or simply do not exist. This is a result of the unapologetically pro-conservative bias that pervades the curriculum.   Examples of the political messages laden throughout the morality based "comic" strips in PACE's. A.C.E. was originally released in Garland, Texas (I know, I was shocked too) a large town on the North-East side of Dallas in 1970. A.C.E. was designed to meet a unique market demand in existence at the time. In the American South, forced school integration was incredibly unpopular, coupled with a more general backlash against percieved "progressive" ideals permeating society had given rise to a sudden demand for good wholesome Christian schools. Schools where students would not be exposed to dangerous This desire for A.C.E. also seems to have been created with the idea of helping to bring Evangelical Christians into the political arena. Speaking very broadly this sort of authoritarian evangelicalism/puritanism is nothing new to America, having existed since well before the founding of the country. However, it was not explicitly political for long stretches of time (generally speaking) owing often to the various ideological splits in groups like the Baptists, whom favored Church unity over ideological purity. Baptist historian, H. Leon McBeth posted:The famed Southern Baptist unity in the past has been more functional than theological. Southern Baptists have banded together to cooperate in ministry, in missions, evangelism, and in Christian education. So long as they emphasize functional ministry, the "rope of sand," as one historian called it, holds; when they switch from function to doctrine, unity is threatened. This preference for unity however started to change in 1960, when a group of Conservative Baptists emerged and began to charge that the SBC was infested with Liberals. A bitter internal struggle ensued for the next 20 years, culminating in the defeat and expulsion of any functionary not deemed ideologically pure enough. Curiously, this was accomplished through a method that bears some similarities to Tea Party tactics of controlling primaries in order to effect their desired policies. Wikipedia article: Southern Baptist Convention conservative resurgence posted:In the early 1970s, William Powell, at the time an SBC employee, developed a rather simple strategy to take control of the SBC: elect the SBC president for ten consecutive years. The SBC president appoints the committees that name other committees that nominate trustees for the denomination's institutions, including the seminaries. Trustees of institutions served five years and were eligible for reelection once. Therefore, by occupying the presidency for ten years one could ensure that all appointments, nominations and new seminary hires stood in a line of succession trailing back to the president. With the rough history out of the way I will now try to explain exactly what the actual system of A.C.E. is in my next post. Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 23:55
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Christian Perspectives for Education posted:The psychological foundation for this approach is the ‘operant conditioning’ theory of B.F. Skinner. The human organism is determined by his environment, and susceptible to behavioural conditioning. Skinner has no respect for the supposed faculties of critical reasoning. ACE stands in direct line of succession to those who sought, by emotional manipulation, to obtain decisions for Christ which by-pass the individual’s rational autonomy, but it cashes in also on the improved manipulative techniques discovered by modern behavioural psychology. David Berliner posted:low-level cognitive tasks that emphasize simple association and recall activities, as is typical of instruction from workbooks... the materials make heavy use of behavioral objectives, programmed learning, and rewards Phi Delta Kappa posted:If parents want their children to obtain a very limited and sometimes inaccurate view of the world — one that ignores thinking above the level of rote recall — then the ACE materials do the job very well. The world of the ACE materials is quite a different one from that of scholarship and critical thinking. A.C.E. is designed as a top down, literal Skinner Box for children. Every action is monitored and either immediately punished or rewarded. Students work alone in total silence, there is no social interaction or group projects. There are no lectures, there are no lesson plans, and there are no actual teachers. All there is are workbooks called "PACE's" (Packets of Accelerated Christian Education) and "Supervisors" to monitor the students progress. "Whats in a PACE" you ask? Well, lets let the worlds foremost critic of A.C.E. walk you through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_2tCMlHEBI Everything is regimented and there are strict procedures for even the most mundane of tasks. This is because, and I am not making this up, A.C.E. is designed on the principle that "The Leaders of Tomorrow" will be office workers. Therefor, the schooling environment is designed to imitate a (bastardized ideal of) an office environment wherever possible. I don't know any better way to explain the gist of it so I will just go through a typical day of my experience. I would arrive in the morning and we would all gather in the chapel for morning worship. (Like the majority of A.C.E. schools, our was hosted by a church.) The pastor would get in front of us with his guitar and we would sing songs about how awesome Jesus was. Seventy or so students k-12 (An unusually large school for A.C.E.) would belt out one terrible racket, worse than you might even be imagining right now. My particular cult believed that polyharmonics were demonic infiltration from Negro spirituals to distract from the message of God's word, so when we sang it was generally everybody, women, men, and children of all ages, trying to awkwardly all sing the same note, It was terrible. Then after singing we would say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the Bible. Then we would all open our bibles and recite the bible verse of the month, which was actually more like a random entire page of biblical text. There was a reward of you could recite the entire thing without your bible at the end of the month.