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Butterfly_poette
Registered user
Username: Butterfly_poette
Post Number: 19
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 7:27 am: |     |
OK, I am sure many of us here were brought up in SDA education. Most SDA schools are very small, only where there are many SDAs are there bigger elementary schools. There is usually an academy and SDA university nearby. Yet many of us were in the tiny church schools.
I went to three different church schools. All were in Massachusetts. I went to the first one from 1986-1988, the second from 1989-1990, and the last one from 1990-1994. They had their good points and bad points.
The good:
I had a wonderful teacher the first two years. She was into nature a lot and taught us a lot about wildflowers. She had speakers teach us the names of things in nature. She taught us how to identify flowers.
The school had a set of encyclopedias in the room. I loved leafing through them and reading random things. There was even a small "library" (a little more than a closet) which was fun to poke through. Also, a kind man used to give the kids fruit every week.
The bad:
The first school had many kids who were BRATS. They used to pick on my mercilessly. I came home with bruises. I lost a tooth because a boy slammed me on the ground hard. I had water dumped on me during a school picnic.
And mostly they got away with it. WHY? Because their parents were "big shots" in the church. Now all those kids are evil adults now, in trouble with the law and such. Always wanted such a squeaky clean look each Sabbath. LOSERS!
The 2nd school had a teacher that didn't even want to teach. She would show up late often. She would sit at her desk a lot and do little. She redeemed herself by getting up to teach us stuff when the parents were coming to pick up their kids, so they actually thought she was busy.
She did WONDERFUL school programs. She was a talented musician and artist. She made wonderful sets, had us practicing for hours and hours on the programs.
Yet all throughout most school days, the kids wandered around, fooled around, didn't learn much, and caused trouble. HA!
The ugly:
One teacher I had put me in a coat room for 2 hours. I don't know what I did. She also had me writing sentences (like 300 or something) and my mother promtly took my sister and I out of the school. I never felt that I could ever get on that woman's good side.
The absurd:
My last church school teacher was ignorant. She came to the USA at age ten, and you think she would have learned something about the USA then. She didn't know Delaware was a state. She thought she could take the school on a field trip to see Biosphere, which is a FOUR DAYS drive from Mass.
Every month we would change our desks to different formations. One month the kids decided to make a big "X". After putting our desks in a "X", we realized that it didn't fit. Some ends were turned in, and then the desks were in a half-Swastika for a month. |
Thegoldenway
Registered user
Username: Thegoldenway
Post Number: 35
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 8:00 am: | |
I remember those church school days hee hee
I was fortunate tho cuz both teachers that I had were fairly decent. Their weakness was teaching English. By the time I got to college I couldn't pass college English. The academy is where I ran into problems. I went to a school where money was everything. If you and your family had money you were accepted and treated well. If not....well hummm
I was one of the have nots so I never fit in or was accepted by the others. That was not a good time for a kid to go thru something like that. Teens really need to be accepted and feel like they are part of the group when they are at that age.
Do you remember pathfinders, too? ha ha
Looking back I realize just how sheltered I was while growing up. Wow! How sad. I was very athletic and I know that I would have done very well playing girls softball and soccer and all the sports that girls play....but they would always schedule their games on the sabbath so of course I couldn't join. My grandfather, who was not SDA, really wanted me to go to public school and get involved in track. I was a very good runner and he saw that and also saw that I would stand a good chance in getting a college scholarship in track and also in other sports.
It's funny cuz the other night my husband and I were talking about all the opportunities we have missed out on due to SDAism. I am very grateful that we pulled out of that church. I know that my sons have missed out on some opportunities when they were smaller but they still have lots of opportunities coming their way yet for they are 16 and 19 years old right now. We just recently left the church as a family. PRAISE GOD!!!
I have a lot of good memories of growing up Adventist but I also have a lot of bad memories of those days too. It's sad at all the things I missed out on due to my religion at the time. But I am trusting God to work it all together for good and I know that He will. |
Butterfly_poette
Registered user
Username: Butterfly_poette
Post Number: 22
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 8:11 am: | |
Golden Way, I understand.
I ended up in public high school. I missed out on proms (didn't dance) nearly every other activity (all on Sabbath). I only "discovered" jewelry last year. Always was afraid I would go to Heck for wearing some. Also was afraid of what other SDAs would think (all their kids and grandkids wear jewelry, so what was my problem).
