The only thing that the WT Society did well is train men to be good public speakers. Of course, some never get *good*, but others do. For all the crap the WT did for me in my life, it did train me to be a public speaker, and that's very valuable in my profession. Hardly anyone nowadays has any public speaking experience, let alone training - it's sort of a lost art. A lot of people rely on technology to get a message across, handicapping them when it comes to communicating their ideas face to face in a personable way. Anyway, at least it did that for me - all the rest of the "education" is nothing but brainwashing, plain and simple.
How Well Does the Watchtower Educate?
by The wanderer 37 Replies latest jw friends
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Terry
Pavlov's dog would salivate at the sound of a bell being rung because the dog's brain had been conditioned to associate the ringing with being fed a delicious meal!
The Watchtower has conditioned men, women and children in Kingdom Halls around the world to INVOLUNTARILY react a specific way to hearing key words such as TRUTH, JEHOVAH, RELIGION, PURPOSE, WORSHIP, etc.
The reason for this conditioning is so that these members will not pass information through individual RATIONAL thinking processes for analysis!
It is like having a burglar snip the wires to your home alarm system so that they can break in to your house and carry off whatever they want!
When your rational critical facility is shut down and you simply TRUST WHATEVER YOU ARE TOLD---your first line of defense is GONE!!
Jehovah's Witnesses are like burglars going from house to house seeking to disarm alarm systems for return visits where they eventually hope to plunder the householder and carry off their valuables.
Getting people to seemingly give over their lives in service to an organization with a smile is the most insidious burglary of all!
This is NOT EDUCATION!
This is misinformation.
This is disinformation.
This is indoctrination.
It is theft of intellect.
It is a thought crime of Orwellian proportions!
Remember this: you will get the same response (identical response, actually) to any questions you ask any Jehovah's Witness around the world. They take pride in this fact. But, you won't be able to get one important thing from any of them. You will never get a PERSONAL opinion! They aren't allowed to have an identity which is the source of personal opinion!!!
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Fe2O3Girl
The culture of the JW congregation is to belittle academic achievement. The training in the service meeting and ministry school is formulaic and does not encourage reasoning and critical thinking - probably why we are so bad at debating and most discussions on the board descend into ad hominem attacks.
Take a look at the spelling and grammar in an average post here by a JW. Sometimes they can't even spell their own jargon - congregation, annointed, baptism, brochure, tract, conscience - correctly.
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stillajwexelder
My wife never read much and was not well educated. Reading the WTS literature which she forced herself to do , has helped her become a little better educated and better at reading - so overall good. The TMS helped me personally to be good public speaker and reader
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NewYork44M
The society teaches functional skills such as public speaking, salesmanship, overcoming objections, and so on.
However, they do not teach critical thinking skills. in fact, they discourage critical thinking. A person must be able to think critically to be considered "well educated."
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proplog2
Chicken or Egg viewpoint:
Does the ministry school train people to be good speakers? OR
Does the ministry school train people to listen to bad speakers?
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fullofdoubtnow
I suppose being in the tms helped build my confidence in talking to people, but I don't think the watchtower educated me at all, not in a beneficial way anyway. All I ever learned from them was the orgs' doctrines and requirements, nothing of any use whatsoever in real life.
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NYCkid
I really must comment on this one. I've had ex-JW friends of mine say that they did benefit from the TMS in their ability to speak publically. Not the same in reading however. For us who were raised as JWs, we were not allowed much reading outside of JW literature. I'm sure you can agree that JW literature is very theme and solution orientated.
The JW writers present a problem, a public or JW reaction and then a solution. All of these (especially the WT and books) that have the Q & A format present the material in a way where the problem, reaction and solution are implied in each paragraph and to answer the questions listed in each paragraph. The questions only serve to locate answers in said paragraph. The questions are presented in each article and answered in each article. With the Bible aside, there is really no need to search for the answers outside of each article or book.
In my experience, this training in reading has made college-level reading very difficult (and which probably accounts partly for my mediocre high school scores). I'm unable to focus and comprehend what I'm reading unless I know what the theme and question are and what the author's solution is. Non-JW academic reading requires the reader to comprehend, assimilate and reach a conclusion on one's own perspective and experience, and I find this method extremely difficult in my studies.
With reading and speaking aside, I'm unsure of what other education you are referring to given that many active JWs are only high school graduates and very rarely will you find a JW who is a physician, scientist, professor/teacher, etc, professions that require secular eduction that the Society largely discourages.
Even my friends who served at Bethel are rarely able to use the skills they've learned there in their post-Bethel work and for those who served (at Bethel) any length of time, leave without any savings, pensions, 401k plans or social security contributions.
Best regards,
Learning to read and comprhend all over again in NYC
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Finally-Free
In 20 years I learned how to wash windows, lie, and smile when I'm unhappy. I also learned that the words "truth", "publisher", and "pioneer" have meanings other than what one might find in a dictionary.
Should I add these to my resume?
W
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moshe
People who are slow readers and lack confidence in front of others might be whipped into shape by the KH program, but that is all I see happening. They receive nothing from the WT literature that could be considered College level. The writers at Bethel probably get material from the internet now. I wonder, that if the word for word paragraphs from those Awake articles were ever plugged into Google, if it might not generate a hit from an outside web/internet source- uncredited plagarism in essence. Has anyone tried that?