A Scientologist on the Will Smith School

I ran across this from the deeply spammed alt.religion.scientology SIG. Normally I don’t comment on Scientology weblogs, boring things they are.

This fellow has got some interesting stuff. Mostly he blathers about how Scientology is the best-best-best-BEST THING EVAH! Sure! Once and awhile he talks about other things, he gives us a glimpse of the world he lives in. He tells us what he thinks of the world outside of Scientology.

Now that is interesting stuff!

From My Scientology Blog

“There seems to be a lot of hullabaloo about the school that Will Smith and his wife Jada are opening. Because the school uses the study technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard some news reports are calling it a “Scientology” school.

My guess is they are calling it that for two reasons:
• Ignorance
• So they can make it sound “Controversial” to “sell more papers”

Neither reason is forgivable. Both reasons are a betrayal of the public trust given to the media and a threat to freedom of speech. Every inaccurate report in the media gives fuel to those who wish to curb that right.”

Ignorance or acknowledging that the newspaper business is a “business?” That’s unforgivable?

I’d say guess again!

There might be another reason. Perhaps-perhaps it is just possible that Study Technology is not as effective as other methods, and (let us not forget) Scientology has got a bad reputation, one that gets worse by the day. Anything associated with Scientology is going to have a bad taste and there is no conspiracy about it. Scientology has brought all of their current problems on themselves. That’s not just my opinion BTW.

The media is not making it sound controversial, it is controversial. It would be controversial no matter who said it. The media is simply passing along a newsworthy story. They are as a matter of fact, doing what they are supposed to do. A newspaper’s “public trust” is whether or not it brings interesting content to the public and keep their advertisers happy by getting people to read their paper. They put in interesting stories, I.E. stories that have some sort of conflict. People often find conflict interesting.

What is the story on the Will Smith school?

Scientology is controversial, so is anything associated with it. Will Smith’s school is using Scientology “Study Tech.”

Why is that controversial, I mean really; why does anyone give a flying fig what Scientology wants or does?

It’s complicated, but I will try to sum it up as simply as I can. Scientology teaches people that they are superior to normal humans. It teaches that they are superior. It teaches that, only by being a Scientologist can one become a super-being, a homos-Novus.

However, the evidence would suggest otherwise, Scientology low level courses appear to remove critical thinking skill and indoctrinate people into a Scientology group-think. One that is very suspicious of anything outside of Scientology and one that reflexively validates people for acts of recursive self-deception.

In other words, people are encouraged to lie to themselves.

The result is lots and lots of boorish, overconfident people who don’t seem to have the slightest idea of what they are doing.

Remember that Holiday Inn Express ad campaign?
(Person 1) ‘That’s a man-eating grizzly bear! Don’t worry! Just scratch him behind the ears and he will calm down!”
(Person 2) “How do you know so much about bears?
(Person 1) I Don’t, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!”
(cue) Sound of people screaming and bear growls.

“Why ask permission? We are the authorities!” says Tom Cruise spouting official church doctrine.

This is just one thing that rubs people the wrong way.

This is why Will Smith’s opening a school that uses Study Tech is instantly controversial. Study Technology (based on works) presented by Science Fiction Writer L. Ron Hubbard (who had no formal training in education) flies in the face of standard education methodology.

Controversial? You bet!

Not to mention that Hubbard (apparently) didn’t even write study tech. Study Technology was written in the early 1990s, he died in the mid 1980s.

Hu? What? Where did it come from?

They explain it this way.

“His personal research projects comprise “major contributions to the prevention and cure of social ills such as drug addiction, crime, and illiteracy. His contributions in these areas have found widespread acceptance and use throughout the world in many sectors of society, including families, schools, businesses, governments and religious organizations[sic]… Although mainly known for his career as a writer, L Ron Hubbard was fully professional in many fields. His career as an educator spanned the globe and the decades from the 1920s to the 1980s. It spanned the lecture halls of Harvard University and the ships and crews he commanded and trained during WWII(sic), as well as the expedition crews he led as a member of the Explorer’s Club.” His research “formed the basis of entirely new subjects in the fields of mental science and religious philosophy.” He also recognised (sic) a collection of barriers to learning “apparently not previously recognised (sic) by educators, yet they proved to be the senior factors in all learning.”

(quoted in Magill magazine, June 2002)

So in other words, L. Ron Hubbard lectured a lot so that makes him an “educator” and if he’s an educator it stands to reason that he might have come up with a “wevolutunawy” new way to teach children, wait a moment… why HERE IT IS! We found it buried in one of his old suitcases!

Ya- sure-sure! I go back to my first statement on Scientology, If you can believe Hubbard could come up with a new form of Psychotherapy, you can believe almost anything.

Well; back to blogging guy.

(conventional education, ed) These methods are good methods and have helped us produce our current civilization but what about the poor guy who “just can’t get it”? The answers of the existing methods are: “you are stupid” or “you are not smart enough” or “get it or you will fail the class” or “if you fail you won’t get that well paid job.” or “you will end up flipping burgers for a living” or “you have a learning disability, take this drug so you won’t worry about it.” These are “blame the student” or “threaten the student” type solutions and are not very helpful.

Whoa-Nelly! First you admit that conventional education works, than you point out that it does not work for everyone, (Duh! Everyone in public-ed knows that! ) Then you imply that it’s the systems fault that the fellow on the street corner with a “will work for food” sign and a sixth grade education. Is it not also public education’s fault that most of his classmates probably went to become contributers to society? They are in fact the people he’s begging money from?

So; if someone fails to get themselves properly educated it’s the system’s fault.

No it’s not! It is a combination of things. Ultimately it is up to the individual to play the cards he or she is dealt. He is as much to blame for his predicament as the system; I would say he’s mostly to blame.

But I don’t go around blaming my problems on other people as a rule. Scientologists’ blame other people for their problems AS a rule!

“Study Technology has solutions to those things which stop you from understanding and being able to apply what you are studying. The problems of leaning (you mean learning (ed)) and education have been solved in Study Technology. That is a bold statement to make, but from personal experience I can tell you that it is a true statement.”

No; that’s a hyperbolic, over the top, sweeping statement, one which is almost completely without merit. So you think Study Tech is perfect just-coz it worked for you? Great! I wish your kids luck! They are going to need it if they plan to compete in this confusing, rapidly changing world. Study Tech might help people to read better in a somatic-rote sort of way but It (IMO) does not promote real comprehension and discourages original thought.

The bottom line is, Applied Scholastics and Study Tech are not magic pills to solve education problems. I’m sure they work for some people but it had nothing to do with the great strides in almost every field that humanity has enjoyed for the past six hundred years. Humanity’s advancement is about the adoption of the scientific processes, implantation of mass production techniques and engineering. Things are no longer done by the proclamations of one man. Truth has to be established by way of reproducible evidence, not in “what is true for you.”Get Study Tech some open debate, some study and peer review and then see if people accept it more. You can’t make people adopt it by attacking established education methods. All you can do is make it a topic of controversy. YOU make it a controversy, not the newspapers.

You do that by rejecting conventional wisdom and trying to reinvent the wheel. You do that by making wild claims without a shred of verifiable evidence. You do it by proclmaing everything one guy says is somehow true.

You do it by attacking people when they point these things out.

Scientology is a controversy machine.

So, controversial? Ohh yes and it will just be getting worse as time goes on.

My Scientology Blog