Special Processing: The Advanced Classes

[Josh F]

I thought I would share with you guys a particularly unique insight have to the public education system.  I grew up in Los Angeles, and though not a particularly remarkable student as far as grades were concerned, when it came to the national testing I was scoring through the roof.  I was since IQ tested amongst other evaluations and determined to be an especially smart kid.  They're not wrong, and not in a bragging way but just to understand this story, I am intelligent and diligently critical.

 

So what happens when you test through the roof?  Well in Los Angeles there is a point system, of which I was awarded many, which can be used to get you into highly gifted public magnet schools.  I was sent to my first in elementary school.  My biggest problem there was just losing my old friends having to adjust to a much more difficult academic environment and some radical feminist teachers.  We studied latin roots and mathematics mostly.  I then went to a highly gifted Jr High, which was math and science based.  Finally, for Highschool I went to a magnet school which claimed to be about the Humanities.

 

My High School program, called CORE, buried within a normal public school, was the highest level programming and brainwashing I've ever heard of in a public school.  This wasn't subtle.  Our subjects included:  Greek Love, Communism, Racism, Sexism, Classism, Islam, the History of the Native People, Taoism, Slavery, Affirmative Action, LGBT rights, and more.

 

The content was far less extreme than the teachers themselves.  Allow me to give you a few examples:

 

1.  Racism.  Our class of 400 kids was brought to an auditorium.  White kids were asked to stand on chairs.  Latinos and Asians asked to sit on those chairs.  While black kids were instructed to lay prone at our feet.  While in this position we received our class lesson on white privileged.  Kids were asked to move if they didn't feel they were standing or sitting in the right place.  A jewish boy stepped down, a couple black kids stood up, but the ones who knew what was coming next didn't move an inch.  Each kid was publicly addressed one by one and told their ideas were wrong until they were encouraged by the group to return to their original position.  This is the world, we were told.  

 

2.  The math of affirmative action.  Our long haired middle aged hippy white bisexual teacher spent an entire class trying to teach us that the math of Affirmative Action doesn't harm white people.  It was hilariously ineffective, only because so many of the kids in these classes were in advanced math classes and clearly better at math than our professor. 

 

3.  For gender studies, a pyramid of tables was created.  The white alpha males were placed on the top, followed by the alpha males of color, then the alpha females, all the way down to a group of dorks and nerds hand selected by the teacher.  One girl selected began to cry.  She didn't think she was a dork.  We had to spend the next 2 hours watching her and our teacher cry while we're being told we can't escape the social prisons we've be placed in.  All I could think about was escaping the very real and physical prison that was my high school.

 

CONFESS!

 

Another huge aspect of our classes was group confessions, which were very frequent.  An example, a latino friend was uninterested in speaking.  Privately several teachers continue to approach him and discuss speaking with him.  His friends are all white kids, mostly Jewish.  In his group, making racial jokes is mutual, but never vitriolic.  He was asked to denounce his friends as racists, during which he broke into tears.  Only a week later he was explaining how the teachers had been pressuring him into it and that he was never really offended by our jokes since it was such a playful and mutual thing.  He was crying because he was attacking his friends and afraid he was going to lose them. 

 

Pedophilia, not only did we study greek love, but according to piles of stories, out teachers were quite busy living it themselves.  The aforementioned bisexual hippy and the resident Jewish feminist teacher were known to have had a threesome with a student.  The balding communist teacher would run a Cheese Club at school, and every year he invited the kids back to his house for wine, and many stories year after year came from the last girl to leave the party.  Our Music teacher actually got in trouble for molesting children in my own Jr High, and was transferred (yay!) to my High School.  Of course, the young gorgeous english teacher I had a crush on was the only teacher not diddling her students, just my luck. 

 

Once, to test the school, we were required to write a 10 page paper on Affirmative Action.  Instead I wrote 2 page gushing confession of racial ignorance changed only by their valiant efforts.  It was the highest grade they ever gave me.

 

Anyways, hope this gave people some insight into some of the higher level aspects of public school.  The vast majority have no idea what we're being taught (let alone what is being taught at elitists schools), but it is extreme propaganda by teachers with higher certifications.  When the regular brainwashing isn't enough, they send you to this school. 

[Lians]

I got the creeps while reading your post. How disgusting... I'm sorry you had to go through that.

[Josh F]

It really fits my domestic pattern, which is that at the least all the sick torture and propagandizing made me smarter.  Unfortunately not true for most people.  I knew one friend who was afraid to ask women out for almost 5 years because he thought he was contributing to rape culture.  We did have a Libertarian teacher, he lasted 2 years and was scared off to work in a charter school. 

[Lians]

Apart from making a suggestion to explore these topics with a therapist, I'd like to give you a word of advice. I've noticed that intelligent people are incredibly good at providing rationalisations for their behaviour. They keep wrapping themselves up with threads of abstractions until they look like mummies on the inside and can no longer see the real world. I say that from both personal experience and observations of friends and acquaintances.

 

It really fits my domestic pattern, which is that at the least all the sick torture and propagandizing made me smarter.

 

The sentence I quoted is kind of indicative of what I just outlined. Torture and propagandising didn't make you smarter. Becoming smarter was a survival skill. The fact that you stated this so bluntly also raises my suspicions. Jogging will improve you stamina. Running away from a tiger will also improve your stamina. The two are not the same thing though. The former involves choice, the second doesn't. Be very clear about these things. It's important. I'll give you an example.

 

I'm incredibly good at recognizing dangerous people. It only takes me a few seconds to determine whether I should have my defences up in the presence of someone. It's a survival instinct I developed in my childhood. I can tell you that a child that is raised peacefully will be equally as good if not better at spotting these people. However, my skills are deeply tied to painful memories and emotions (fear, uncertainty, anger and so forth). This is the burden that I carry with me all the time. Because my defences are so deeply enmeshed with these feelings, whenever someone triggers one of these emotions in me, my guard is automatically up as if I'm in the presence of a dangerous person. This is not a problem that child will ever face and she'll still have my "skills". It's like an iceberg. The white, shiny surface is clearly visible from a long distance, but what's really dangerous is hidden underneath the water. Knowing all this allows me to stay alert about potential issues with my bad-guy radar. It also allows me to minimize the false readings.

[Josh F]

I'm aware of the connection between my intelligence and my abuse, that's why I said that.  I agree with the ability to quickly be alerted to sick people as well, people with a history that is, and practice being responsive to that awareness and avoiding people.  I will add that my humor comes from the same place as well.  I could always resist people if I was funny or smart about it.