I do think I also would have done better out of the SDA system had I not been afraid to blossom there. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 9270
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 1:43 pm: | |
I went to sda schools from 1st grade to graduation from LLU. I spent the 1st year of college at a community college before transferring to LSU. In grade school the boys teased me a lot. I do not remember why. I got back at them by hitting them back and really scratching them until they bled. Never once did they ever tell the teachers or their parents who did it as then they would have to tell they teased me first. In 4th grade a boy came up to me while I was on a swing and told me he wanted it. I refused and swung with my fist and hit him in the eye. Gave him a big black eye. He never told the teacher or his Mom who did it. Incidentally we rode with the teacher to school. I could tell other stories of never being accepted by the sda kids as my parents were very poor.
Looking back I am glad I was not accepted as it made it much easier for me to leave when God took me out of adventism 7 1/2 years ago.
Thank you awesome God.
Diana L |
Angelcat
Registered user
Username: Angelcat
Post Number: 332
Registered: 11-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 3:21 pm: | |
Well, i was "homeschooled" so even an SDA school would have been a huge improvement...
Anyho, i do know many people who've had bad experiences with the local church school. One friend's kids have left God b/c of what happened at the school. Another firned had 3 girls go thru hte school..( well, hteyounger too left aftergrade 7). Anyhow, the older 2 girls struggled a lot. They were thought of as lazy & not applying themselves. the oldest had it worst, she was there thru grade eight, and is really sensitive, so she had a hard time. I think she did kind of stop trying, b/c no matter what, it was never good enough. The whole church knew she had issue, casue hte teachers gossiped...yeah not good. Anyhow, both she and her next younger sister were diagnosed with learning disabilities when they went to public school. But, even kids who had a diagnosis, didn't get the help they needed. They were just gosspiped about. The teachers would blame the parents...
I get pressured to put Rachel in this school. Last year, I said no, she was going into pulic school, to one of the best schools in our town. This spring I got a message on fb from the principal,asking if I was happy with Rachel's school, or if I was ready to reconsider church school. I've also had a woman who used to teach there come up to my daughter in a store, and tell her that she was sad Rachel wasn't attending the church school, and mentioned 2 of Rachel's friends who are. On what planet is that ok? my daughter was 5 at the time, she'd just started school, and it's NOT her decision where she attends anyhow. It's just assumed that i am making a mistake, and i know it. So arrogant. Telling my 5 YR OLD that there is something wrong with where i have chosen for her to go to school.
Diana-my mom got her Masters degree from LLU. She definielty has lived her life in an Adventist bubble...worked for the church, in Ethiopia as a missionary part of the time... |
Butterfly_poette
Registered user
Username: Butterfly_poette
Post Number: 27
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 6:33 pm: | |
I worked at SDA schools in Korea. Living hell. The people who ran the SDA Language Institute at the time were a bunch of chimpanzees. A few were OK, but the rest were nuts. One guy, L., had many favorites. Some school coordinators could treat anyone like dirt and get away with it. If there were any issue with the coordinator (another missionary) and any other teacher, L. would take the side of his crony. It was awful. After a while we had to learn who is inner circle was and we had to deal with those individuals.
At the SDA high school I worked at, the kids knew little spirituality at all. They just prayed in the schools. Few kids knew much about the Bible. About 30% were SDA, the rest weren't. Yet what were they teaching there?! |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 7308
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 8:42 pm: | |
Yet what were they teaching there?!
Duck logic?  |
Butterfly_poette
Registered user
Username: Butterfly_poette
Post Number: 29
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 8:53 pm: | |
>>Yet what were they teaching there?!
Duck logic? <<
I do think that any Christian school should teach their kids about the Bible. They should know the Bible quite well. I think it was sad that those students didn't know much about the Bible at all. I don't think the school was doing it's job as a Christian institution. Even those not from Christian homes could have learned about Jesus and His Word there. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12722
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 04, 2011 - 11:17 pm: | |
Bottom line: they're not Christian schools because they teach another gospel and have a limited God and a fallible Jesus. They can't actually solve their problems because they have no reality/truth in their foundation. Whatever Christian-sounding things they say, their foundation is flawed, and they can't base their decisions on ultimate reality. They have no hope of actually fixing the incredible brokenness that their great public works camouflage.
Colleen |
Nowisee
Registered user
Username: Nowisee
Post Number: 889
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 06, 2011 - 9:22 pm: | |
I think the worst thing about SDA education is that, while we THOUGHT we were learning the Bible and had lots of Bible classes, it was totally devoid of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What a waste of time!
I have good memories and bad...I did have one or two boys who hit me (punched me in the stomach, etc. on a regular basis) when I was maybe 3rd grade...hadn't thought of that in a long time. Where were the teachers...? |
Butterfly_poette
Registered user
Username: Butterfly_poette
Post Number: 33
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 - 4:38 pm: | |
For me:
Teacher #1 was an excellent teacher, worked hard at what she did. Yet she did think she was above the people there. Her husband had a good job as a professor at Atlantic Union College. The church school was filled with mostly inner city kids, many folks on welfare and food stamps.
