"Are we encouraging young ones to pursue the world's higher education, or the highest education-divine education?"-Oct KM 2011

I swear you can't make this stuff up, and the reason I say this is because the WT makes it up. Anyways they've got an article in the October 2011 KM, entitled, "Are You Learning All You Can From Jehovah?" It's a question and answer article, to be reviewed the week of October 24th. Paragraph 4 is a real winner, I paraphrased a question from it in the thread title, but here's the full paragraph.

4. "In addition, Jehovah makes available specialized education to help a number of his servants expand their service to him. Pages 4-6 list opportunities that are available to some. Even if our circumstances prevent us from receiving the training that is listed, are we taking full advantage of the divine education that isavailable to us? Are we encouraging young ones, who are often steered by schoolteachers and others to pursue the world's higher education, to set spiritual goals instead and pursue the highest education-divine education? Learning all we can from Jehovah will help us to enjoy a happy life now and an everlasting future.-Ps 119:105; John 17:3."

There's a special insert inside this KM, entitled, "Some Educational Opportunities Available Through Jehovah's Organization."

1. Literacy Classes

2. Theocratic Ministry School

3. Foreign Language Classes

4. Kingdom Hall Construction

5. Pioneer Service School

6. Bethel Entrant's School

7. Kingdom Ministry School

8. School for Congregation Elders

9. School for Traveling Overseers and Their Wives

10. Bible School for Single Brothers

11. Bible School for Christian Couples

12. Watchtower Bible School of Gilead

13. School for Branch Committe Members and Their Wives.

I know I'm all over the place on this thread, but paragraph 3 just got my attention. Check this out, its almost as if they're being facetious.

3. Benefit Fully: How we have benefited from divine education! We have learned that God has a name and that he cares about us. (Ps.83:18; 1 Pet. 5: 6, 7) We have learned the answers to some of life's most important questions: Why do people suffer and die? How can I find happiness? What is the purpose of life? Jehovah has also given us moral guidance that enables us to 'make our way successful.'-Josh. 1:8.

Ohh jeez, I can't help it, here's paragraph 2 and 1. I'm not dyslexic, but I often read from the bottom to the front. My apologies.

2. Today, Jehovah is directing the greatest educational campaign in history. As prophesied by Isaiah, millions around the globe are streaming to the figurative "mountain of the house of Jehovah." (Isa. 2:2) Why stream there? To be instructed in Jehovah's ways, yes, to be taught by Jehovah! (Isa. 2:3) During the 2010 service year, Jehovah's Witnesses spent over 1.6 billion hours witnessing and teaching people Bible truth. Additionally , each week spiritual instruction is inparted in more than 105, 000 congregations earth wide, and educational Christian publications are produced by the faithful and discreet slave in well over 500 languages.

1. Jehovah, our "Grand Instructor" wants us to be educated. (Isa. 30:20) He began teaching after he created his firstborn Son. (John 8:28) After Adam's rebellion, Jehovah did not stop teaching, but he lovingly provided instruction for imperfect humans.-Isa. 48:17, 18; 2 Tim 3:14, 15.

Gotta love it.

Being an avid reader of the Awake for 40+ years I felt the urege to go to college and get a real education...  

*sigh* In the face of this, I can see this 'pricking' my wife's heart as she is still in the middle of completing her secular education.

Just keep the flock ignorant and dumbed down, it is easier to control them that way. 

To hell with the WT and their educational fallacies, many thousands have been to those schools and they have been out without any significant values afterall. Of what benefit is it to keep establishing theocratic institutions without real personal development for the student, they established those schools as substitutes for the higher education they loathe with passion. 

Many finished from those schools and are extremely useless to the real world. Lay-off bethelites peddle arround the street with no significant skill to offer the innovative world, they have to succumb to brown collar jobs to keep the WT ponzi scheme running.  I have been to 5 of those schools, they are all disastrous, they are all attempts to keep victims of world instability under their arms, Here I am now, without any value to them anymore,What an opaque construct!, It pissess me off.

Are we encouraging young ones, who are often steered by schoolteachers and others to pursue the world's higher education, to set spiritual goals instead and pursue the highest education-divine education?

To any young Witnesses lurking here, you should know that this isn't the first time the Society has tried discouraging you from going to university. Note what was said over 40 years ago:

"If you are a young person, you also need to face the fact that you will never grow old in this present system of things. Why not? Because all the evidence in fulfillment of Bible prophecy indicates that this corrupt system is due to end in a few years. Of the generation that observed the beginning of the 'last days' in 1914, Jesus foretold:'This generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.' Therefore, as a young person, you will never fulfill any career that this system offers."----Awake! 1969 May 22 p.15

Let's take a look at what the list really means:

1. Literacy Classes - Pretty good as it's always helpful to learn another language.
2. Theocratic Ministry School - the only good thing this does is ensure that you have no fear of public speaking which can come in handy down the road;
3. Foreign Language Classes - Same as number 1.  Always helpful to learn another language.
4. Kingdom Hall Construction - Hey, it's also always good to learn a trade.
5. Pioneer Service School - Waste of time.  If once you start down this path, forever will it dominate your destiny.....
6. Bethel Entrant's School - Just a fancy name for Boot Camp.  Don't even think of complaining or you just might never be heard from again.
7. Kingdom Ministry School - Isn't this the same thing as the Theocratic Misery School?  Either way, it's a total snorefest.
8. School for Congregation Elders - Learn how to kiss ass our way!  Also gives you a free sample of what it means to have power over others lives.
9. School for Traveling Overseers and Their Wives - Learn how to never have a real job, but get everything handed to you on a silver platter.  Never worry about paying a mortgage, food, car expenses or medical expenses.
10. Bible School for Single Brothers - A safe environment to deaden those body members----NOT!
11. Bible School for Christian Couples - WTF?  Don't you learn enough at the Theocrapic Misery School?
12. Watchtower Bible School of Gilead - Learn how to give the WTS the last bit of control you may have had over your life.
13. School for Branch Committe Members and Their Wives - No one really knows what this is, but it sounds impressive.  Probably a great way to further your social status without having to do too much.

