Sloppy curriculum.

Calvary Chapel Christian Schools, in Murrieta, CA, is suing the University of California because the UC won’t accept their high school units towards admission.

I don’t find this entirely surprising.

Not from a First Amendment point of view, which is what CCCS claims this is about. They say they’re being discriminated against because they’re Christian. I think it’s more likely because their classes are sloppy. UC rejected the classes because they lack content. The literature classes don't read enough literature; the history classes don’t contain enough history.

I taught for four years at Christian Life Center Schools in Vacaville, and saw firsthand how easy it is for Christian schools to teach nothing and make it look like you’re teaching something significant.

Our textbooks were garbage. They were produced by two different Christian textbook publishers, both of whom were more interested in perpetuating Christianity than in providing educational content. A history book is supposed to teach history, not Christianity. Yet our history book regularly left out valuable historical perspectives in order to talk, for example, about the strong Christian faith of Christopher Columbus (a greedy, genocidal maniac), George Washington (a deist, not a Christian; yes he prayed, but not to Jesus), and Stonewall Jackson (a Christian, true; a brilliant general; nevertheless a traitor against the United States, who fought for the right of Virginians to own slaves).

A science book is supposed to teach science, yet nearly a fifth of the book was spent refuting the theory of evolution. I deliberately skipped the section and taught a unit on logic instead. Then there was our Science Fair, which according to ACSI rules had to have a bible verse included with the project—which encouraged kids to take scripture out of context because they constantly found there aren’t any verses you could quote in context. So in the interest of science, we teach sloppy hermeneutics. Yep, Christian schools often won’t even teach the bible right.

Ah, bible classes. At CLCS most of those classes consisted of a weekly memory verse (or a whole bunch of memory verses), and a daily sermonette from the teacher. One of them in our junior high consisted of the teacher saying, “This week we’re going to study love. Find out how many times the word ‘love’ is in the bible. Use a concordance.” It’s better than nothing, but not by much!

You should have heard the uproar when I announced my bible classes were going to have textbooks (which I had to write; the curriculum we were provided was Sunday-school crap, and John Drane and Millard Erickson don’t write at a sixth-grade level) and tests.

Now, this was that school. It was still, by most standards, a good school. Mainly because we had good teachers who recognized the curriculum was crap, and worked around it. I spent half a year avoiding the science textbook until my principal ordered me to use it. I was trying to teach the State of California's standards, not creationism pseudo-science that ranks somewhere with UFO sightings and the search for the Loch Ness monster. Half my history classes were spent refuting the textbooks, which the students greatly enjoyed; and I had to take away the books while teaching the Protestant Reformation because the book was written by rabid anti-Catholics—and half my students were Catholic.

Unfortunately, not every Christian school is going to think like I do, and they’re going to feed the students the crap we find in those textbooks. As a result we’re gonna create a lot of undereducated students. They really won’t be prepared for the UC. In their very first history class, they’ll be astounded by how evil all these “great Christian founding fathers” could be towards their slaves. In their literature classes, they’ll be horrified to discover there are a lot of classics which contain naughty words, adult situations, or double entendres that must be interpreted as such. In science—well, don’t get me started. I’m pretty sure we Christians can’t screw up algebra much, though.

Oddly enough I am in favor of school vouchers. I think parents should be given alternatives to the public schools. But I think the private schools should be required to at least meet the same standards that public schools are (which I found easy enough to do); and I think it’s more important that teachers demonstrate Christianity with their actions, not through Christian propaganda inserted into fourth-rate textbooks.

Comments:

RevLonghorn: I found your last post to be thought provoking. I have wondered sometimes why evangelicals are so nonchalant about the things being taught in sunday school or children’s church, but always raise a fuss if their child doesn’t receive a great education in their school classroom. There was one time when I kindly and appropriately pointed out an error in a Christian book and I was chided for “being a bible student who picks out the problems.”

I teach an adult Sunday school class at my church and the cirriculum used by the A/G, Radiant Life, is horrible. It sucks. It is always trying to force the subject onto the text. It reads more like a devotional than a study. Study is supposed to be hard and challenging, not puff and fluff. I am thankful I have plenty of other resources to help prepare the lesson and actually do an expository style lesson.

I wonder why Americans make such a difference between the education at school at the education at church?

Because everyone has the Holy Spirit. This supposedly makes everyone automatically qualified to be a teacher, regardless of actual knowledge.

And because Christians have lousy examples. I have heard many isogetical sermons in my lifetime, and because of this, the new standard in bible study is to start with a position, then find verses (or stretch them) in order to back up the position. We wouldn’t do that in any other discipline of study, yet supposedly it’s okay to do this with scripture because we were “inspired” to violate the rules of context.

I suspect the reason why people get annoyed about this is because deep down they know this isn’t legitimate—that they’re actually attempting to steal authority from God by misusing his word—and they’re annoyed with anyone who exposes them for the frauds they are. But this sort of behavior would get you failing grades in English, History, or any other field of study where we analyze text. It should be no different in the church.

As you can tell, this is something I've ranted about often.