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Will Smith Funds New "Study Tech" School

johnAnchovie

Still raging
I mean really

Will Smith could have done a lot more to help children, he is actually not helping children, he may think he is, but in fact he is damaging them. His bad, his dumb, his not looking at what he is getting involved in.

Study Tech is owned and licensed by ABLE through the vehicle of Applied Scholastics. Study tech is a poor educational substitute slapped together with very little real thought or peer testing and research, it is not actually an accredited subject. Use of Study Tech demands that 10% of all generated income to be paid to the Church as a license fee. Smith now is supporting the church both financially and on the public relations front.

I spent several years working with kids in the church - SO and non - and I can tell you that the method is poor, the results are poor. To use Hubbard's mind warping 'ethics system' on children is abusive, it is dangerous and extremely harmful.

Montessori is far more effective - my nice and nephew are both excellent examples of the efficacy of the method. Steiner is an excellent and effective method.

Anybody who thinks that it is acceptable to let Hubbard, his minions or his 'educational systems' loose on children has his - or her - head buried very, very deeply in the sand.

Hubbard's mind fuck used on kid's? I mean really...
 
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sandygirl

Silver Meritorious Patron
Quote from Johnanchovie:
I spent several years working with kids in the church - SO and non - and I can tell you that the method is poor, the results are poor. To use Hubbard's mind warping 'ethics system' on children is abusive, it is dangerous and extremely harmful.

Excellent point!! I volunteered in a Scio. school and the conditions and cirriculum were poor to say the least. Also, the kids were being raised with the thetans in little bodies philosphy and had several neglect/behavior/hygene issues.

Will Smith is doing the typical thing I and most Scios. did while in. He is reading what LRH says about education and decideing it is bad whithout LOOKING at a real school!!!

How many thing did I just accept the LRH viewpoint about to find out it was quite different on the outside.

And T.O., since the school employs Scios. do you really beleive some recruitment and regging won't be the agenda?
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
I just know the public schools in the state of California rank amoungst the worse in the nation.

I don't think it is safe for any child to be in the public schools in that state.

Calabasas is an upscale community mostly seniors or wealthy that would have their own children in private schools. As in most neighborhoods in these kind of southern california communities the public schools are for the servant's childrens a.k.a. illegle immingrants. And those kids have it really rough.

I don't know what problem he was trying to solve by leasing this facility.

Maybe he is trying to keep his own kids off drugs.

I had to go to inner city schools in San Fransisco and Berkely in the 60's. I remember sitting on a public bus and a group of kids lighting a girl's hair onf fire and telling her if she tried to stamp it out she would be beaten. This is the type of brutality that goes on. I spent seven years living in terrorism the rest of American didn't know about until 9/11. I had to be willing on a daily basis for seven years during school term to drop everything in my hands and get into a 1 on 1 knock down fist fight. And then entire time I was awed that the immediate seemed to be totally oblivious about it. I mean NOBODY was doing ANYTHING about it except ME (managed to stay alive).

If he had opened the school in any other state I might be up for an attack but the State of California has issues other places don't.

Maybe his children were not safe in any other place.

Not that all of the recent slayings in the other schools in the U.S. sound too inviting.

He is obviously trying to solve a problem for his kids.

And trust me, the public and private schools in that state are a serious problem for any parent.

I doubt he is a bad parent.

All of his children except for the oldest from his first marriage are school aged children.

Maybe the school system wanted to put one of his kids on medication.

Maybe one of them was already introduced to drugs and maybe it was the only way to run a security staff to keep his children secure.

As far as I am concerned any parent that puts their child in a public school in that state in this century ought to be charged with criminal neglect.

And I have a feeling Will Smith has looked at a real school. He has a high school diploma. He's an east coast boy from Philadelphia. I had to do high school in Manhattan. Trust me, we both know what a REAL SCHOOL is.

T.O.
 
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johnAnchovie

Still raging
Maybe what TO?

There you have thrown up a whole bunch of 'maybe' speculation TO, comments on the CA school system that may or may not be true, I can't verify that as I am not in CA, but when I did live in CA the kids in the non cult schools seemed to do a lot better that the kids I met from the cult schools.(Apple and the infamous Oregon institution) Not to mention the cadet school, if you can call institutionalized child neglect a 'school'. You allude to your abused and very tough childhood, not too sure about the significance of that historical reference.

