This was just posted to FaceBook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/xjwrg3/10152073176825835/?comment_id=10152073536380835¬if_t=group_comment_reply
By Christina Jones
My story is typical, raised as a JW, high school drop out, married at 18, and a mom before I was 20. I'll spare all the details now, but long story short left the JW world because I couldn't bare the thought of raising my children in this cult. My "great JW" husband walks away from me and our children and moves out of state. No child support ..nothing.
Now I was a single mom at which point I realized I was uneducated, poor, broken, and had not a single family member around to help me or even care. According to them they were doing the most loving thing they could do, which was to shun me so I would repent. Anyway, I decided I wasn't going to be a victim any longer, and my children will never know conditional love.
I was determined to break the cycle. My entire life I had always told my parents that I wanted to be a school teacher, and was always told how that would be a very worldly notion and college was out of the question. In fact I was encouraged to drop out of high school and "pioneer" instead.
So to celebrate my new found freedom. I immediately enrolled in an adult Ed program to earn my high school diploma. The following year, I enrolled in college, 7 years later I had earned a Bachelors and a Masters degree and was a certified teacher. I was hired right out of college and began my teaching career. Freedom
Never felt better!
I was finally able to support my children on my own, and I laughed in the face of every Jw that swore I was going to live a miserable life outside the confines of their organization. That was almost 10 years ago, and this school year is my first time ever having a student who is a JW. I feel like I have come full circle. I teach 5th grade, so my students are in the 10-11 age range.
Nobody has any idea that I am a DA's ex JW as I live in a completely different State now. I always care for each and everyone of my students and always form a strong connection with them. However, this student in particular is someone who has really tugged at my heart strings. She reminds me so much of myself at her age, a good girl who just wants to please and is always guilty over every little thing that she might do to loose Jehovah's favor.
This week I had one of the most rewarding things happen to me as a teacher. After spending several weeks teaching my class how to write a persuasive essay, and stressing the importance of how a strong argument always shows both sides of an issue and uses multiple sources to back up their opinion, the following transpires. My JW student turns in her essay on the issue of why she thinks Christians shouldn't celebrate birthdays and is prepared to read this out loud to the class, essentially "witnessing" to my class. So I look at her sources and she does have multiple sources (which was one of the requirements) but the problem is they are all from watchtower and awake magazines, just different years, etc. After praising her for all the "excellent" research she had already accumulated, I helped her think critically by showing her that even though she had several resources, they really came from one single source.
I challenged her that she needed to do research that came from a different source other than just the "WTBTS". I also encouraged her to show the opposite opinion, as this gives your writing a fairer balance and can actually strengthen your own position. A week later she comes to me in tears and says the following "I did all my research like you said, and I have two new sources now" to which I reply "that's fantastic, I am so proud of you, but why the tears?" This is the response I get "because I don't think it's bad to celebrate my birthday anymore, I tried and tried to prove what I thought but when you said we had to have different sources to prove it, I couldn't find any good proof. I am sad because it makes me feel like what if more stuff I thought was true isn't? " I hugged her and reassured her that she is learning a life long skill of thinking critically. I reassured her that even adults are constantly learning and changing their minds on things all the time, and reminded her that learning is a life long process and we should always question and challenge ourselves and our beliefs all the time. She wiped her tears and said "thank you so much, I will always remember what you taught me."
She walked out of my classroom, and I seriously just sat there dazed! I couldn't believe what just happened. I just sat there alone and literally cried. They were happy tears though. I really hope she remembers what she learned, and will one day use those critical thinking skills to escape from the jw world. I am not sure what kind of ramifications there will be with her parents, who are very active. From what I've gathered mom is probably a pioneer and dad is an elder. I will keep you posted.
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