Author Topic: Education Levels  (Read 5877 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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« on: January 19, 2006, 10:38:00 AM »
What really gets me years after I left CEDU was the level of, or lack thereof, education of the staff members. While there were a few highly educated people working for CEDU, Shrinks and a few parent liasions, most of the staff had a college degree or less. I remember staff flaunting the fact they had never graduated college. A few of the staff had B.A.'s in psychology, but that's not enough education to be administering psychotherapy. It's just something that my mom and I were talking about yesterday and even she said that was something that always bothered her about CEDU.

Any thoughts on this matter?
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2006, 11:50:00 AM »
Well I agree with the psychotherapy part, but why would the teachers need more than their bachelor's to teach US History? Or American Lit? Shit, I'm still a junior in college and I'll bet I could teach both those classes.
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Offline try another castle

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« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2006, 10:49:00 PM »
Quote
On 2006-01-19 08:50:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Well I agree with the psychotherapy part, but why would the teachers need more than their bachelor's to teach US History? Or American Lit? Shit, I'm still a junior in college and I'll bet I could teach both those classes. "


You need a teaching certification to teach high school level classes, I believe. I don't know if any of the teachers had it, but I assume they had some sort of equivalent, otherwise CEDU and RMA never would have gotten their accreditation. I think the big issue is that a lot of these people got their degrees from "diploma mill" institutions.

It might vary from state to state, I dunno.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2006, 10:56:00 PM »
English for me at RMA was pretty much just sitting in the "library" and reading a magazine.  The only words that ever came out of the teachers mouth were hello, be quiet, and goodbye.

To me...it seemed like they would hire any down on his luck logger type that happened to find their way to the hiring office.

You got a pulse?

Let me hear ya yell?

No...at me...like you are pissed...really

Good Job!...You're Hired!
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2006, 09:34:00 AM »
While I feel like the teachers had a few redeeming qualities, it was the staff members that really got to me. How could CEDU allow people to be their staff members who didn't have any formal education for things of that nature? I don't remember one staff member having a child psychology Ph.D and anyone who did was a psychologist. I think that CEDU hired people who were "Roughnecks" for a specific reason: To scare the shit out of the kids. I mean what business does a former logger (and I knew of at least 2) have working at a therapuetic boarding school. That's what really makes me sick. To think that my parents entrusted my saftey to a bunch of wood-chopping mother fuckers who probably went to Idaho to get away from the government. Because really, that's about the only logical reason anyone would ever go to Idaho anyway. Everyone who lived in Bonners Ferry and Naples and Sandpoint...lived there for the same reasons we all lived there: to get away from society.

But it must strike everyone else as a little odd (and that's putting it lightly) that the staff were not professionals i.e. they didn't have an education in their field. No wonder people have bad memories.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2006, 10:44:00 AM »
That's the problem with CEDU--the unaccredited, bullshit staff members with degrees from Yahoo University practicing off the wall, PSEUDO psychology that is usually sought by fucked up adults joining EST and Lifespring in a pathetic attempt to "find myself." The "therapy" models CEDU practiced were not even sound.  They weren't even ethical for impressionable minors in development.  Only mature, consenting adults should place themselves in these highly contrived, mind fucking situations, and even then, you'd be a moron, sitting there, letting people fuck with your mind and telling you what you and your experiences are all about.

Staff members at CEDU had NO business practicing "therapy."  They had ZERO boundaries--which is just a BASIC tenet of therapy. Many had some really fucked up stories they told us in detail, about violence, drug addiction, rape, bestiality etc.  

And we were supposed to look up to them? Girls are supposed to feel safe sitting with someone who traumatized other women? These people were such dipshits that they projected all their own crap on you. So even though I was never a drug addict, not sent to CEDU for drugs and had stopped experimenting way before CEDU, the fact that I had ever touched them made me an addict. Who made that decree? The former cokehead staff leader who lost everything to drugs.  He couldn't BEGIN to separate his personal life from ours'.  Sadly, this was true amongst most staff.

The other among MANY ways CEDU fucked with us was treating all FEMALE students with a sexual history (and even some with NO sexual history) like sluts. For years after CEDU, I felt guilty over every sexual feeling, and I was never even promiscuous. They didn't even help you heal wounds from old trauma--they exacerbated them by treating you like a whore, and threw it in your face every time they wanted to keep you indoctrinated. Does that sound like emotional growth? This wasn't about making you strong or building your self worth. This was about keeping you compliant and keeping you ashamed.

The sad thing is that most new staff members were treated similarly and made to be ashamed of themselves, made to tell their stories in dramatic detail, and could only advance after being put through emotional hell and turned into a fucking bully. That was strength to CEDU.

