Katherine Beck goes on the record with her Cole Valley story.
Topics include judgement, love, “for profit,” and safety
A few days ago, I published a blog post about my reflections on my Cole Valley experience and why I have such negative feelings about it.
Seeing what I was up to, Katherine Beck, a previous Cole Valley student, wanted to contribute as well, and she volunteered to go on the record with her story.
This is the uncut conversation. Below are hyperlinks to highlights if you don’t want to watch it in full.
- Discussion about Cam’s post
- Why Katherine wanted to tell her story
- “Not just Cole… pure indoctrination… really taken a toll on me.”
- “If you had any kind of human thing happen to you… ‘let’s pray about it.’”
- Elementary School vs. Junior High vs. High School at Cole Valley
- “Should I not have my kid in Cole Valley?”
- “I have a friend… is no longer allowed to teach there… she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.”
- “It was a pretty safe elementary.”
- “My mom pulled me out… she was really upset that I didn’t know my times tables…”
- “I came back to Cole in 9th grade… it was a completely different place… I had to try to fit in…”
- “Some people had… something to compare it to… and they were like WTF?”
- “Why would God do this to these kids?”
- “Somehow my parents… gave us the ability to question for ourselves.”
- “I was so scared. I avoided that conversation… weeks, months…”
- “I found this need to be accepted back into the fold… really tried to be all in…”
- “It didn’t matter how much I tried. There was something I was doing wrong.”
- “My best friend and I were holding hands… man, that pissed her boyfriend off… I wasn’t allowed to be her friend anymore unless I didn’t touch her… we were like 14! What kind of bullshit is that?!”
- “Conditional friendship… we were taught to love unconditionally… I didn’t get that.”
- “Dudes were disgusting and gross… another Christian that taught me the game of chicken.”
- Cool, a new tattoo!… “Love is patient, love is kind…”
- Privileged Cole Valley people feeling victimized by others when they tell their story.
- “Love the sinner. Hate the sin.”
- “This was his every waking moment, for 13 years.”
- “There was a mentality… women are here to please your man… please your husband…”
- “Everybody that went there knows all this… they still turn that blind eye that they’re so ferociously taught not to turn…”
- “30 or 40 people have reached out to me individually… I tried to kill myself…”
- “I do believe it’s for profit.”
- “Thousands of dollars a month…”
- “Our parents believed in this so much… they paid enough for us to be in college… since we were in Kindergarten…” “My parents put 6 kids through Cole…”
- “Do you want Cole to disappear or go out of business?”
- “I always heard BK was the party school.”
- “I really wanted to graduate early… the Cole Valley counselor… wouldn’t give me the things…”
- “What would you say to Cole Valley administrators?… What would you say to prospective parents?”
- “Had I experienced more a feeling of love and forgiveness, perhaps I would have stayed in the church longer, or perhaps to this day, I don’t know… it wasn’t a place I felt safe…”
- “For the most part, my older brother, sister, and I did well there…”
- “Some of our friends… faced daily trauma… that is not the place for that child… think about your kids first, not their school first…”
- “My child is a rebel… I’m going to fix him by putting him in Cole Valley…” “That’s the wrong way to think about that… you’re putting them in a box at Cole Valley…”
- “That kids that’s difficult… they need to find some meaningful volunteer work… that’s where they feel valid… useful…”
- “There was money to put me in Cole Valley for 13 years and my sister, but there wasn’t money for college.”
- “Thank you so much for doing this Cameron… I hope others can get some peace… there’s a lot of us out there…”