This thread posits that Smith is, despite denials, a Scientologist. Support of an Applied Scholastics Hubbard mind fuck system of child abuse, when there are plenty of private and far better systems available would tend to lead one to the conclusion that indeed Mr Smith and his wife are supporters of Scientology.

TC is now appearing in Smiths new movie, again, not conclusive evidence that Smith is moving up The Bridge, but it does point to a deepening relationship with Scientology's most vocal front man.
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
I'm putting out a whole bunch of maybees?

Maybe Will Smith's school is not the same as the school you were in (not too sure about the significance of that historical reference).
and your A=A is putting some big maybe's in your mind?

There's a maybe.

Since you haven't seen it yourself you are allowing your imagination to descibe it to you.

But my hat is off to any parent in that state that has taken on the responsibility of raising their children there.

As Lulu Belle so aptly put it, "How come the best parents are the ones that never had kids?"

Anyway, if you are sure he is endangering his children, and other children, you have a responsibility to report him to child protection agencies in that state.

Here are the hotline numbers you can call: http://www.childsworld.ca.gov/res/pdf/CPSEmergNumbers.pdf

T.O.


There you have thrown up a whole bunch of 'maybe' speculation TO, comments on the CA school system that may or may not be true, I can't verify that as I am not in CA, but when I did live in CA the kids in the non cult schools seemed to do a lot better that the kids I met from the cult schools.(Apple and the infamous Oregon institution) Not to mention the cadet school, if you can call institutionalized child neglect a 'school'. You allude to your abused and very tough childhood, not too sure about the significance of that historical reference.

This thread posits that Smith is, despite denials, a Scientologist. Support of an Applied Scholastics Hubbard mind fuck system of child abuse, when there are plenty of private and far better systems available would tend to lead one to the conclusion that indeed Mr Smith and his wife are supporters of Scientology.

TC is now appearing in Smiths new movie, again, not conclusive evidence that Smith is moving up The Bridge, but it does point to a deepening relationship with Scientology's most vocal front man.
 

johnAnchovie

Still raging
Pardon?

Well I have spent an awful lot of my life looking after disadvantaged children in and out of Scientology, I do know what I speak of.

Is Smith a Scientologist?

What is A=A?
 

gomorrhan

Gold Meritorious Patron
I stand by my statement. Miscavige's intentions are relevant to the extent that Will Smith allows them to dominate his own. I have no evidence that this is the case with Will Smith. Scientology policy is only relevant to the extent that Will Smith is implementing it, which, apparently, isn't very much, since people here seem convinced that he isn't following KSW1. You can't have it both ways: either he IS following KSW1, and is a loyal scientologist forwarding the aims of the Church, or he isn't, and he's following his own agenda and using "study tech" as he understands it to help people with education.
 

johnAnchovie

Still raging
Do I smell something?

"A=A is putting some big maybe's in your mind?"

Again, what does that mean? I checked my Chambers dictionary and there is no reverence to such an equation. Would you mind explaining?
 

gomorrhan

Gold Meritorious Patron
I can explain.

A=A is a Hubbardism which is used to say that people are associating two or more things incorrectly, failing to properly differentiate between things. Really, it should be "A=B", which would show that the two things were different and being equated, or even "A does not equal B", which would show that the two things, which are different, are not equal. This is a "usage" thing in the Church and by its members going back to Dianetics, and not something you'll find in any dictionary other than Hubbard's.
 

johnAnchovie

Still raging
Thanks

Thank you very much G, but it does not make sense to me, I see differences all around me and intellectually differentiate constantly. I write a lot and differentiate between what is in my mind and what I see outside of me. TO is very, very confusing. And I do not see what she/he/it is trying to say to me, is it a disparagement?
 

gomorrhan

Gold Meritorious Patron
It is a disparagement of another to say that they are "A=Aing" or some such phrasing. I'm sure you see differences and are quite intellectually competent. Hubbard frequently made blanket statements that wogs A=A (this is used as a VERB, meaning wrongly associating, or failing to differentiate correctly). Keep in mind that people who are defensive typically attack and try to minimize the intelligence and capability of others in an effort to avoid the argument. It's a form of ad hominem attack, IMO.
 

gomorrhan

Gold Meritorious Patron
There you have thrown up a whole bunch of 'maybe' speculation TO, comments on the CA school system that may or may not be true, I can't verify that as I am not in CA, but when I did live in CA the kids in the non cult schools seemed to do a lot better that the kids I met from the cult schools.(Apple and the infamous Oregon institution) Not to mention the cadet school, if you can call institutionalized child neglect a 'school'. You allude to your abused and very tough childhood, not too sure about the significance of that historical reference.

