Did You Go To A Parochial School?

[flockoff]

Just wondering if anyone else might have gone to an ACE school or if not, what was your curriculum like. My experience there was pretty laid back compared to what I've read about other schools using that program.

 

The material was very (too) easy; mostly bad science/history laced with propaganda. Most of what I remember about evolution was a story about how Darwin doubted his theories at the end of his life and a sarcastic cartoon of the Taj Mahal assembling itself. The principal made a speech in chapel warning us against accepting evolution and how she was proud of refusing to accept books on it from people outside the school (I wonder who those people were.) Also, communism failed because it denied god, and the Berlin Wall was still standing when I read about it around 1999 (not good for a private school.)

 

Anyway, I'm sure I got off easy compared to some of you. So what was it like?

[OpheliaGinger]

I went to a CoC private school, so it was as one would expect from a religious school--basic science and history education for the general diploma people (which was most everyone except I would have gotten the advanced diploma if I stayed). If you skipped out on chapel (usually by staying the restroom for thee entire time), you would be reprimanded, and everybody had to have a Bible course every semester.

[ClaraOlive]

I went to an Independent Baptist school and I regret it. We mostly used Bob Jones textbooks in high school. It set me back a lot emotionally to be surrounded by only hardcore Christians every single day. My parents used it as an opportunity (although I'm not sure they overtly intended to) to keep me from knowing anyone who hadn't drunk the kool-aid, because it was a large enough school that I never needed to have any activities outside the school.

 

One of the main things I regret isn't about Christianity specifically. The public school near my house that I would have gone to was academically excellent and had good sports teams. I was a straight A student and MVP of my sports team. The main reason that I wanted to go to the public school was to be challenged, to take AP classes, and to have female friends with similar interests and inclinations. I was the only girl in my class to take the highest levels of both math and science. I think I was the only girl to take programming. Part of this was definitely the Baptist view that these were subjects for men, that women were naturally not as good at them and wouldn't need them anyway. I'm the only woman among my former classmates who isn't currently a practicing Christian and I think I live the farthest from our hometown as any of them.

 

Because of how sheltered I was in high school, the first two years of college were very hard for me. I simply had no idea how to act around "normal" people and I made embarrassing miscues all the time (that would have been perfectly normal behavior at Christian school).

[JadedAtheist]

I didn't grow up as a Christian so I didn't go through any Christian education but I've had friends go through them and pretty much all of them found it thoroughly easy. Most of my friends's younger siblings finished their higher education a year or two early and went off to university.

[decafaholic]

I went to a fundy baptist school K-12. back before I went there, they used ACE. I heard it wasn't very good. We used Abeka and Bob Jones.

 

I got a great education in English, but learned nothing about evolution of course. I didn't learn much in science or math, but that's probably because I just didn't feel motivated. I initially struggled with both when I got to college.

 

The funny stuff I remember was the pictures in our books. the people were always wearing school dress-code approved clothing. it didn't matter if they were playing tennis, horseback riding or on a picnic. The men were always wearing khaki pants and polo shirts and the women always wore dresses or skirts.

 

Also, I remember in 8th grade science, my teacher was reading the text about puberty and purposefully skipped the word "breasts". Come to think of it, I'm surprised the word "breast" was even in the text!

 

Christian school gave me a lot of funny stories to entertain my current friends with. it's a different world!

[BrotherJosh]

I went to a Christian high school, I received a poor education in Math, History, Science (that still has repercussions today) and basically everything but English...My English teacher was great (though later fired for getting a divorce). My History classes consisted of a simplistic view of history especially in regards to early American history (chopping down the cherry tree and whatnot). The Founding Fathers were guided by the holy hand of gawd and all that bullshit. Science consisted of a disparaging comment about Darwin and a rolling of the eyes by the teacher. Luckily, I went to a secular college and got a real education not based on fairy tales and a fabricated view of history. Funny thing is, my graduating class was regarded as one of the best classes to come out of that school GPA wise, well most of us became atheist or agnostic within the first couple years of graduation. We quickly went from most cited class in school brochures to never talked about class.

[Vixentrox]

I went to a Catholic school for 1st & 2 nd grade. A Lutheran school for 5-7th grade. Rest was public school. The education was over all excellent. The public educated people were so far behind it was laughable.

[Crazy Donna]

Just wondering if anyone else might have gone to an ACE school or if not, what was your curriculum like. My experience there was pretty laid back compared to what I've read about other schools using that program.

 

The material was very (too) easy; mostly bad science/history laced with propaganda. Most of what I remember about evolution was a story about how Darwin doubted his theories at the end of his life and a sarcastic cartoon of the Taj Mahal assembling itself. The principal made a speech in chapel warning us against accepting evolution and how she was proud of refusing to accept books on it from people outside the school (I wonder who those people were.) Also, communism failed because it denied god, and the Berlin Wall was still standing when I read about it around 1999 (not good for a private school.)

 

Anyway, I'm sure I got off easy compared to some of you. So what was it like?

I went to an ACE school for just over a year, but it was enough to permanently put me behind in science and mathematics. I have never caught up, and it greatly impacted my career choices once I got to the last few years of high school.

 

I notice, in retrospect, that it was all propaganda, with very little science content. Fortunately, I was able to teach myself science once I was in a normal high school. However, not being able to do grade 7 maths pretty much ruined my life. I had to teach myself stuff everyone else already knew when I got to university.

[OpheliaGinger]

When I look in retrospect, I really didn't receive any better of an education than my public school counterparts.

[buffettphan]

I went to public school through third grade. Then catholic school through 8th grade. When I first attended catholic school in 4th grade, I was behind the other kids. When I returned to public high school in 9th grade, I was way ahead of everyone else -- including in the subjects of math and science. It was in catholic school where I learned about Egyptian, Roman, and Greek mythology. However my teacher didn't appreciate it when I asked her questions about the similarities between the ancient religions and catholicism. No discussion was allowed on that topic, other than her pat answer of "god works in mysterious ways, including through pagan religions."

 

This was back in the 1960's/early 1970's, and times have changed. Heck, we sang John Lennon's Imagine at my church and the priest advocated the use of birth control. Given today's climate, I'd be willing to bet he's been excommunicated.

 

I have grandkids who attend a christian school. The science they learn is from a highly biased perspective, to say the least.

[ClaraOlive]

I think that the slowest kids at my Christian school did better than the slowest kids at the public school. But the Christian school normally would not take children with real problems at home - Jesus wants us to keep our nice clean middle class children away from those people.

 

I know that I personally would have done better academically in public school, because I would have taken advantage of all the opportunities. And between mandatory chapel, morning devotions, and Bible class (not even counting the time used in other classes to spread Christian propaganda instead of teaching the subject), I estimate that I wasted 1/6 of my education on Christianity. That's a whole fucking lot.

[flockoff]

the Christian school normally would not take children with real problems at home - Jesus wants us to keep our nice clean middle class children away from those people.

Mine would very much accept those kids, which kind of made for a clusterfuck ... the ultra sheltered Christian kids who were there because their parents thought they'd be with others of their kind were thrown in with kids who were there because the public schools didn't want to deal with them. I mostly just had to be there because my parents didn't live in the district with me so I couldn't go to the public school, so there I was caught in the middle. It probably gave me a wider perspective, though.