(Usually candy and some "merits".) After that it was a word of prayer and it was off to our desks, where we would spent much of the rest of the day.  I really do need to spend some time here describing these desks. They are exactly as you see in that picture. Each student gets their own desk and stores all their PACE's and assorted supplies there. At my school the backboard of the desk was a pinboard and it too was extremely regimented. There were specific places for your Goal Chart, your Star Chart, and various other A.C.E. specific things. We were however allowed one motivational poster of our choice as long as it featured a bible verse on it. You sit in silence at your desk all day. You work alone except for brief interactions with your supervisors A quick note on Supervisors and Monitors.(Monitors are lesser ranked than Supervisors but can authorize the student to perform certain tasks like scoring or using the restroom.) These are not teachers, at all. At my school the only person with a College Degree was the "Principle" whom was also the Pastor of the cult that ran the school. Everyone else working at the school had only High School diploma's, or in some cases, not even that. When my Mother was hired as a Supervisor at the School it caused quite a stir because she was the first Supervisor with a College degree. (A two year Horticulture degree from, I poo poo you not, the College of Wooster, a primarily Mennonite/Amish community.) For the record, the Pastor has an advanced degree (I think a Masters) in Chemistry. He is also a fervent Young Earth Creationist. Back to the daily grind. So the first activity at your desk was 15 minutes of either reading your bible or bowing your head in prayer, your choice. (Such freedom).Then you would gather all your paces and your "goal chart" and write out which pages you were going to do that day (generally 4 pages per PACE) on your goal chart. Your goal chart would need to be approved and signed off on by a Supervisor, although it didn't have to be right away. Then it was time to start work. You were free to pick any PACE to start working in, but your options were usually a little forced by a few factors. Certain pages would have stamped at the top either "Supervisor" indicating that you needed to get approval from a Supervisor before you could work on that page, or "Monitor" indicating that either a Supervisor or Monitor needed to sign off on you starting work on that page. This was often in the case of a page with say 3-4 paragraphs of reading, you would need to read it out loud to the Supervisor before you could go on to the comprehension questions. As you have seen in the above video, the comprehension questions are just lifted verbatim from the text. At my school we had the additional task of having to underline each sentence that related to a particular question, number the question it related too, and then highlight in yellow the exact words that we were using in our answer. Many subjects included such pages of reading, so it was often the case that you flipped through your pages for the day and figured out what work you could do at the moment, raised your flag and did what work you could while you waited. (Usually Math). This is where favoritism first starts to rear its head in this system. If a Supervisor didn't particularly like you (And mine didn't owing to my parents not joining the Church, a controversial decision) then you could be waiting quite a while to get approval in order to work. I was frequently left with literally no work I was authorized to do and had to just sit and wait till the Supervisor came by and initialed my PACE so that I could actually work. Other things you needed to get permission to do included using the restroom or "scoring". Scoring meant taking your PACE to the "scoring table" in the middle of the room. The scoring table had all the "scoring keys" which were copies of your PACE with all the correct answers filled in. The student would then use a red pen and go line by line looking for their own mistakes. Answers had to be exact, no exceptions. As in this example. Talen Lee posted:There was something strange going on. I realised that when as a seven year old, when I was stuck at the score-key, looking at my PACE with concern. The question stalling me had been a two-blanker (quite advanced, I felt). The question was – for example – something like “ _____ and ______ happen during thunderstorms.” As it turns out I was terrible at scoring and if I work up the courage I'll post my account of the physical abuse I endured as a result of my "scoring errors". Once you finished scoring you would take your PACE back to your desk, correct any mistakes, raise your flag and then go back and "rescore", certifying that there were now no mistakes on the page. You had to do this for each individual