T.O.'s response posits that the accusations made against the Scientology schools would be better targeted at the public schools, it seems, or that other, more grievious problems are endemic in public schools, making a Scientology school a lesser of two evils. I would agree that discipline, in public schools is a major failing. The "drugging" of children aspect is always something that a parent has control of: they don't put a child on ritalin without consulting the parent, and the parent can always say "no". It can't be argued that public school kids are getting a great education, but it can be argued that they are getting a standardized minimum. It is the job of a parent to ensure that their child gets the education that the child needs to do what they want to be able to do professionally. The school will provide a baseline, but the parent is responsible to expand that, unless they want their child to not be able to compete. Scientology schools are not the answer, as they are currently constituted, as far as I know. If changed such that they taught highly useful skills and the state minimums, and provided nutrition and safe environment, then I think that application of Study Tech would be helpful with students who are self-propelled learners (such as myself), but a dismal failure with children who have "other fish to fry", who don't want to be students, and who are plagued by such heavy problems that their attention cannot be focused on academia in the first place.

This thread posits that Smith is, despite denials, a Scientologist. Support of an Applied Scholastics Hubbard mind fuck system of child abuse, when there are plenty of private and far better systems available would tend to lead one to the conclusion that indeed Mr Smith and his wife are supporters of Scientology.

I think it is a sweeping generalization to assume that Will Smith is supporting any "mind fuck" in the school he is founding. Certainly, Study Tech is used in an abusive fashion at times in the Church, but this doesn't mean it will be (there's nothing inherently abusive about clearing a word's meaning, demonstrating things in clay, ordering a subject in a manner that it is easily understood, etc. - though an argument could be made that False Data Stripping can be abusive when the intent is to make someone agree with something, rather than help them understand something which is occluded by false data) outside the Church.

TC is now appearing in Smiths new movie, again, not conclusive evidence that Smith is moving up The Bridge, but it does point to a deepening relationship with Scientology's most vocal front man.

It could mean that. It could also mean that Smith sees Cruise as a money-maker, or a strong anchor-man to put in a movie. You or I might disagree, or see other motivations, but we don't know them until he states them. If the thread is about Will Smith starting a school that uses pieces of scientology tech, I'm not sure that him using Tom Cruise in a movie necessarily means anything about that school.
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
Thank you very much G, but it does not make sense to me, I see differences all around me and intellectually differentiate constantly. I write a lot and differentiate between what is in my mind and what I see outside of me. TO is very, very confusing. And I do not see what she/he/it is trying to say to me, is it a disparagement?

I'm just teasing you.

No, I am not trying to discourage you.

Thank you for what you have done to help disadvantaged children.

My original post here was to Paul. Not directed to anybody else. But I'm not curious anymore.

Some historical facts that might interest you since you bought up ABLE, is that the Sea Org neither Hubbard is the author of Narconon or Applied Sholastics.

These were the children of well meaning citizens who esablished these groups only to help other people and they were not established as any mission or front group for the Church or Scientology. In fact Narconon was established in a prison.

The Church probably had no legal rights to even take the names.

But the Sea Org came along one day and said, "WE own your rights."

"And we want our taxes."

And that is how these well meaning groups ended up under the fat ass of the tax collecting Sea Org.

The people in the Sea Org know nothing about the current drug scene and I doubt if any of them has a teaching degree.

But these two groups are not the brainchild of the Church of Scientology.

They are stolen property.

And both of them were established in the hopes of helping children.

And both of them did marvelous work for decades before they were siezed by the Sea Org.

And I just don't like to see that work devalued because the Sea Org has formed them into Church Trusts.

And I can tell you I have a feeling the people in those arena's are probably not too happy about the the Sea Org on their backs.

T.O.
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
Discourage is similar in a gray way to disparage. I hope you don't mind that I chose my own word.

But I don't know if it ever occurs to anybody these people on street level are trying to survive IN SPITE of the Church of Scientology.

They are not Sea Org members or Org staff members or Mission staff members.

And while the Sea Org managed to run the Narconon network into the ground hundreds of new successful drug rehab centers popped up.

And while the Sea Org managed to run Applied Scholastics in to the ground SYLVAN institute for learning branched out all over America with it's tutorial services.

