What were your reasons for not liking the ministry school?

LongHairGal

I dropped out years ago because I couldn't stand getting together with sisters I didn't like to do a talk. I hated it with a passion!!

I do realize that you did learn but what I resented was that the sisters were inflicted on each other in a way that I don't think the brothers were. I couldn't stand all this togetherness.

It was as if whoever dreamed this up thought the sisters should be lumped together like a giant quilting bee like something over a century ago! Maybe it makes the men feel all warm and fuzzy but I despised it.

It was bad enough having to be with them doing the door to door work!

JH

I HATE speaking in public.

I rather go to the dentist

zaphod

word in ministry school defence

although i now know that what i was saying was a load of cr*p, i do feel that the actual experience of getting up in front of an audience and speaking stood me in good stead when i left the truth and went to university.

i always got good marks for my presentation skills and i am not a natural public speaker. so i must have learned something.

zaphod

tetrapod.sapien

[brag]i never got a single "work on" in my entire TMS career. 15 years[/brag]

but i hated it because i hate public speaking. i hated the feeling before giving a part. when i started having anxiety attacks before talks, i took a "leave of absence" from the school. i always felt bored with other peoples parts, and dishonest with my own. honestly, the only time i ever enjoyed the school was when a hot sister got up to be in a part, and i could stare at her for an extended period of time without seeming like a freak.

vitty

I always wondered what good it did. Nobody learned anything from anybody elses talks and if it was yours youd forget it and NEVER use it on field sevice

The agony it cause to so many, it was just something else to keep you preoccupied from the real life.

Nosferatu

I hated the preparation that I had to put into talks. It was too much like homework.

I think we got the subject a month before hand (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and then my parents would get on my case about working on it. I'd always put it off until the night before the meeting. Then I'd work like hell on it for about an hour, and then say "fvvv it, it's done." I also learned the art on inserting fluff to make a talk longer if I was quite short of the five minute mark. I also learned how to speak slower to eat up some time.

Then, after all that crap, I'd give the talk. After the meeting I heard "That was a good talk" from 50 people. Nobody ever said "That was a shitty talk." I would've loved to hear that just for something different. Maybe that's why I don't take praise very well. People fake it.

what_Truth?

The theocratic ministry school was one of the few things I actually liked about being a Jehovah's Witness. It helped me get over my stage fright, and made me into a much better communicator. I think it's a wonderful program that every church and public school should use, even if it is a blatent ripoff of the Dale Carnegie public speaking method. On the rare occasion that i have to speak publically today I stil use the same techniques I was taught back when I was a dub.

That being said, I didn't like the fact that my talks would often get stymed for dumb reasons. For instance, one week I was assigned an old testiment bible reading that spoke in graphic detail about the unclean sex practices of some pagan nation or other. My mother told the PO that she didn't feel it was appropriate for me to read such a passage at 12 years old and so the talk was given to another brother. Of course it was nearly 3 months before I got another assignment.

Also, another time the power went out minutes before I was about to give a coveted and much researched #4 talk from the Young People Ask book. Obviously my talk was never rescheduled and for some reason it took almost 6 months for me to get another assignment. I even envied the elder's sons a little since they usually got a talk every other week or so, even though some of them were dreadful public speakers, then again I guess that's the only way they learn.

Oroborus21

AS a brother and because few school classes these days give you enough practice of speaking in public,

I think the school can be extremely useful in helping one become a better public speaker.

These days as a Lawyer I sometimes have to speak in public, to the court, etc. and I have that confidence. I am also a volunteer member of the Los Angeles Opera's Speakers Bureau and give talks to groups of all kinds and I can tell you that my participation ministry school was good practice.

I refer mostly to practice because I don't know if I was ever effectively "trained" by the School Overseer. The old handbook was useful for the most part in whatever the working points were, say like "volume and pausing" or whatever, and I would carefully read this info and apply it. I was naturally very good, so whenever I gave a talk, the Overseer really didn't have any criticism. He would of course think of something to say but it was basically just to fill the time.

Maybe others, and depending on how good the School Overseer is, may have received some good actual constructive criticism, i.e. training.

But the practice alone is good. The most common fear reported in polls is that of public speaking.

So when you have this system that you are forced to challenge yourself and go ahead and do it. And frankly it is in a situation where everyone is gong to tell you "nice job" afterwards and no one is throwing tomatoes or laughing at you or heckling you, such a system helps one to get over their fear of public speaking.

So on the whole I think it is very good for most persons.

I don't know about the women's perspective however. In a way if they really role played, then they actually got better rehearsal training for the actual "ministry" at the door or in informal settings than we did in giving the talks.

But the more likely reality is that these "scenarios" do not resemble in the least the real world encounters and besides just doing the ministry itself would be "practice" at these, so the value of the situation for the sisters seems very minimal.

On top of that THEY don't get the practice of speaking directly to an audience, i.e. giving a talk, which is what would be most beneficial to them as a person and in their professional life.

So from a feminine perspective the School seems like it would be a huge waste of time; except for the fact that we do learn something by watching someone give a talk and then listening to the critique of it. So by proxy both men and women learn from watching the talks.

If I were to change the School it would be to do away with the Role-playing scenarios and partnering of the sisters and have both brothers and sisters do a talk. (Just as a starting point, I would change lots of other things too)

Of course the school is all changed now. A person can't even do the Bible Reading and give extra commentary, introduction or conclusion. That is just practice reading out loud and seems pretty pointless.

-Eduardo

blondie

Actually I liked the school.

1. It consisted of several small parts not dominated by the elders, 3 of which had the rank and file preparing and delivering (a break from the elders).

2. There was some element of surprise in the last 3 talks.

3. I rarely had to give a talk more than twice a year which I didnt mind. It gave me an opportunity to put an extra twist to the material.

Blondie

luna2

I'd been on a competitive speaking/dramatics team in highschool, so I wasn't afraid of getting up in front of a crowd or writing my own material, so I didn't mind that part of it. I thought it was good for my kids to get a taste of having to speak in front of a crowd. The part I disliked was that as a single working mom, it seemed like I had at least one talk to prepare or help prepare every month and it got to be a real source of irritation.

I don't feel that anything I did up on the stage in the school taught me anything useful for field service. I got so that I could put together a talk in about 20 minutes with my partner usually acting as a householder in the door to door work (we'd go over her part by arriving at the Hall 15 minutes early and practicing a couple of times in the bathroom). LOL It was soooo easy to only write like maybe two questions for her to "ask" me, have her read scriptures or make logical answers to my condescending witnessy questions and then wrap it up with either a yes to a Bible study or at least coming back the next week. I was such a slacker.

What were your reasons for not liking the ministry school?

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