PACE, you were not allowed to take multiple PACE's up at once because that was cheating somehow. You had to get permission to score each individual PACE. It was like this for everything, literally everything. Tedious, bureaucratic, and unnecessarily complicated by arbitrary rules. After a couple hours of this it would be time for the first break, and this is where the hierarchy amongst students started to be on display. All breaks ended at the same time, but not all breaks started at the same time. You see there were three "merit levels" a student could attain for good behavior and consistently meeting goals. (A-level, C-level, and the much coveted E-level) The higher your merit rank (assuming you had attained one) the longer your breaks and the longer your lunch. E-level even conferred the benefits of being able to excuse yourself to the scoring table, a major, and I do mean major, major loving convenience. E-level was primarily attained by completing your goals (completing your prescribed number of pages each day) and this task was made infinitely easier by being able to go score whenever you needed to. So even children learn that those at the top have an inherent advantage. This is not an accident, this is by design. A series of bells would ring, 5 minutes apart each to let the various levels know when they could go on break. Students would excuse themselves by merit level until only those with no level were left, and they got the shortest breaks. Thusly, even in recess, you knew whom the good kids who did their work and whom the bad kids whom didn't do their work were, and the kids on higher merit levels lorded their special privileges over us. If you think that many of the church elders had their children in the school and were also the Supervisors, you would be right. If you would then go on to assume that said elders children were massively favored, you would again be right. Because my parents were not members of the church (Because, get this, the church itself was a bit too liberal for my parents taste) by the age of six the elders kids had figured out that they could bully me without fear of repercussions. Even years later when at the age of 14 I entered a public school for the first time in my life with no friends and no social skills whatsoever, the bullying I received in High School was comparatively tame to what I endured under the care of these godly people and their hellspawn. After break there would be another work period at your desk, then lunch. After lunch was another work period, another break, and then some sort of other activity. Wednesdays for example were "Chapel" a grueling 2 hour endurance test of a sermon. Tuesdays were "Bible Study" where one of the random elders would take a small group of us (segregated by age and gender, like everything else) and do a detailed study of some portion of the bible or other. And by detailed I mean loving insane, even by fundamentalist standards. Jesus Christ when I was eleven they taught us the story Jephthah, where a man literally murders his own daughter and offers her body up as a burnt offering as a GOOD story, because Jepthath was a godly man and kept his word. Thusly the Lord proceeded to bless him. This was literally an example to be followed. Dude says "If I win this battle I will sacrifice the first thing that walks out of my front door when I return" and when its his only child he goes "whelp" and kills her. That is the level of loving insane that was imparted in these bible studies. I imagine only the men got that particular lesson, the women probably got something from the book of Jude. (In A.C.E. a woman's role is to cook dinner and make babies. If she wants a profession she can become a Piano Tutor.<---not kidding, literally only a Piano Tutor.) Then the day would start to wrap up. Any unfinished pages were marked as homework, and any Demerits accrued during the day were counted up. If you had 3+ Demerits it meant detention the next day and you would get a special colored slip to take home to your parents to let them know of your misbehavior as well as to let them know to come pick you up later than normal. 7+ Demerits meant a whack (corporal punishment) And that was pretty much it. Day in and day out, very little variation. Very great drudgery. Like most intelligent kids whom wind up in that system, I was absolutely miserable. Edit: Prester John posted:I hope I'm not impugning on the good will the thread has shown me here, but my laptop is really rally gonna die soon. I'm putting up a Gofundme to buy a new computer so I can Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Aug 25, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 23:57
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 Holy loving poo poo. So I'm curious about the "whacks." I can see how that would be imposing in elementary and maybe middle school but how was something like that handled at the high school level? By the time I made it to 9th grade I was already 6'2 and 190lbs and I can't imagine some "monitor" or whatever approaching me with a club for a prescribed beating without just saying "gently caress this" and turning it into a knock down drag out brawl. I really thought I had it bad when my parents tried to shove me into a more traditional private christian school. All I had to do was blow the test and be a jackass at interviews until my parents had no other choice but this is some serious next level poo poo. loving hell I had no idea something like this existed. This makes the christian homeschool groups look sane by comparison.
