Education and Inflicted Desires Before the year 1975, Witness children did not believe they would graduate high-school. Even since the failed prophecy of 1975, Armageddon has been just around the corner. It remains “just a phone call away,” keeping the true believers, and the children, on the edge of their seats. Education is deemed unimportant since the end of the world is at hand. Many survey participants reported doing well in school yet were discouraged from taking college prep courses. Witness children usually do well in school, but as they get older, or as pressures mount at school, in the congregation, and at home, many adapt a “why bother” attitude since the “world is going to end anyway.” Tracy E. wrote:
Although in recent years the society has loosened their stance on higher education, it is often reported by those who have recently left, or been released from, the organization that the general attitude is still very much one of caution regarding such endeavors. Viki, one of the youngest survey participants, reports: I was very angry that the WTS encouraged academic over-achievement throughout elementary, and even into high school, then suddenly wanted to yank it all out from under us when we graduated. It seemed cruel and hypocritical. I wanted to scream -- you MADE me want this! How can you deny me the logical next step, college? Pioneering and book studies are still the preferred activities upon leaving school. Although Viki was exceptional in expressing the society’s prodding as being responsible for her scholastic achievement in the survey, many Witness children quite naturally perform very well through high-school. I must question if this is from encouragement or threat. In my own experience, I recall feeling more threatened, and the whole plan back-fired. Gary Botting succinctly describes the experience of school children, the thought processes involved in squelching scholastic achievement, and the society’s concerns regarding this issue:
He continues, referring to the Watch Tower magazine:
Science is particularly dangerous since it involves evolution teachings. A popular phrase among Witnesses is the play on words, “evil-you-shun.” I remember my mother’s tight facial expressions as she used this word to warn me of the evils of science. Science disrupts the Witnesses creation teachings by potentially placing doubt about the age of the universe in the minds of the child. The basic foundation of Witness doctrine is found within its chronology of the creation. They believe the universe was completely created in seven-thousand years, with one biblical day being equivalent to one-thousand years. If a child were to begin questioning these things, then surely her theocratic strength would decline. While the child exercises critical thinking in school she also learns that this thinking must be censored and controlled.
Penton reports on the society’s teachings regarding participation in school activities, an attitude that has affected thousands of children over generations:
This attitude of non-participation carries over into everything. I remember times in junior high and high school when I felt proud to abstain from pledging allegiance to the flag. During these times, when I subscribed to my parents’ religion, I felt above the flag and all its “worshippers.” Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the flag is a “false,” or “pagan,” idol. To salute it is the equivalent of worshipping Satan the Devil. Standing for the National Anthem is also considered a form of worship from which a good Witness abstains. During the years when I did not believe in the teachings of my parents’ sect, I still mostly abstained from the practice. A feeling of forced pride carried over from my various stages of belief and disbelief. Being born into the Witness sect kept me in a fog for the first twelve years of my life. When I entered Junior High, my self inside the shell began to surface. At times I fearlessly saluted, as an act of rebellion against the “spiritual food” that was being shoved upon me. I was relieved when my high school stopped requiring the act. My earlier experience in elementary school was much different. I distinctly remember the tremendous embarrassment I faced each day as my classmates saluted the flag. Each morning in home-room I shrunk back and withdrew into the linoleum of the classroom floor, feeling everyone judging and silently ridiculing me. From her article in The Humanist entitled, “Innocence, Ignorance and Backlash,” Leslie Williams points out that a more secular approach in public schools is necessary around such activities to accommodate children from varying religious upbringings. Schools are drenched in the popular Protestant-based holiday activities that exclude the other children (33). Her suggestion would help prevent the humiliation felt by children from non-mainstream families and it would honor the right to religious freedom. It is also true that publicly observable divergent strategies are part of what makes the Jehovah’s Witnesses such a strong group. These acts are partly why they are gaining status in being recognized as a major religion. Such activities bring them much attention and publicity. Their convictions are cemented through such biblically predicted persecution. Their separatist attitude lends itself to self-appointed superiority in the face of others. Survey participant, Mim, reports her feelings about her personality during her school years, “I was very extroverted as a young child, and as an adolescent. I was also insecure in the EXTREME....and although I was fairly confident outwardly I was filled with doubts and loathing about myself inwardly” [Ellipses hers]. Viki gives her account of feeling excluded:
It is unfortunate that more teachers are not aware of the dilemmas of the Witness child. This may in part be due to the fact that many people are aware only of the group’s squeaky clean image, and unaware of the group’s insidious nature. This is accentuated by the extreme display of obedience of Witness children, especially in grade school. Although non-participation in flag salutes, holiday celebrations, and birthday parties, do not go unnoticed, there is an underground current of thought in which only she is aware and thereby is adversely affected. The child is programmed to recall various slogans. Having heard them every day since birth, as far as the child is concerned, they are as natural as her own DNA. In a state of confusion, the child hears these slogans in her mind while she’s in school. She is unwittingly confused since she knows she’s not supposed to associate with “worldly people,” yet she is attending a school where there are few other Jehovah’s Witness children. She is uncertain how to handle this contradiction. She is unsure how to act. She silently asks herself, “Why must I go to this school with all these bad people? Why must I learn from teachers who are bad people? Why can’t I learn from good people?” She may have a good relationship with her teacher, which confuses her even more. The concepts of good and bad are perplexing to the child since she is taught one thing, yet living the opposite. According to Witness doctrine, the world is all or nothing, black and white, good and evil. There is nothing between right and wrong. The Witness child knows extremes, not mediums. She is in a world she knows nothing about. People at public school may be nice to her, but she does not trust them since she is programmed to believe everyone but Jehovah’s Witnesses are servants of Satan the Devil. As a child, I often asked why the Witnesses didn’t have schools of their own. Perhaps it is because the children are being used as pawns. Constant contradictions keep the victims of mind control befuddled, which serves several purposes. Fear sets in and keeps a child frozen in movements, eye contact, and lingual expressions. This furthers the state of confusion which acts as a barrier to the thinking process that in turn prevents the child-member from “knowing too much” or reverting to independent thinking, which leads to sin according to Witness doctrine. When one senses one’s own lack of importance by being unable to make personal decisions, she will give more power to the main authority. One must have clarity of mind to assess information to either accept or reject it. When one is surreptitiously forbidden to question information, one remains with the confusion which diffuses the natural impulse to raise a query, especially in children. I remember once having enough clarity to ask my mother if there will be cars that pollute the environment in the “New World,” the paradise on earth (in Witness doctrine) occurring after Christ’s “thousand year reign.” She answered in the way in which she was programmed, “I don’t know my dear. That’s up to Jehovah to decide.” This type of response arrests any further questions. Answers to questions not presented in Witness literature are usually similar to the above. Responses to questions are automatic after the many accrued hours of “Bible” study required for each Witness. The “Bible” study involves the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society Literature which provides all the prescribed scriptures. The answers are uniform and memorized by the members. When an “out of text” question arises, giving the burden of proof to ethereal Jehovah God takes the burden off the Witness and lifts him or her out of physical responsibility. Faith is mandatory. Belief is required. This fulcrum stops the thinking process within the minds of both the person responding and the person inquiring. Since children in the homes of cult followers have no choice but to adhere to their parents’ beliefs, they are in similar situations to those who get converted and live in cult homes. The difference is that the converted member succumbed--willingly or unwillingly--to his own conversion and can legally--if not psychologically or physically--leave at anytime. The young child must stay with the parents until she is able to care for herself. Therefore the child is legally, psychologically, and physically bound to the cult. Steven Hassan writes:
While some ex-cult-children survive the cult experience quite well and report relative happiness during childhood, the overwhelming majority of survey participants reported intense feelings such as boredom, humiliation from “being drug from door to door,” “hating” field service, and being, “in a word, MISERABLE as a teenager.” Sending very young children to the door alone is not uncommon. B writes:
Along with my survey, I pulled many stories of ex-JW-children from the world-wide-web. These stories also indicated many scholarships turned down, approaching doors being very young, and psychological and physical abuse. Even where there is no physical abuse present, psychological abuse is rampant. A wall is erected in the parents hearts as they ingest and dole out the punishment the organization extols. Jeff states what many Witness children have felt:
The question that arises is whether true happiness can result from such an oppressive existence? It seems that with more liberal parents, there is a greater chance of happiness. Liberal parents among devoted Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, are not very common. Jeff, mentioned above, is one of two participants who reported being “happy for the most part.” Although “not allowed to play sports or go to college or even a trade school,” he was allowed to participate in the school band, “for reasons unknown.” This gave him an opportunity to do well in school and enjoy playing music, which probably induced a greater sense of self-esteem. He reports, “Unfortunately, these things led to some very nice scholarships which I was not allowed to accept.” Jeff goes on to tell of a time that his father told him that it “would be a waste of time developing this intelligence in this system [of things] by going to college so that even if I *was* that intelligent that I would not be able to use it to its fullest potential.” He remembers “feeling extremely depressed after that for some reason.” Life inside Jehovah’s earthly organization has little opportunity to learn the ways in which to survive in the real world. Many, many Witnesses are under-employed directly due to Watch Tower Society rules. Those still in the organization may hold part-time jobs performing menial labor and, through this, support their part-time or full-time pioneering ventures. Those who have left the organization, willingly or unwillingly, often find themselves out in the world alone, and under-employed. This is not an oversight by the organization. This is how it should be, in their view. It became obvious, by the survey participants who were affected by this position, that they are not at all pleased by this directive. The only form of schooling that is readily encouraged by the society takes place in home Bible study, at Kingdom Hall meetings, and at the thrice yearly assemblies. Children are encouraged to “enroll in the ministry school” very early, usually at seven, eight, or nine years old. The ministry school meetings are those meetings in which the skills of becoming a successful “publisher” are honed. In these meetings, the child learns the acceptable forms of body movements, eye contact, hand gestures and vocal emphasis.’ The “brothers” give talks whereupon they directly address and minister to the congregation from a podium. The “sisters” are only permitted to address the congregation indirectly through the performance of skits in which one sister is the “householder” (recruit) and the other plays the “publisher,” (minister). Women and girls are restricted from directly addressing the congregation as they are not chosen by Jehovah to lead. In rare emergency situations, when a woman must lead the group in prayer, or in any other way “instruct” the congregation, she cannot proceed until she covers her head. In these instances, she may use a scarf or a Kleenex. Women and girls are heavily de-valued and constantly told to “dress with modesty.“ “You wouldn’t want to cause one of the brothers to get distracted by you, now would you?” says Tracy E. If a male stumbled due to this “distraction,” it would reflect onto the woman. Children are brought up with the image of their mother in subjection. I was struck one day online when people revealed their mothers’ impeccable house-cleaning as being imperative to the model of a “good Christian wife.” My mother was also an impeccable house-keeper. My mother has a beautiful singing voice and played piano at the Kingdom Hall, at meetings and weddings. While playing piano, she wore a head covering. One time she was invited to join a local singing group of other women her age. My father would not permit her to do this since she would be using her talents in a way other than serving Jehovah. The ironic thing is that the society’s rules also prevented her from using her talents in Jehovah’s honor as well. Penton says:
It is noteworthy that upon disaffecting from male dominated cults, many women find themselves exploring feminist based spirituality (Jacobs 107). Some males in the survey reported a naiveté regarding positive ways to treat women when finding themselves in adult relationships. They have had to restructure their thinking of women since what they had learned in childhood was unacceptable in “real life.” Some reported sexual naiveté which is hardly surprising within such a sexually repressed atmosphere. |