Teacher #2: Abusive. Used to squeeze the back of our necks, pull on our lips, etc. Later I found out her father is an evangelist in Canada. That's why she got away with it all.
Teacher #3: Never did her job, wowed parents by making great school programs.
Teacher #4: Used to teach us kids about "Positive Mental Attitude". Made us keep notebooks where we had to copy Robert Schuller quotes, and other people's proverbs. She even used to play classical music tapes on very low for a while. She thought even the low volume music would stimulate our brains.
What New Age crap that was... |
Skeeter
Registered user
Username: Skeeter
Post Number: 1491
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 - 7:51 pm: | |
Did anyone have a teacher (I think his first name was Ernie)who was hard to understand ? I think he had a cleft palate or something. |
Butterfly_poette
Registered user
Username: Butterfly_poette
Post Number: 35
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 - 8:52 pm: | |
An Ernie P. did a presentation at a graduation I went to as a schoolkid. He had a patch on one eye. Quite a funny guy, he had my attention then. |
Butterfly_poette
Registered user
Username: Butterfly_poette
Post Number: 36
Registered: 5-2011
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 - 9:00 pm: | |
My last SDA church school teacher was in her late 20s and was married. She was completely obsessed with having a baby. Her husband didn't want kids yet for various reasons, he just wanted to wait a few more years.
The teacher was telling us kids how she was fighting with her husband to let her have a baby ASAP. He made her take The Pill every morning. The kids told her maybe she should hide them under her tongue or replace them with aspirins. She told us she had a big fight about babies and she holed herself up in the restroom for an hour to bawl her eyes out.
Every time a family member had a baby or toddler she would rush to that car after school to see that baby. Yikes.
That was all so unprofessional of her. BTW, she did end up having two boys later on, now teenagers. And yes, she's divorced. I do wonder how much she has enjoyed motherhood. Parenthood is rewarding, but it's not easy. |
Skeeter
Registered user
Username: Skeeter
Post Number: 1492
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 - 11:24 pm: | |
I remember one teacher our children had at a small (very small) SDA school in the mountains (actually on my MIL's property) after the teacher who had the speech impediment they got a female teacher who came to California from New York, she was a single lady and brought her mother out here with her. Here she was teaching in a tiny country schoolroom aprox 30 miles from the nearest town and she had never learned to drive a car. I guess living in NY she never had to learn.... but what a strange couple of teachers the conference had found for our little school. They both seemed very "nice" but sometimes I wondered if they were the only two who were willing to teach at such a small school. |
Nowisee
Registered user
Username: Nowisee
Post Number: 891
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2011 - 7:30 pm: | |
I think I finally figured out why I don't know anything about geography. The first teacher that should have been teaching it had us make shoebox dioramas almost all year long. And none of the later teachers mentioned it. Weird.
Had a horribly inept Home Ec teacher. I realize now that she taught us sewing and cooking without knowing anything about those subjects. At the time I just thought I was stupid. A conversation I remember: "Mrs. A, where's the soy sauce?" Mrs. A: "In the cupboard." (Went and looked several times--couldn't find it) "Mrs. A, I can't find it anywhere in the cupboard". Mrs. A: "Oh, it's in my cupboard at home." (Not making this up--and my parents sacrificed for this education!) |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12733
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2011 - 7:40 pm: | |
Nowisee...sigh. Just sigh. It's too much energy to cry out.
The sacrificing for SDA education really upsets me from this perspective. I remember pleas from the pulpit for "Christian education" offerings. And of course, there were tuition subsidies for "church employees".
It's all about brainwashing, keeping the kids in the cult, ingraining them with the great controversy worldview, marrying the to other brainwashed cult children, etc.
Of course it works, to a degree. But the money spent is astonishing.
Colleen |
Skeeter
Registered user
Username: Skeeter
Post Number: 1497
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2011 - 7:43 pm: | |
Mrs. A: "Oh, it's in my cupboard at home."
Well, shame on her..... didn't she realize that Ellen forbid the use of soy sauce because it is a "fermented" product. ? I bet she had vinegar at home too.... LOL so much for the "health message" |
Philharris
Registered user
Username: Philharris
Post Number: 2516
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2011 - 8:11 pm: | |
Ironically, the only soy products that are good for you are those produced via the fermentation process.
Closely related is the yeast used to make bread. The bubbles that cause the bread to rise contain alcohol. As a young SDA boy mother would not let me eat her fresh baked bread until it had cooled off so all that terrible alcohol would have evaporated.
But get this, you could always justify alcohol if there was a medical need for it. Dad insisted that apricot brandy was the best cough medicine to use so mother would give in and I always looked forward to ‘getting sick’. So, how does something that is bad for you become good just because you ‘discover’ a need for it?