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Aug 20, 2014 01:07
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:
There were different paddles for different age groups, the older you got, the worse the weapon used. The kindergartner one was basically a switch, but the one for teens was hardwood with holes drilled in it to reduce wind resistance. When my Sister was 15 she got a triple whack (Three in a row) from the Pastor, whom was in his late 40's at the time. It was originally supposed to be a double whack, but when she refused to pray with him he suddenly tacked on a third. My sister still gets livid talking about it ten+ years later. (Also it is incredibly creepy that he did this to multiple teen girls.)
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Aug 20, 2014 01:23
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I think this thread might do better in A/T but I want to hear more.
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Aug 20, 2014 01:55
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 That's absolutely horrible. I want to show this thread to my roommate (she's a teacher) but I'm pretty sure it'll straight ruin her day. How did the pastor at that "school" end up with a Master's in Chemistry? Obviously he can't have had the kind of education he was dispensing before college or he'd never make it through. The Christian colleges don't actually offer degrees other than divinity or poli-sci or whatever, right? I had another question but I forgot it. I don't understand how this can be legal, but I've had enough experience with horrible Mormon charter schools and such to understand that it is. This is a whole other level of WTF.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:16
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Have you kept in touch with anyone else who went to school with you (besides your sister, I assume.) How'd they turn out?
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Aug 20, 2014 02:19
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Thanks for posting this, Prester John.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:23
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:
You know how if you train a dog when they're a puppy they'll still obey you when they're 500% the size they used to be because part of them still thinks they're a puppy? That happens to humans to a certain extent too. The physical abuse starts early and is ritualized. If anybody not brought up in this sort of environment were suddenly dropped into it then it would probably end up as you say in your hypothetical about yourself as a 9th grader. However the population of people in these schools have been physically abused their entire life, and at the hands of people their parents have given explicit permission. Submission to authority under threat of extreme physical pain is one of the first character traits they instill. Children learn early that not cooperating for a beating will make the beating worse or lead to less controlled beatings from other authority figures like real parents later. Punishments are often not in proportion to the transgression that was committed, and so the unspoken threat that hangs over all of these abuse rituals is that you will let the ritualistic abuse happen or wildly disproportionate things will be done to you later in a much less controlled way. So if you've been being abused like that all your life it becomes easy to not notice the moment that it should not be possible for that to be done to you anymore. Perception of physical size and strength is a very malleable thing. If you are trained that you are lesser and you have literally been physically weaker than the people abusing you your entire life then you may continue to think of yourself that way. Even if you do realize you're physically stronger then you still have all the social ramifications of your noncompliance to deal with. Your entire life has revolved around this small social structure up until that point, and so to rebel against it in such a clear way as to not accept a beating feels like it would put an end to your entire world. When you take into account the various kinds of indoctrination that go on from such early ages it, very unfortunately, becomes easy to understand why a person might not physically defend themselves in the same way as a non-indoctrinated person. This is also why these communities have such a large incidence of sexual abuse. The manuals that are printed and the justifications that are described by the people committing this kind of physical abuse all make it sound very controlled and logical. The application of the violence is always at the whims of the perpetrator, though. From the perspective of the child it is impossible to tell what sort of line exists between "punishment" and "abuse." It all blends together, and people perpetrating sexual abuse especially, are essentially having their victims groomed for them in these communities. Prester John, thanks for making a thread to talk about this kind of stuff. I didn't go through anything close to what you went through as a child, but I did have it a bit rough. I thought I might not be able to continue reading the thread after your post about the physical abuse, but typing this post up has made me feel a bit better. ErIog fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 02:25
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Holy poo poo. Thanks for posting this thread, Prester John. What sort of things did they have in their history curricula? Are there any sort of updated ACE materials online that we can look through?