Fuck CEDU.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2006, 11:42:00 AM »
Once again, couldn't tell you how it was back in the day, but we had some teachers there that were pretty damn good. Ok, fine, we had Kay Short with her fingerpainting english 101, and Crazy Anne with her "voyager classroom" (basically more fingerpainting with a little horticulture thrown in). But Val Davis was a damn good English teacher, Jeff Welp was a damn good Social Sciences teacher, and Jim Hooper was one smart motherfucker and had some pretty cool science classes. And then there was the MAN, John Kastelic, who basically built that little library himself. You think BCA gave him any money for that shit? They hooked him up with a few reference books, but over the years he stocked that entire library, with a little help from the kids of course.

Just think what those teachers had to work with. You think budget constraints are a problem in normal public schools? That place didn't give shit to its teachers. But a lot of them still did the best they could.

Then again, this was [somewhat] recently. Can't say how it was back in the day.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2006, 03:20:00 PM »
well...back in the day I would have to say that it was very very different than today.

but budgetary constraints are really no excuse.  It is nice to hear that there was a staff member that built up the library himself but really.  In the public school system, there are budget constraints because there simply isn't enough money to go around.  At RMA...the only reason for a "budget constraint" was because Mel Wasserman felt that his bank account wasn't sufficiently stuffed.

I could go on and on about the economics of it all as I do have a BS in Econ...and using the "tools" that I learned from my econ program...I would have to say that RMA was pure Capitalism.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2006, 03:45:00 PM »
Ok fine it's no excuse, but that still doesn't make it the teachers fault. Most of those teachers did the best they could with what they had, and would even dig into their own pockets (which certainly were NOT deep at all) to bring us real textbooks and shit.

What is so different about Mel Wasserman hogging all the cash and the state of our public school systems? Just last month in my home town the music and art programs were COMPLETELY crushed. They are now non existent here. Yet somehow the coach of the high school football team managed to get his salary beefed up to over $100,000 a year, and got it approved to bring in assistant coaches for both his coordinators. Everywhere you look, someone up there in a position of power, whether it be a private company like CEDU/Brown Schools, or your local government, is pocketing the real dough and leaving the people who actually keep the system running to scrounge for the scraps.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2006, 06:01:00 PM »
Hey, I have no beef with teachers. Mainly because when I went, there weren't any. They were just staff members/teachers.  That's why English for high school students was 5th grade vocab, art was cutting out and gluing magazine scraps, science was chopping wood, and math was just teaching yourself by text book with the help of our Friendly Neighborhood Wilderness Guide (who actually was cool). Probably drama was the most developed program there was. We all had it, three days a week in raps.
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Offline try another castle

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« Reply #10 on: January 20, 2006, 08:19:00 PM »
I mentioned this before, but I think really the only teacher we had that knew his stuff when I was there was Will Venard. He taught algebra and trig.

He used to be an engineer on a nuclear sub, so it was kind of a given that he knew was he was talking about. And  you had to actually work and study and understand the material to get a good grade in his class.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2006, 09:51:00 PM »
Okay back in the days of the late 80's the teachers were also rap facilitators and family heads, that was the case at the running springs campus.  So how could they be so trained to do both phsychotherapy and education?  Crock of shit they should have never crossed over to do both.  I knew more going in there than going out, I didn't learn shit while I was there.  Yet I was so far behind educationally speaking, but also so over credited that I could have graduated a semester early.
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Offline shanlea

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« Reply #12 on: January 20, 2006, 10:04:00 PM »
I probably knew you... I was the anon who made reference to the highly developed drama dept. (raps)
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hanlea

Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #13 on: January 20, 2006, 11:10:00 PM »
Haha ok now that is just fucked. But actually, we had 'team teachers'. Which basically meant that each team (you guys had teams back in the 70s and 80s, right?) had a couple teacher that would sit in on team raps, which were once a week. Some team teachers never said shit, others got all into the program.

But anyways yea, I loved the teachers. They were really all I had besides my friends...I've always been pretty intrigued by all facets of education, probably why I'm submitting myself to the hell of 7 years of college, but those teachers were really cool people. Jim Hooper was a genius...he could teach you about ANYTHING scientific, and had some of the most interesting, innovative views on current events that I've ever heard. When a blizzard closed the Bonners Ferry post office the day before my college recommendation had to be postmarked, Val Davis threw chains on her pickup and drove all the way to Sandpoint just to get that shit off. It was really a good escape from the drama Shanlea mentioned...when the staff hit me with more than I could handle, I'd just go kick it with a teacher and learn about something. Helped the time go by.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #14 on: January 20, 2006, 11:16:00 PM »
:lol: lol yes it was highly developed drama dept.... most likely I knew you too.... who was in your peer goup (first name last initial) and/or when did you get there? I got there Octoberish 1987.

Quote
On 2006-01-20 19:04:00, shanlea wrote:

"I probably knew you... I was the anon who made reference to the highly developed drama dept. (raps)"
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