A Large Collection of Accelerated Christian Education Comic Strips from the 7th, 8th, and 10th Grade.
Hello there, and welcome back to Awful Christian Education!
In my last post, we wrapped up our review series for Texas State History, which is a 7th Grade course in the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. After completing Collectivism and Texas State History, I’ve decided I need a break from the Social Sciences. In order to maintain some continuity, we’re going to stay in the 7th grade and review ACE’s Life Science course. It’s really dumb.
However, before we dive into the Sciences, I thought it would be a good time to analyze another batch of ACE’s comic strips. As if to affirm my thinking, ACE posted this to their Twitter account on March 19th:
“Character strips are used throughout the A.C.E. curriculum as an engaging way for students to learn. They portray academic lessons, demonstrate Godly character, or sometimes just make students smile.” https://x.com/acecurriculum
It may seem to some like these comic strips are just silly goofy fun, superfluous to ACE’s underlying issues, but they’re the opposite. These comics encapsulate everything that is wrong with ACE in a very concise and explicit manner. Here are three I’ve posted many times before:
In three comic strips, ACE advocates for the subjugation of women, they deliver a death threat for those who disrespect men of God, and they sexually groom children. The last 420+ Exhibits support the literalness of my interpretation of these comics.
Today we’re going to run through all 64 comic strips that appear in the 7th grade Science course, and the 7th, 8th, and 10th grade Social Studies courses. There are a few full-page scenes in these PACEs, but I’m excluding them because they’re kind of their own thing. I’ll include those later in their respective PACE review posts.
Let’s start with the curious. This one is an atypical example of positive masculinity that’s at odds with their strict gender hierarchy:
Exhibit 429
Science 1077, page 16
However, we would be foolish to see this as any sort of substantial change, or fundamental improvement. Comics like this exist for the sole purpose of deflecting accusations of sexism. Too add to all the previous Exhibits on sexism that I’ve previously posted, I pulled this quote from their 7th grade Vocational Studies PACE:
Within the family, the homemaker has the responsibility to be a Godly woman and to nurture her children… she lovingly ministers twenty-four hours a day to the needs of her family. She is available at all times.
God has given both the husband and the wife certain areas of responsibility in the home. The husband is to be the leader of the home… The wife is to obey, respect, and submit to the leadership of her husband, serving as a helper to him.
That PACE spent 5 pages explaining that every single task in the home is to be performed by the mother/wife. Husbands’ participation in the home is optional, and based on his “leadership.”
Even lacking previous examples, the comics in this batch overwhelmingly enforce gender normative behavior:
Exhibit 430
Social Studies 1113, page 2 + Social Studies 1117, page 2
Science 1082, page 16 + Science 1084, page 31
Social Studies 1119, page 18
In our large sampling of 2nd edition comics, only 6 out of the 47 strips included African Americans, and none of any other race. Further, at no time were Black and White pictured together. That means 87.25% of the comics were stark White, with strictly enforced segregation. Over the decades, ACE has been (slowly) trying to remedy that, and it seems there are finally some improvements to report.
In this four-course batch of PACEs, 20 of the 64 comics feature racial minorities of various colors, without any white people present. An additional seven strips are multiracial, where at least one character is white and one is of another skin color. That brings the percentage of ‘whites-only’ comics down to just shy of 58%:
Exhibit 431
Science 1073, page 22
Can we just appreciate for a moment that this guy brought a fruit bowl and a football filled with flowers to the hospital?
Thanks.
Exhibit 432
Social Studies 1114, page 19
Social Studies 1078, page 30
Social Studies 1091, page 2
For a moment, this last one looked to me like it was taking place at school, which would indicate that the schools in the story-line have undergone some much needed racial integration. However, this took place at Happy’s house. Don’t let their attire throw you for a loop, those are what pass as casual street clothes for ACE characters. School uniforms are suit and tie.
It’s 2025 and the Highland school in the comics is still a safe white space.
Exhibit 433
Social Studies 1096, page 2
Social Studies 1095, page 2
Social Studies 1088, page 2
This last one surprised me. Growing up, God was exclusively White in the curriculum. What in the fuck turn of events is this? On top of that, this is a white student picturing a not-white Christian God. Credit where it’s due.
To be sure, this is the absolute bare minimum, but it surprised me all the same. Likewise with the sexism, we would be mistaken to think this is a sign of any substantial improvement. If this was an intentional decision on their part, it’s sole purpose is to deflect accusations of racism. Honestly, I think there’s a chance it could have simply been an accident. These people are still intensely racist:
They even go on to explain that “abolition” was among the other “humanistic [Satanic] fads” that were “popular” during that era, like “peace,” and “women’s rights.” These first two posts cover a section in the Collectivism course that teaches race science, where “whites > yellows > blacks.” They even make it Biblical. The third one is a deep dive into the frothing racism of ACE’s original author and creator, Donald Howard:
There is a series of Dad Jokes in this batch that are just terrible. As a guy who loves dad jokes, this first one is the only one that got me. Though, I think it was because it was entirely unexpected, and I was so bored while reviewing this PACE:
Exhibit 434
Science 1073, page 39
It just caught me so off guard.
Exhibit 435
Science 1079, page 10 + Science 1080, page 17
Social Studies 1073, page 13 + Social Studies 1074, page 36
Social Studies 1075, page 4 and 11 + Science 1074, page 31
Social Studies 1077, page 31 + Social Studies 1078, page 24
This one though:
Exhibit 436
Social Studies 1073, page 2
That has legitimately made me laugh out loud more than once. Everything about that is comedy gold.