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Aug 20, 2014 02:30
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electrohead posted:
Aerox posted:Have you kept in touch with anyone else who went to school with you (besides your sister, I assume.) How'd they turn out? There are a number I have kept in touch with or have run into over the years. A few were only there for a couple years and got out and the entire family (parents included) usually regards the entire thing as a gigantic mistake. A few are still working for the cult/school and have gone on to be elders/Supervisors themselves. (Including all the worst of the bullies) But the majority have wrecked lives of one form or another, usually from having a bunch of kids really young and trying to support it all on one income (the husband usually either didn't go to college or went to a Liberty University type non-college) and they are on welfare. The intermarriage rate at one point was almost 50%. Like literally, nearly half of the graduates were married to each other by the time they graduated.
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Aug 20, 2014 02:32
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tabris posted:
Here is a nifty page with a bunch of curricula samples an A.C.E.'s own website. Social studies is their equivalent of History. Word Building is Vocabulary/English, kinda. Word Building is weird as gently caress. If you want something of a breakdown I suggest Johnny Scaramanga's excellent blog on all things horrible and A.C.E. This page has some nice bits about some of the crazier poo poo that gets taught. Accelerated Christian Education, Science 1096, p. 7 posted:The first and second laws of thermodynamics demonstrate what the Bible tells about the creation of new matter or energy. Things change, but they degenerate. These laws also demonstrate that the Genesis account of Creation is consistent with scientific evidence. Science 1107, p. 10 posted:Some people mistakenly believe that an individual is born a homosexual and his attraction to those of the same sex is normal. Because extensive tests have shown that there is no biological difference between homosexuals and others, these tests seem to prove that homosexuality is a learned behaviour. The Bible teaches that homosexuality is sin. In Old Testament times, God commanded that homosexuals be put to death. Since God never commanded death for normal or acceptable actions, it is as unreasonable to say that homosexuality is normal as it is to say that murder or stealing is normal. Yes, that's right. Students in TYOOL 2014 are being taught in America that Homosexuals should be stoned to death as the bible commands. Its poo poo like this that lets assholes like Tea Party star Scott Esk say it's OK To Stone Gays To Death
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Aug 20, 2014 03:04
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Prester John posted:record keeping is something that the School of Tomorrow believes is literally demonic.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:15
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James Garfield posted:What is the rationale for this? Actual explanation: Because the Church is probably going to go through a period of persecution wherein Christianity will be outlawed by the Government. Record keeping makes it easier for the Government to keep track of all the True Christians they will need to suppress, as evidenced by the current remarkable persecution True Christians have to endure already. So by keeping lovely records, you are just protecting yourself. Also some poo poo about Rome and the census probably. Honest answer: The fuckers who run this are probably literal Sociopaths hiding behind religion and don't want a paper trail. Edit: The persecution will be in the lead up to the rapture. There is actually some internal disagreement as to how bad and how long the persecution will be, with some asserting that borderline Christians might even remain on Earth for the first half (3.5 years) of the Tribulation before being raptured. Its one of the few areas of tolerated debate. Prester Jane fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 03:21
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Prester John, was A.C.E. the only game in town for your area, or were the other publishers and homeschooling also popular around there? I grew up on ABEKA and a little bit of Bob Jones until my freshman year of high school, and we always counted ourselves lucky because we weren't the people who did this. I've noticed that A.C.E. is pretty largely defunct in my area now just because it's cheaper for parents to buy the homeschooling materials and people complained about the fact that their kids weren't even getting into the lowest ranked state schools. For perspective to those who are reading this and thinking this is just another bit of typical fundie programming, this was what my strongly evangelical mother who used to attempt to cast demons out of me when I would disobey as a child considered too far. A.C.E. infamously resulted in my dyslexic friend getting swatted hard enough for having difficulty with his work that it broke skin on multiple occasions. This isn't even an attempt to educate so much as create willing drones for specific Christian colleges down the line. And no, it isn't just Liberty. Programs like A.C.E. lead into the deep deep parts of the rabbit hole like Patrick Henry, Pensacola, or Bob Jones. Frankly, as bad as this stuff is, A.C.E. is child's play compared to what it leads into, and shutting it down would be a good way to starve these assholes: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116623/sexual-assault-patrick-henry-college-gods-harvard http://www.xojane.com/issues/samantha-field-pensacola-christian-college-rape-stalking http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pensacola_Christian_College http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Patrick_Henry_College
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Aug 20, 2014 03:32
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TheGreyGhost posted:Prester John, was A.C.E. the only game in town for your area, or were the other publishers and homeschooling also popular around there? I grew up on ABEKA and a little bit of Bob Jones until my freshman year of high school, and we always counted ourselves lucky because we weren't the people who did this. I've noticed that A.C.E. is pretty largely defunct in my area now just because it's cheaper for parents to buy the homeschooling materials and people complained about the fact that their kids weren't even getting into the lowest ranked state schools. It was the only non-Catholic religious schooling available in my area, and I do believe is still the only game in that town. There were some homeschoolers using ABEKA that I was aware of but they were sort of frowned upon. Beyond that I think A.C.E. is pretty much it. There are enough A.C.E. schools in that region to support A.C.E. student conventions, seminars, and even a flag football league. (Before anyone asks, this is in NorthEastern Ohio).