 

I don't see any calculus classes listed.

curses, Mary! I was gonna list responses to each one.  You beat me to it, you wily vixen!

well, I'll give it a go anyway and try to add to it but Mary pretty much covered it all (i bet she was the kind of JW that stole your comments!)

I would add to Mary's comments that most of these "educational" programs that they are boasting about here are only available to select individuals with specific circumstances.  Some of these "classes" are very exclusive to get into and even if you do get in, you don't learn jack.

Also, I've known plenty of people who have attended some of the more common ones, (pioneer school, elder school, etc.) and as of now aren't even JWs anymore.  You would learn more if you climbed into a tire and rolled yourself down a hill.

They made a movie about the New World. They called it Idiocracy.

I see there are many opportunities for the young women in that list...

Thanks G. This just reeks the phrase 'STUCK ON STUPID'. Why can't they see the red flags flapping all around this organization? Since out, I have never seen a religion that encourages such ignorance regarding education. Alot of churches promote/own universities. I guess they don't fear intelligence. JW's use the KISS technique. Keep it Simple Stupid.  peaceAll      paulnotsaul 

Any chance we can get an upload miz?This type of shit really pisses me off. It is so unfair to young people.

The people in my congregation about had a melt-down when they found out I was going to college @ 18 years old. The pressure that is coming down on the current generation of kids is so unholy.

Bah...why am I still in?????

So the WTS thinks it can do better than any secular institution of higher learning?  We all know that's a damned lie.  And one other thing they conveniently forgot to mention about some of their schools like Kingdom Ministry and the one for Congregation Elders:  those without penises need not apply for admission.

I have to say that I personally did benefit from the Theocratic Ministry and Pioneer Service Schools.  When I went back to college fifteen years ago, I saw where the training I received through them gave me substantial advantages.  Most of my classmates who had gone directly from high school to college could neither write well nor give even a short presentation in a small classroom setting.  Yes, I have some natural ability in those things, but the schools sharpened them for me.  The real payoff came when I was asked to give one of the graduation day addresses for the Geography Department at the University of Colorado.  The talk I gave was directly modeled on the fourth student talks I used to give in the TMS.  I received the loudest and longest applause of any of the speakers when I concluded it.

On the whole, however, the October Our Kingdom Ministry is playing on the fact that most of its readers have no more than a high school education and so will believe whatever is printed by the WTS.  They have nothing to compare WTS culture to, so they think they are getting the very best training available.  Ignorance is indeed bliss.

Quendi

Hey all you lurkers!

Why not put those "theocratic schools" on your resume? I'm sure that employers will be impressed that you sat thru 2 weeks of pioneer school, or that you can stumble thru a 4 minute Bible reading once per 3 months and get a pat on the head.

Scan link?  PM me please?

@VM44:

I laughed out loud when you mentioned the lack of calculus classes in the WTS "curriculum".  It reminded me of this experience.  One of the local brothers gave a talk once in which he mentioned how much he loved mathematics.  He then went on to give an example of a mathematical problem that had intrigued him for many years.  It was how astronomers calculated distances to nearby stars using the parallax method.  He told the congregatin this was an example of the use of "advanced" mathematics.  Of course, most of his listeners were duly impressed.

I have a degree in mathematics, and when I heard the speaker's remark it was all I could do not to laugh out loud.  When the meeting ended, I approached him and said that his example illustrated the use of trigonometry, a subject one could study in high school and which hardly ranked as "advanced" mathematics.  I told him this as tactfully as I could, but he was clearly deflated to learn this.

Then there was the sister who once asked me if calculus was the most difficult branch of mathematics to master.  She was floored when I told her that was not so and that both algebra and arithmetic were more difficult than calculus.  The ignorance of the true nature of mathematics is very deep among Witnesses, most of whom haven't even been exposed to geometry or trigonometry, let alone more advanced stuff.

When I was studying for my degree, I had occasion to invite Witness friends to spend a day with me on the university campus and audit some of my classes.  So they came along and listened to lectures in physics, partial differential equations, linear algebra, and complex variables.  Needless to say, they came away with their heads spinning.  One of them, a very bright young man, told me that he could only now begin to see just how complicated real mathematics was.  I asked him why he thought that way.  He said, "I was shocked that you could have a lecture in mathematics in which the professor would cover an entire blackboard with symbols and equations and yet not see a single numeral.  Now I know that mathematics is about ideas and concepts, and not simply numbers!"

Quendi

Hey DPL, Gayle, I'm at work right now, I'll see if I can't scan this later when I get an opportunity. I can't recall my password or login from JW.Org at the moment, so I can't download a quick PDF version of it and post it. I have a hard copy in front of me, which I just typed out as its quicker for me to simply type an article than post it somewhere. I'll see what I can do.

I guess I'm on a roll today.  I do recall one issue of Our Kingdom Ministry in which young people were encouraged to learn as much about history, geography, mathematics, and science as possible.  I thought that was interesting in light of how little these four basic disciplines are covered in WTS publications.

Quendi

Sooorrrreeeeeee Mr. Falcon!!

Can I list my study out of the old "Truth" book on my resume?

Does it matter that a high percentage of it is now "old light"?

Quite alright, m'lady.  I will gladly cede my place to such wisdom as yours anyday.