As God would have it, this 7th grade comic has a follow on comic. The second scene to this story is ostensibly happening within days of Miguel assuming that the kid in blue is going to hell. Where does God come in? I randomly selected the aforementioned four courses to review,1 and one of them just so happened to be the one with this follow on scene → only, this follow up happens three years later from the ACE student’s perspective, and that’s reflected in the age of the characters! Scene one appeared in a 7th grade PACE; scene two takes place in 10th grade:
Exhibit 437
Social Studies 1115, page 15
I don’t know why that’s so funny to me. Also, the fact that he’s perfectly fine at the end of the scene, and then shows up with his leg in a cast... all of it. It’s perfect.
For the one with older Miguel, that last pane bothered me. I couldn’t figure out why until I saw some of the other comics:
Exhibit 438
Science 1073, page 29
Remember that ACE wants their students to emulate these characters. These are not normal or healthy human interactions.
If I opened up to my friend about having a bad day, and they were like, “but Paul was in prison that one time…” I don’t think I’d open up to them again. Not even back in my days as an ACE student. That’s not behavior kids (in this case, 12-13 year olds) should be taught to emulate. Additionally, just because we should be “content,” doesn’t mean we shouldn’t feel anything else. That’s ridiculous.
Exhibit 439
Social Studies 1086, page 2
This perfect, cheerful willingness to be pushed aside is so annoying to me. Being upset isn’t the opposite of Deference, and being deferent doesn’t mean robotic or emotionless. The characters in these PACEs are constantly being told to suppress their very reasonable emotional responses:
Exhibit 440
Social Studies 1112, page 2
This one isn’t so bad, but again, this is a weird human interaction. The mother affirms Tian Le’s feelings, but “forgiveness” doesn’t mean they can’t have a discussion about Nita buying her a new book. I don’t know why that conversation had to be shut down. Also, if you called me to forgive me for an accident, especially one of this… severity… I would read this as passive aggressive.
These next two are similar to the above, in that they depict people interacting in strange ways. They’re also the exact same scenario, but notice the difference in the ways the genders are taught to approach their role in authority:
Exhibit 441
Science 1081, page 31 + Social Studies 1116, page 19
She’s taught to have a “quiet spirit,” and he’s taught to command.
Anyone claiming these traits are inherited by the nature of your gender is lying to you. It’s decades and decades of these subtle inputs, just like with the gender normative comics earlier, that indoctrinate children into believing these are natural differences between the sexes.
To be sure, I don’t think Sandy’s verbal response was necessarily bad in a vacuum, but it’s what motivated that response that is icky as hell. Because she must have a “quiet spirit,” she can’t simply tell her sister to place the books back. She has to do this ‘why don’t we do it together,’ bit. Meanwhile, Ace is like, ‘yo, put my shit back. Please.’
This is one of the less expected, but more upsetting themes that recur throughout the ACE curriculum:
Exhibit 442
Social Studies 1073, page 32
This shit makes me mad. On God, you’re telling children who might have had a parent die of cancer, or a family member who died in a war, that God didn’t answer their prayers because they weren’t close enough to Him. Fuuuuck you. If you take this Genie-Jesus belief system to its only logical conclusion, you are proposing that humans can cast magical spells, ‘if only they are properly attuned to the spirits.’ This idea of spiritual powers manifesting in humans is an intense reflection of the insane mind of Donald Howard:
This one is by far the worst of the batch. This is textbook grooming:
Exhibit 443
Science 1078, page 14
Yea…
This is from Donald’s second manifesto, Rebirth of Our Nation (1979):
God recorded men’s sins for our examples, but that book is closed. God is not going to write anymore revelation. Good men write the history books and they don’t record the mistakes of other good men. They write of what God did and what men did who were inspired and led by God.
And as some of you know, he used his power within the Southern Baptist Church to fuck “multiple young women.”
This next one bothered me because it is very antithetical to the strict Fundamentalism that ACE teaches, where Socialist Christians or Catholics aren’t actually allowed into the Kingdom of God:
Exhibit 444
Social Studies 1118, page 2
The rest of these are just kind of dumb:
Exhibit 445
Social Studies 1074, page 5 + Social Studies 1077, page 3
Science 1080, page 31 + Science 1083, page 15
Social Studies 1076, page 10 and 34
Social Studies 1085, page 2
Social Studies 1087, page 2
Social Studies 1089, page 2
Social Studies 1090, page 2
Social Studies 1092, page 2
Social Studies 1094, page 2
Social Studies 1109, page 2
Social Studies 1109, page 15
Social Studies 1110, page 2 and 17
Social Studies 1111, page 2 and 18
Social Studies 1112, page 19
Social Studies 1113, page 19
Social Studies 1114, page 2
Social Studies 1115, page 2
Social Studies 1116, page 2
Social Studies 1117, page 19
Social Studies 1118, page 16
Social Studies 1119, page 2
Social Studies 1120, page 2 and 18
I underlined “Mr. Trueword and me,” thinking it was ‘bad’ English. Then I googled it and I believe that is actually the correct way to phrase it. Britannica: “The first person singular pronoun "me" is used when it is the object of a verb,” the verb in this case being “help.” I learned a thing.
That’s all I have for today. I’ll be back shortly with our first Science PACE review!
Thanks for reading about this Awful Christian Education!
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Matthew 18:6
7th grade Life Science, and the 7th, 8th, and 10th grade Social Studies courses
I’m going to pray 666 times that God smites those illustrators. I did this curriculum back in ‘98 for a year, it was the only home school program accredited in the state back then… nothing has changed. It’s so gross, and dangerous.