World News Korner

The stupification of America through Christian home schooling.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

A popular curriculum used by home-schooled students has drawn criticism for inaccurate, misleading information and an over-reliance on rote memorization, but those aspects may not be the worst things about it.

A lot of the material that children are exposed to in the Accelerated Christian Education is just astonishingly stupid, according to a former Christian fundamentalist.

Blogger Jonny Scarmanga shared some of the multiple-choice questions he found in some ACE packets used by British home-school students Monday on the blog, Leaving Fundamentalism.

In one question aimed at 9- or 10-year-old fourth-graders, students are given this example: “Children played happily in the water spout.” They are then asked to define a water spout from three examples: “a stream of water,” “two dry ducks” or “playground.”

Another example shows that “Elisabeth Howard sat and listened carefully.” Students are then challenged to identify whether Elisabeth Howard is “a kind of airplane” or “a missionary.”

Still another question asks 12- or 13-year-old seventh-graders to identify whether sports coaches, piano tuners or librarians “can touch the lives of their students.”

If that sounds like a trick question, that’s because it is.

“The correct answer, for those puzzled, is piano tutors,” Scaramanga writes. “It’s not that ACE doesn’t believe that sports coaches or librarians can touch students’ lives. The point is that the exact sentence, ‘Piano tutors can touch the lives of their students,’ has previously appeared in (an ACE packet), and the student is expected to remember this. Verbatim regurgitation of previously seen material is the entire point of the ACE system.”

The ACE curriculum relies on thousands of these multiple-choice questions to imprint the materials in students’ memories.

The ACE curriculum is accredited by the Middle States Associations on Elementary and Secondary Schools and by government-funded voucher programs in 11 states.

In the past, the curriculum has drawn criticism and scorn for teaching that the existence of the Loch Ness monster disproves evolution and that humans coexisted with dinosaurs.

The materials also include a strong conservative political bias that suggests God’s own views are right-wing, while liberals are villainous, and students are taught that government programs should not be used to meet needs that can’t be filled by family members or churches.

But those biases and falsehoods pale in comparison to a stupefying curriculum that expects to engage 10-year-olds by asking them whether an envelope is “a letter holder” or “donkey supplies.”

"Is our children learning?" George W. Bush.

The now inescapable conclusion that we MUST reach in response to what we are learning about Christian homeschooling is that it has literally NOTHING to do with education, and EVERYTHING to do with indoctrination. And to that end ignorance provides fertile soil to implant faith based "truths" to replace scientifically proven facts.

At this point I simply cannot see this outside of the context of a religion that has recognized that its influence and control over the people of this planet has a shelf life, and that the expiration date is rapidly approaching. Which is forcing them to fight with everything they have to defend themselves against progress and the logic on whose wings it is fast approaching.

I recognize that it may be insulting to those of you who still have a faith, but the facts are that it is easier to attract into the fold those who feel rather than think, and those who seek comfort rather than those who seek truth.

The Sarah Palin's of this world simply cannot exist in a world without religious faith. Nor by the way can Fox News, Right Wing radio, the "Pro-Life" Movement, televangelists, faith healers, or Islamic terrorists.

That may seem like a discordant group but all of them benefit from those who have less access to scientific information, and more access to propaganda and faith based "education."

Christian homeschooling appears to be designed to protect a base of supporters that many on the Right, both religious and political, rely on, and who they are desperately afraid of losing.

Those who don't know, believe what they are told by those who claim to have "special knowledge." And that is an important part of the business model not just for religion, but also for Fox News.

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