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Aug 20, 2014 03:46
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Prester John posted:It was the only non-Catholic religious schooling available in my area, and I do believe is still the only game in that town. There were some homeschoolers using ABEKA that I was aware of but they were sort of frowned upon. Beyond that I think A.C.E. is pretty much it. There are enough A.C.E. schools in that region to support A.C.E. student conventions, seminars, and even a flag football league. (Before anyone asks, this is in NorthEastern Ohio). Holy crap seriously? I grew up in Northwest Ohio (Toledo) and I had no idea this kind of stuff was anywhere near there. I just did a little digging and there's one in Toledo Street view of it is this little kinda church-y looking unassuming white building with no sign out front. Hiding in plain sight, really. That's horrifying. Toledo even has really good private schools, though I'm pretty sure the public ones suffer as a result of the competition for donations 
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Aug 20, 2014 03:59
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Whoooooole lotta Amish and Mennonite territory in the forgotten gaps between Akron, Toledo, and Sandusky.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:03
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Prester John posted:It was the only non-Catholic religious schooling available in my area, and I do believe is still the only game in that town. There were some homeschoolers using ABEKA that I was aware of but they were sort of frowned upon. Beyond that I think A.C.E. is pretty much it. There are enough A.C.E. schools in that region to support A.C.E. student conventions, seminars, and even a flag football league. (Before anyone asks, this is in NorthEastern Ohio). Holy poo poo...I'm a west sider living on the east edge of Lorain county. What school were you? Prester John posted:Whoooooole lotta Amish and Mennonite territory in the forgotten gaps between Akron, Toledo, and Sandusky. Really, the amish and mennonites aren't your problem. Mennonite's are conservative, but they're really pretty docile and don't like things like war or making GBS threads on the poor. And the Amish...well..they just do their thing and don't really participate either.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:16
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TheGreyGhost posted:Holy poo poo...I'm a west sider living on the east edge of Lorain county. What school were you? The problem with identifying the school is its still active, and has an easily findable youtube channel and website. I'm not sure a GoonRush is the best thing, however tempting the idea might be. (That said, I am seriously considering it because there is some Gold to be found on the youtube channel.) Can you guys pinky swear to not go all GBS on their (probably poorly coded) website? Your mostly right about the Amish and Mennonites, so let me specify here. Its not them(so much, there are a few Mennonite A.C.E. schools) as it is the communities around them that aren't either Amish or Mennonite but are still shockingly fundamentalist.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:20
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Prester John posted:The problem with identifying the school is its still active, and has an easily findable youtube channel and website. I'm not sure a GoonRush is the best thing, however tempting the idea might be. (That said, I am seriously considering it because there is some Gold to be found on the youtube channel.) Can you guys pinky swear to not go all GBS on their (probably poorly coded) website? Eh, it wasn't exactly hard to find going internet detective, but I would agree GoonRush isn't great, even though there doesn't appear to be a lot of ways to do damage. I've noticed the easiest way to find schools that do this sort of thing is to just look for the local megachurches. I know a few of the major ones (CCS and First Baptist come to mind, as does CVCA although they actually seem to do some educating too) from the west and south sides, but they stick to ABEKA or switched in the late 90's since A.C.E. is too hardcore for them (lots of prosperity goers who don't take kindly to corporal punishment or bad education).