Fearless Phil |
Skeeter
Registered user
Username: Skeeter
Post Number: 1498
Registered: 12-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2011 - 9:24 pm: | |
Hmmmmm... I guess Ellen discovered a "need" for oysters and duck. ;) |
Nowisee
Registered user
Username: Nowisee
Post Number: 898
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2011 - 9:54 pm: | |
Phil, I believed that hot bread thing until I was in my 20s!! |
Raven
Registered user
Username: Raven
Post Number: 1188
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, July 10, 2011 - 6:08 am: | |
In my experience, there has certainly been some of each, the good, the bad, the absurd. If nothing else, this thread makes for unique and interesting stories!
The good that comes to my mind is the teacher I had grades 3 through 6. Being a somewhat small (10 grade) school, she started out teaching 3rd & 4th when I was in 3rd, then at some point it changed to 4th, 5th, and 6th all in the same room so that's how I had her for so many years. But she was an extraordinary person who devoted a ton of time and effort investing in her students. Our 3rd grade class was her first class out of college and she had so much enthusiasm. She taught every subject (thoroughly and well); she also took us to parks and various outings, taught art and music, and led us in school plays and musical programs - very creative ones too. I especially remember the year I was the front half of the camel in the Christmas play and my best friend was the back half. My mom made the costume that included a papermached head. We had to be bent over the entire time in the costume.
The bad in that school was my 7th and 8th grade year where there was a new principal and some new teachers that had zero control over the kids. I remember there was a checkmark on the board system where first our name was written when acting up, then a checkmark, and if there wre 3 checkmarks you got sent to the boiler room for a paddling. It became a game to see if you could get one checkmark less than having to go to the boiler room - I participated as well just because it seemed like a fun game. It ticked me off that the teacher wouldn't put my name up though because he wasn't use to me being a problem. Some of the things that went on in that classroom was blowing spit wads through straws, and watching/cheering on a Vietnamese kid who had his crickets fight (supposedly to the death) in a shoebox.
By the time our daughters went to the SDA school (different state), I was appalled at how academically behind they were for the elementary level when they prided themselves on being so academically progressive. They didn't start the very beginning basics of the multiplication tables until after Christmas break of 4th grade. For all the years they were there, they had 1/2 the year Social Studies and 1/2 the year Science, but would take so long on Social Studies that they didn't get around to Science until school was practically out. Upon questioning these things I was told that the kids shouldn't be pushed at the younger grades and EGW said kids should be free as a bird until after age 10. It was one of those eye openers for me that they cared more about brainwashing kids to stay SDA than anything else. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 9284
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, July 10, 2011 - 9:10 am: | |
The very, very ugly for me was when my son was in sda school. At the parent teacher conference I did not agree with the teacher on something. She did not like that and I reminded her that I helped pay her salary. After that she took it out an my son. I am glad she did b/c that is when I decided to take him out of that school. My sda friends all told me, "Diana, you know what Mrs White says". My reply was I do not care. This woman is not treating my son right and I do not have to leave him there. Two years later all these friends took their kids out. They told me they wish they had taken their kids out when I took my kid out. I see now that was God's doing. He did not want my son in that school. Thank you awesome God for arranging to have me take my son out of sda school.
Diana L |
Philharris
Registered user
Username: Philharris
Post Number: 2521
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, July 10, 2011 - 10:47 am: | |
While I could share several unpleasant experiences that that happened to me in SDA schools I could also say similar things about when I went to public schools. So instead I want to share about my very first school teacher.
In the begining of my first grade we lived at Angwin so I went to the Howell Mt Public School. It was a one-room first through eighth grades school and although public, it was run according to SDA standards with an SDA teacher, Mrs. Whittaker. Later in another SDA school her husband was my teacher in the third grade. They both were good dedicated teachers. Not long after, they bought my aunt's home at Angwin and were long time family friends. By that time Mrs. Whittaker had become a nurse.
Years later after I mustered out of the Marine Corps I went to work at the veteran’s home in Yountville as a hospital aide. She was my trainer and her husband was another aide. Without interjecting SDA stuff, they mentored me forward with my life and wished me the best when I received an appointment to the shipyard as an apprentice Shipfitter. All this time I was living a very worldly life.
I have nothing but good memories for those two.
Fearless Phil |
Dt
Registered user
Username: Dt
Post Number: 126
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Monday, July 18, 2011 - 2:50 pm: | |
I went from first grade thru Academy in SDA schools.
Except for one teacher, I had a first-rate education grades 1-10 that I have always been grateful for.
Academy was ok academically but it started me seriously questioning Adventism. A real mind trip.
DT |
