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In Reply to: Ejewkayshin posted by Joseph on November 30, 2003 at 05:32:56:
Well.... that's not easy to answer because it's a multi-part answer -so bear with me.
Firstly, we all know that education in the F. is and was spotty. As with anything in TF - nothing was ever concrete. On the one hand, we prided ourselves in educating our children at a very young age. I can say that my children benefitted from this. I taught them to read early. Where we were there was no television in English - so that was a big plus factor. Also, TV was and probably still is very restricted. The chilren would watch only approved videos and at certain times. Not like in our households today where it is unbridled and left on continuously which we all know and has been proven is detrimental to a child's learning ability. I think that was a big plus factor in a lot of homes. Unwittingly, that did give the kids a jump start on education. They learned to read early, we used materials that taught children to read at a very early age. We also read to them a lot. Of course, Berg pushed this so the kids could read his letters - supposedly, that was all the education they would need. He even stated they didn't need school after age 12 since all they needed to know was in his letters (I'm gagging here).
After returning to the states, some of my kids went into kindergarten way ahead of their peers. They were reading first and second grade books. In my experience, if one has good reading comprehension that is a major obstacle overcome and one can make up for other areas that were and are lacking by having good reading comprehension. Sadly, in our education system today, that is sometimes a weak area and kids end up with problems later on in life because they slipped the cracks on that part.
OK - so that's one part of the answer. Many kids learned to read early which gives them an edge on learning, period. It gives them the potential to catch up later if they didn't get a whole education. HOWEVER - and that is a big however, THAT depended on whether the children were with parents that had that burning push to make sure their kids had that early training and were not in a home that forced them to neglect it in favor of sending the kids out "busking" to raise money for the homes or to up the stats which Berg had placed on each home for a minimum of souls saved and lit out. Consequently, for many kids, mine included, there ended up being gaps in their education due to moving around and ending up in places where the schooling was not set up or the sitatuion was not conducive to catering to the children's schooling. Or even if the parents had to flee due to persecution and the whole education thing went on hold, sometimes months or years at a time.
Apparently, River Phoenix talked about this. He was as we all know, a very intelligent young man. However, he had huge gaps in his education. There were many things that people just take for granted knowing that he wasn't even aware of.
So, if an SGA just happened to have lucked out and been in one of those F. schools that are pretty well equipped and with teachers and all, gotten a good education from that, there is still the likelihood that either the teachers left for one reason or another and were replaced with substandard teachers, or the SGA had to flee, or move to another field and leave all that nice input to their education behind. They were probably only able to take advantage of that for maybe one or two years or more if they were real lucky. That happened to us many times.
In conclusion, the chances are that an SGA would have either gotten a good education with their consistent and persistent parents, but ended up with gaps in their education due to moving, fleeing, etc. Or, they never got a good education even remotely due to the inability of the parents to either teach their children themselves or ensure and pressure the homes and/or leaders to make sure their children were schooled.
Also, an SGA's education would consist of mostly watered down Berg letters and Maria letters and we all know how off the mark Berg was on so many things and certainly, he did not cover all topics and neither did he cover important and useful information. So, though many may speak and write well (this would look good for TF and their concentration on PR) which would help in getting them into college, they still suffer from not knowing many things and probably are lacking in areas such as science, math, critical thinking, etc., etc. Of course, these can be made up in college and with their ability to read well, that helps. But who wants to start off college with a handicap like that or become a famous movie star and then be noticed that one doesn't know such things as who the first president of the U.S. was. Do you see what I'm saying? Did I make any sense at all?
