It was only when I started to think about it that I realized there is a whole scientific community backing up this theory of evolution. I realized it would take a massive conspiracy on the part of the scientific community to cover up the idea that maybe evolution wasn’t airtight. This is no problem for ACE. From what I can tell, they think there is a massive conspiracy to disprove God with the theory of evolution. The problem with that should be plainly obvious. To say that evolution disproves God is fundamentally wrong. It says nothing of the sort.

With an open mind, I began a simple Google search to find the evidence behind the theory of evolution. Imagine my genuine surprise when I found a mountain of it. I had always been led to believe, not just by ACE, but also by organizations like Answers In Genesis, that the fossil record disproved evolution. It doesn’t. Not only did I find fossil evidence, I found DNA and vestigial evidence as well. I found out that there is no denial of science among evolutionary biologists.

Needless to say, my opinion of Accelerated Christian Education only deteriorated from that point on. All it takes is one broken egg to realize they are all spoiled. Being too young to understand what was going on at the time (as I suspect most ACE students are), I didn’t realize the complete demonization of the word “socialism.” I didn’t understand that ethically, they should not have been feeding me the type of right-wing propaganda that seems so obvious now.

For a long time, I didn’t understand that if a belief is unreasonable and unjustified, you shouldn’t hold that belief. This is so clear to me now, but then, I just didn’t get it. If I recall correctly, ACE’s reasoning was something along the lines of, “Do not follow your own reasoning, because man’s reasoning is not God’s reasoning.” I’m fine with someone holding that belief, but to write a curriculum based almost entirely around it is wrong. The purpose of an education is to teach people to learn and to reason for themselves. A curriculum that does not do this is useless.

Those are just some of the problems with the material ACE teaches.

The real fun begins when you have a look at the method used to teach the material. The children who are subjected to this curriculum sit at an isolated desk by themselves for hours on end, working by themselves, raising a flag when they have questions. It’s basically like a student from any other curriculum doing homework as their regular work—and then for homework, you get more homework.

With the way this curriculum is structured, asking questions is relatively difficult. Most of the time, ACE instructors have only gone through about four days of training for their teaching position.

In my humble opinion, questions are the very essence of learning. The easier it is for children to ask their questions, the better. ACE is moving in the wrong direction. From what I’ve heard, the appeal of ACE to most users is that only a few teachers are necessary to use it to the fullest. I can understand this perspective, but my thought is that if you don’t have enough resources to operate a school properly, you shouldn’t be doing it at all. Rather than give children a mediocre education at a Christian school, I think kids should just be sent to a public school. The problem is that this won’t happen because, for most people in the same position as my principal, the primary objective is not education, but indoctrination to Christianity. If you consider ACE from this angle, it’s a bit more successful. As far as I know, I will be the only atheist or even non-Christian ever to graduate from my school.

I do have a good amount of hope though, as far as the method of teaching is concerned. (Not for ACE, but for my school.) About four years ago, the school board hired a new principal. One of his rather large goals for the school is to switch completely from using the ACE curriculum to a classroom setting. The changes are happening slowly, and from the bottom up, so I don’t see many benefits yet. I have a younger sister, though, whose only experience with PACEs was in kindergarten. I like to think she’ll be taught to question things much more than I was.

The problems with the new science program are still obvious to many of the people who read some of the material. One section in the book has the heading, “Why I Do Not Believe In Evolution.” The contents are as follows:

1. Evolution cannot answer my question, “Where did the world come from?” 2. Evolution is not scientific. The study of science requires

a. something to observe, analyze, and record,

b. someone to do the observing, analyzing, and recording,

c. and the ability to repeat this scientific work.

In the beginning, the only personality present was God; therefore, He is the only One qualified to answer my question. 3. Evolutionary ideas are not verified by scientific evidence. 4. Evolutionary ideas constantly change. 5. Evolutionary ideas are as varied as the individuals who think them up. 6. Evolution must be accepted by faith. Faith in evolution is unjustified by works. [Out of everything in this section, this is the one that makes me the angriest. It’s such a fundamental misunderstanding of science.]

This section, along with one titled “Why I Believe In Creation,” was sent home with my sister and her classmates for approval from their parents. I was extremely interested to hear what this new curriculum had to say about the Genesis account of Creation versus the scientific account. I was utterly disgusted to find out that it was no better than ACE’s version of the story. As you can easily see, it gives Darwin’s bright idea none of the intellectual and scientific respect it deserves.

Troubled, I showed the paper to my parents. Once I showed them some of the obvious problems with these things that were taught as scientific facts, they gave me their consent to speak to the principal.

Let me point out to you, right now, that my parents are both young-earth Creationists. What I did was not try to prove to them that humans are descended from apes, or that Noah’s flood never really happened. What I showed them was simply the problems with how this textbook misrepresented evolution to the students.

It was with the same intention that I walked into the principal’s office the next morning. (My principal has always been someone I respected. Even if I didn’t always agree with his ideas, he was always largely a reasonable man.) I started to show him some of the places where this book went severely wrong. I wasn’t trying to convince him to teach evolution. All I was asking him to do was not to misrepresent it to them.

Then he asked a question which, for good reason, made me lose some of my respect for him. He asked me, “Tyler, how do you feel about Jesus?” As if that was somehow relevant to the criticisms I had brought forward.