So thankful that I found this thread. We are in the same boat as many of you. We have done CC for 3 years and my daughter will be in Challenge A next year. I really debated whether to just hold her back one more year since she’ll be a very young 12, but she is excited about it and didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm as she tends toward anxiety and being over-cautious.
I am really struggling though with knowing she as to read “It Couldn’t Just Happen.” The one thing that is giving me some comfort is that our Challenge A tutor has quietly expressed to me her misgivings about the tone of that book as well. Early in the year when the Challenge class did a small presentation to the whole community one of the students explained their science study as “creationism vs. evolution.” Our tutor quickly back-pedaled that and said, “AND about appreciating the beauty and complexity of creation.” I could tell she was trying to downplay the “vs.” idea. So at least I know she will be sympathetic.
My main concern is that my very sensitive and people-pleasing daughter is going to struggle with the tone of the book…being told that this is the only right way to think on this issue and then to hear at home that this isn’t true. I also know that many of the other students in her class some from much more fundamentalist backgrounds and are going to be all for it. The peer pressure could be difficult for her sensitive soul.
Anyhow…just glad to know we aren’t alone in loving MOST of CC and our community, but struggling to reconcile this aspect. I feel like many of you that this will probably end up being our last year as I just don’t know that we can continue to to delve deeper into the upper levels and have to fight this ideology for all her middle/high school years. It makes me sad and frustrated. I am grateful for a place to talk about it with others who are there too. Thanks!
Hi Molly,
Yes, I agree! If it was just the “God of the gaps” issue, that is easy to address. The difficulty is really the mocking tone toward scientists and Christians that see evidence for more than micro-evolution and explaining to our kids why a Christian author would have such a rude dismissive attitude (and the fact that we’re then implicitly encouraging that attitude in the Challenge kids).
The book is also kind of old and scientifically out of date (originally written in 80s and republished in 2011 with no mention of what’s transpired since then…human genome project etc). I am hoping to put together a study guide of some sort to use alongside it. It would be so helpful if they would read The Fallacy Detective first, because It Couldn’t Just Happen would be perfect material for applying those principles! PM me if you’re interested in whatever I put together or have any ideas and I’ll keep you in the loop.
If you wanted to add in another book to go along with Chall A that would show the range of views Christians hold and also demonstrates a more charitable attitude, you might try the Haarsma’s Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. I’m planning on reading that with my son.
Hi! This is an old thread but I’m new here and reading everything I actually came to the forum to ask for feedback on this very thing - the cycle 3 phrase about the theory of evolution. I’m disappointed to hear that CC was aware of the issues there and did not correct it in their update a couple years ago. Did you ever hear any more about this from them?
Hi Julie,
CC did update their memory work for Cycle 3, it’s just that it’s still incorrect Not a huge surprise. They don’t really acknowledge an EC view as valid (don’t know for sure if they’re still using Defeating Darwinism but that starts out with an anecdote about a student that discovers EC and how terribly misguided he is). I think the memory work shows a combination of their bias and their lack of understanding of science. They use Apologia for Bio, so that’s the view of science they’re coming from (very ideological and skeptical of scientists in general).
One of my kids did Chall A, and at that point we realized that it was not going to be easy to customize to the degree that we wanted for high school. The math/sci were 1-2 years behind what we wanted for him and it seemed a waste of time and money to be paying for something that was just going to be review and I still need to teach those subjects at home (at that time CC did Alg 1 in 9th, Bio in 10th…9th grade science was more middle school level IMO). His teacher was great and accommodated different views, but given the curriculum choices, I don’t think you could bank on that.
Our CC group crumbled due in part to the whole “using a church building to run a for-profit business” issue (CC corporate and individual CC groups are for-profit, unless you set up a non-profit with board for your group etc). The church (I think rightly) decided that they would not host groups like this. They had not realized CC was for-profit and CC has always been evasive in how they advised directors to explain the group to potential host churches. All felt shady to me… that was a good time to bow out for us
Thank you @Lstrite , that is very interesting and helpful to hear of your experiences with CC. My oldest is in his 4th year of Foundations now but our community is pretty young (Foundations and Essentials only, no Challenge yet) so I hadn’t had a chance to catch a glimpse of what the older kid programs are like yet. We have loved most aspects of the program so far but I have to say I’m not super hopeful about the group accommodating different views/valuing science in future given some members’ very vocal resistance to a mask mandate this year, but that’s a whole other issue! I’m sure our family will at least be supplementing with our own science or else looking beyond CC once we get to the Challenge years.
Others who have posted about CC, if you’re still active on here— @MollyCD@cartophile@Sharon_King1 , anyone else? I’m curious what your experiences re: CC/ science have been since you posted a few years ago? Would love to hear any updates!
Yeah, we did really like Foundations and Essentials…each of my kids did 4-6 years of Foundations and either got
Another common problem for families of Chall age kids is many (most?) groups find it hard to sustain a full Chall program (A/B,1-4). Its really hard to find moms that have the time and expertise to teach all 6 “strands”. I know they market it as the tutor/director is the “lead learner” but that model just doesn’t work great for high school level material. You really need someone who already knows more than the students. I’d prefer someone teaching high school level material to at least have some college courses in that subject under their belt (not necessarily a degree, but having taken at least one class that goes beyond the material covered in high school). It allows for much better understanding and explanations. These tutors/directors are expected to lead a Socratic discussion, but in order to do that you actually need more knowledge than the students you are guiding…the whole idea is that you can guide them, through good questioning, to discover concepts rather than spoon feeding that content. In some ways the “lead learner” concept is a good thought, but I don’t think it tends to pan out with a mom that is also busy teaching the rest of her kids at home, at all different levels. The biggest families are often the ones most in need of the extra income that tutoring/directing Chall provides, but they are also the most constrained for time Just some thoughts…
Based on experience with comparable materials to It Couldn’t Just Happen that is entirely in keeping with my experience! I think I managed to count about 35 different types of logical fallacy within a roughly hour-long video by CMI.
I actually came to the forum to ask for feedback on this very thing - the cycle 3 phrase about the theory of evolution. I’m disappointed to hear that CC was aware of the issues there and did not correct it in their update a couple years ago. Did you ever hear any more about this from them?
Not a huge surprise. They don’t really acknowledge an EC view as valid (don’t know for sure if they’re still using Defeating Darwinism but that starts out with an anecdote about a student that discovers EC and how terribly misguided he is). I think the memory work shows a combination of their bias and their lack of understanding of science. They use Apologia for Bio, so that’s the view of science they’re coming from (very ideological and skeptical of scientists in general).