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Aug 20, 2014 04:30
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So this is what happens off those ghost exit ramps on 71, 77 and 90. And around Zanesville and Perry County. Was this in a major metro area or rural? Not trying to internet detective, just curious about the demographics. I'm assuming white and lower middle class/working poor? Sounds like the program was racist as poo poo, how about the people involved? The other students, parents etc.
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Aug 20, 2014 04:56
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sugar free jazz posted:So this is what happens off those ghost exit ramps on 71, 77 and 90. And around Zanesville and Perry County. About 15 minutes or so outside of a somewhat urban area,(You've heard of it, they like rubber there) but right on the border of extremely rural areas and a little pocket of Appalachian coal mining country that is there for God knows what reason. The Elders and church members were usually rural but actually quite wealthy. Lots of giant houses/old family farms that did really well for a variety of reasons, probably because of the proximity to Amish communities. (Fun fact, Amish have a shitload more money than you probably think they do.) The regular members tended to be poorer, and my family was poor as poo poo. The whole reason my Mom took the job there (Working for like $2 an hour IIRC) was to get steep discounts on my siblings tuition. I would have probably been forced back in but my parents honestly couldn't have afforded it at the time. As far as racism....the people there weren't overtly so. There were occasionally black students, (never saw one last a full year) but otherwise everyone was lilly white. I honestly doubt that most of the people there were sharp enough to understand how racist the curriculum or their "free market" views were.
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Aug 20, 2014 05:10
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 loving hell. That bureaucracy and the constant asking for permission... It's like someone sat down to figure out how to make education as inefficient and mindnumbingly boring as possible.
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Aug 20, 2014 05:43
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Prester John posted:I'm not sure a GoonRush is the best LET LOOSE THE GOONS OF WAR  (I'm just kiddin' around, do what you think is best)
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Aug 20, 2014 05:45
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ErIog posted:You know how if you train a dog when they're a puppy they'll still obey you when they're 500% the size they used to be because part of them still thinks they're a puppy? That happens to humans to a certain extent too. Thanks, this makes a ton if sense I'm just having a hell of a time trying to wrap my head around this.
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Aug 20, 2014 05:51
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HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:Thanks, this makes a ton if sense I'm just having a hell of a time trying to wrap my head around this. TO expand on this a bit, there were occasionally people whom were not raised in this whom would get dropped in, and I'm certain they would have defended themselves. However, they never seemed to get whacks no matter what they actually did.  However, for those of us deeply indoctrinated such an act would have been unthinkable. One of the Church's tenets was the dangers of even speaking out against the "Lords Anointed". (This is why David refused to speak against Saul, because Saul, even though a horrible human being doing horrible things, was the Lords Anointed.) We were taught that even so much as speaking out against or disagreeing too vigorously with someone whom was the Lords Anointed could bring severe punishment in the form of death, or even death of your loved ones. (There were many stories of "So and so spoke out against an anointed and then there 4 year old daughter died in a car crash") Our Pastor was the Lords Anointed, so even arguing with him was chancy, let alone taking a swing at him. His authority was absolute, and even if he was wrong it didn't matter, he was Anointed, his will had to be followed.
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Aug 20, 2014 06:07
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The whole "if you disobey a leadership figure then your kid might die in a car accident" makes this sound more like a religion started by Darth Vader than a sect of Christianity.
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Aug 20, 2014 06:58
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I dunno, it sounds more or less like the old divine right of kings doctrine to me. Of course, the idea of people preaching divine right in 21st century America, or anywhere really, is mind-bogglingly awful.
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Aug 20, 2014 12:58
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I'm sorry this happened to you and anyone else, this is loving terrifying.
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Aug 20, 2014 13:30
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You had me at "literal Skinner box for children."