These people on the street level get it from both ends.

They get it from the Sea Org on the right and from the critics on the left.

That may qualify as injustice.

William Benitez was not a front man for the Church of Scientology while he was doing hard time, I can assure you.

T.O.
 
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The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
In fact, attacking these street level people / groups just enables the Sea Org to extort more money from them for "protection."

A lot of people don't know this but Hubbard donated 75,000.00 of his own money to Narconon L.A..

Do you think he ever dreamed the Sea Org would be down there taking it all back?

T.O.
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
About the founder of Narconon:

The Origins of the
Narconon® Program

On August 2, 1965, William Benitez, an inmate at Arizona State Prison jumped down from his double bunk in the old cellblock where he was housed and made the following notation on his wall calendar: “Decision to set up Narcotic Foundation.” He also circled the 18th of the same month, his target date to approach prison officials to request permission to set up a drug rehabilitation program inside the prison walls.

Officials denied permission for the following six months. Mr. Benitez’s request to start a program consisting of twenty convicted drug addicts caused concern to officials who feared such a program might pose a security problem (such programs were rare in prisons during that decade). Officials had little reason to believe that the request of a habitual drug addict and repeatedly convicted felon would result in one of the nation’s most successful rehabilitation programs for substance abusers.

Mr. Benitez persisted and finally assured officials the program was needed and would not pose a threat to the safe and orderly operation of the prison. After being allowed to start the program on a trial basis, he founded the NARCONON program (NARCOtics-NONe) on February 19, 1966.

Today, the Narconon program has spread from that one program in Arizona State Prison to include community programs in many states and countries such as Denmark, Italy, Holland, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Colombia, Switzerland, New Zealand, South Africa, Ghana, the United Kingdom, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Argentina and Brazil.

Until he died from a sudden illness in 1999, Mr. Benitez was a Hearing Officer with the Arizona Department of Corrections, the same system which once kept him under lock and key. Below, he tells his own story:

I started smoking pot in 1947, when I was thirteen. Then I went on to injecting opium and other drugs when I was about fifteen. I started to get into trouble and was arrested for various crimes, so I decided to join the Marines to see if I could get away from drugs. Instead, I ended up getting arrested on drug charges during the Korean conflict, received a military court martial and was discharged as undesirable.

In the following years, I kept trying to stay away from drugs. Sometimes I could stay clean for a short while, then I would go right back on the needle again. I carried the monkey for about eighteen years, and it cost me thirteen calendar years of being locked up. In addition to doing time in the Marines, I did a Federal prison term and also was convicted three times in Arizona state courts.

On my last trip to prison, I pled guilty on December 22, 1964 to possession of narcotics. Because I was being sentenced as a habitual offender, the sentence called for a mandatory fifteen years, and up to life. I remember speaking to one court official and telling him how I was still going to leave drugs alone and maybe even start a drug program. I remember his words so well: “The best thing to do with guys like you, after the first time, is take you behind a building and do you and everyone else a favor and put you out of your misery.”

My attorney arranged for me to go before the judge just before Christmas, feeling that the spirit of the holiday might be in my favor. It may have worked. I made my plea to the judge telling him of all the attempts I had made over the years to stop using drugs, such as joining the Marines, committing myself to hospitals for psychiatric care and therapy on several occasions, isolating myself in mining towns in a personal attempt to kick the habit, and even how two marriages had not helped me straighten up. I told him that in spite of all those failures, I was still going to make it and was going to find a solution to my problem, that I had not yet quit. He must have believed there was still a spark of hope for me. He sentenced me to the mandatory fifteen years, but instead of running it to life, he made the term fifteen to sixteen years.

After arriving at prison, a friend of mine gave me some reading material to keep me occupied while I was in the Orientation Cellblock pending transfer to general population. Among the material was an old, tattered book, Fundamentals of Thought, by L. Ron Hubbard. I had heard of his writings when I previously served a ten-year sentence at Arizona State Prison, but had never read them. I had always been an avid reader of books dealing with human behavior. Yet, this small book impressed me more than anything else I had ever read before. I read it over and over and then purchased additional books by Mr. Hubbard and studied them very carefully during the following year, even into the late hours of the night in my cell.