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Aug 20, 2014 13:42
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I was feeling somewhat smug and superior until I got to the part where the writer was in Australia and this was happening this decade. Then I was in shock and horrified.
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Aug 20, 2014 13:49
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What a loving nightmare.
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Aug 20, 2014 14:10
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Prester John posted:His authority was absolute, and even if he was wrong it didn't matter, he was Anointed, his will had to be followed. drat this just seems to be teaching kids to not think for themselves. I can imagine the person working later in life, their boss is making a huge mistake and might kill everyone, but they stay silent for a moment too long as they question whether to stand up against them or not. I'm sure some kids learned to game the system and just grew up with skills to become great politicians while the rest have to follow them... These adults sound like they are getting a boner for using the authority that comes with the job.
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Aug 20, 2014 14:17
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Prester John posted:Actual explanation: Because the Church is probably going to go through a period of persecution wherein Christianity will be outlawed by the Government. Record keeping makes it easier for the Government to keep track of all the True Christians they will need to suppress, as evidenced by the current remarkable persecution True Christians have to endure already. So by keeping lovely records, you are just protecting yourself. Also some poo poo about Rome and the census probably. I would also add that what you're describing sounds like a plan for how to operate a "school" with an entirely untrained staff. Since there is no instruction and all work is by rote and simply checked against answer keys, it could be executed by supervisors with little more than a grade school education. Maybe the lack of record-keeping is to help accommodate ACE schools that have no staff capable of doing it. From that perspective it's actually sort of an interesting exercise in evading compulsory education laws. With limited resources and untrained staff, how do you provide children with the minimum level of instruction needed to prevent the state from shutting you down and forcibly enrolling your students in
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Aug 20, 2014 14:20
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Is it just me or is bordering the page with ***WISDOM***WISDOM***WISDOM*** really creepy?
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Aug 20, 2014 14:22
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SedanChair posted:Is it just me or is bordering the page with ***WISDOM***WISDOM***WISDOM*** really creepy?
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Aug 20, 2014 14:28
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I went digging and found some videos for everyone. Here is A.C.E. advocating their system of "Controlled Motivated Learning" with a literal animated donkey carrot and stick metaphor. It also goes into a bit of detail about A.C.E.'s "5 laws of Learning." To skip all the self fellation head to 1:58, that is where it starts to get downright Orwellian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBUw4iWepk0 Here is Johnny Scaramanga(whom actively campaigns to have A.C.E. removed from Britain) discussing A.C.E.'s take on Aristotle. (Hint, he was wrong because he relied on reason and not God.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evFkP3Dm9L0 This one........there are just no words. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umUJWhuKDmQ
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Aug 20, 2014 14:28
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EvanSchenck posted:I would also add that what you're describing sounds like a plan for how to operate a "school" with an entirely untrained staff. Since there is no instruction and all work is by rote and simply checked against answer keys, it could be executed by supervisors with little more than a grade school education. Maybe the lack of record-keeping is to help accommodate ACE schools that have no staff capable of doing it. From that perspective it's actually sort of an interesting exercise in evading compulsory education laws. With limited resources and untrained staff, how do you provide children with the minimum level of instruction needed to prevent the state from shutting you down and forcibly enrolling your students in That is one the exact goals yes, many A.C.E. schools are operated with completely untrained staff. The whole idea was to be able to import a system wholesale and be able to open a school without expensive things like teachers or actual classrooms or books.
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Aug 20, 2014 14:31
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Prester John posted:I went digging and found some videos for everyone. It really wigs me out that these people are using "he"/"him" as the gender neutral second person pronoun. I understand that's technically grammatically correct English, but using "he or she" or "him or her" or "their"/"them" has been pretty standard for more than a few decades now. Literally the only objection a person could have to it boils down to "anyone with too many X chromosomes can gently caress off." It's just so nakedly patriarchal. I guess that's not surprising considering what you said before about all the future Piano Instructors graduating from these A.C.E. programs, but you'd at least think they'd switch the pronouns to the more modern style if only to try to sucker people into thinking they're not so culturally backward.
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Aug 20, 2014 14:42
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