The material identified human abilities and their development. I was amazed I had never run across such workability within a multitude of other works I had studied over the years. I’m not a gullible person when it comes to accepting new or different approaches or ideas. If they work, fine. Otherwise, throw them out the window. They either work or they don’t. I was tired of experimenting with so many ideas and philosophies, many having credence only because some “authority” had written them.

What impressed me the most about [Hubbard’s] materials was that they concentrated not only on identifying abilities, but also on methods (practical exercises) by which to develop them. I realized that drug addiction was nothing more than a “disability,” resulting when a person ceases to use abilities essential to constructive survival.

I found that if a person rehabilitated and applied certain abilities, that person could persevere toward goals set, confront life, isolate problems and resolve them, communicate with life, be responsible and set ethical standards, and function within the band of certainty.
I finally realized I had developed the essential abilities needed to overcome my drug problem. Feeling myself on safe ground, I knew I had to make this technology available to other addicts in the prison. I thought back over the years of all the junkies I had shot up with, and remembered their most treasured conversation, “One of these days I’m going to quit.” I had found the means and was going to share it with them. That’s when I made the decision real by writing it down on my calendar page in my cell.

So effective was the technology I had learned, that I experienced a freedom long lost to me. The tall prison walls became only temporary barriers. I realized that my 6x8 foot cell was all that I needed as a command post. Even back then, I knew Narconon would reach international proportions, and even wrote an article on it in 1967, “The Purpose of Narconon.”

The program was sanctioned by the warden, and it soon began to expand from its original twenty members. I then started to get requests from non-addict inmates who wanted to get into Narconon. They told me they were impressed with what Narconon students had told them about the program and what the technology taught. I approached the Administration for permission to include non-addicts. At first it resisted, saying that non-addict members didn’t need the services of Narconon, and that they might disrupt the program.
I demonstrated to officials that any person, inmate or otherwise, could benefit from Narconon because its attention was on increasing abilities, that we had an ethics mechanism built into the program, and that the responsibility and involvement required of a member would soon dissuade anyone not serious about improvement. I convinced the prison officials. The program met its expectations so well that seven months after the beginning of Narconon, I was asked to start another program for young offenders housed in the annex outside the prison walls.

I then wrote to Mr. Hubbard about Narconon. He supported our program by donating books, tapes and course materials. We received hundreds of letters from throughout the world validating our efforts to make drug addiction and criminal or illegal behavior a thing of the past in our lives.

Shortly after founding the Narconon program, William Benitez researched his court conviction and discovered he had been tried under the wrong statute and was sentenced in excess of that prescribed by law. Upon return to court, Mr. Benitez was advised that he could conceivably be re-sentenced to time served and be released based on his eighteen months already served because of the miscarriage of justice.

The Narconon program was only a few months old at that time and Mr. Benitez believed the program would collapse if he didn’t return to complete it. Rather than petitioning for his immediate release, he requested a smaller sentence which would allow him to fully implement Narconon program development. The Court re-sentenced him to four to six years, leaving him sixteen months to serve. Mr. Benitez returned to prison and developed the program to its full capacity. As he states, “It was the best, but toughest decision I ever made in my life. I would have loved to walk away from that court a free man.”

The Narconon program subsequently came to the attention of the public when reporters from the Arizona Daily Star secured permission from the warden to interview the inmate who requested to be returned to the walls. The Star printed a two-part series on the Narconon program in August 1966. TV Channel 10 News from Phoenix also took its cameras to the prison to interview Mr. Benitez and members of the Narconon program and to observe its functions.

Mr. Benitez completed his prison term and was released in October 1967. He moved to California to expand the Narconon organization and to make it available to persons in need. Mr. Hubbard supported the effort.

Years later, Mr. Benitez returned to Arizona and was hired as Inmate Liaison by former Arizona Department of Corrections Director, Ellis McDougall, in 1981. Until his death in 1999, he served as a Hearing Officer on inmate complaints for the Corrections Director at Central Headquarters.
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
Applied Scholastics was founded OFF OFFICIAL CHURCH lines in 1972 by a private citizen.

The Church has managed to bury all evidence of the original founder and generalizes the founder as a group of various people on Applied Scholastics web sites.

T.O.
 

The Oracle

Gold Meritorious Patron
I am quite certain the church is not paying royalty fees of any kind to the founder's estates.

I don't think William Benitez ever got a royalty fee, neither his heirs.

They have managed to not even acknowledge the founder of Applied Scholastics but I am certain she hasn't received any royalty checks either.

T.O.
 
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