美国国家公共电台 NPR Lack Of Education Leads To Lost Dreams And Low Income For Many Jehovah's Witnesses

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Of all major U.S. religious groups, members of the Jehovah's Witnesses have the lowest rate of formal education - that according to a Pew study. And as Luke Vander Ploeg reports, that can have a real impact on people who choose to leave the religion.

LUKE VANDER PLOEG, BYLINE¹: Cracked leather couches and pictures from mission trips line the walls of a borrowed room at a church in Long Beach, Calif.

DEAN: My name is Dean. I was baptized in '93, left '95.

BECKY ALVAREZ: Becky Alvarez. I left in '94.

DAVE HAMPTON: My name's Dave Hampton. I'm married to an ex-Witness which is always fun.

VANDER PLOEG: This is a meeting of the ex-Jehovah's Witnesses of Los Angeles, a support group that gets together once a month. Today it's about 12 people strong. Zachary Linderer left the Witnesses about five months ago. He's new to the meetings.

ZACHARY LINDERER: Actually this one today was my first time.

VANDER PLOEG: How did you feel about it?

LINDERER: It was a little funny, a little uncomfortable, but I don't know. I still relate to them very strongly because of my background. So it's kind of a mixed feelings.

VANDER PLOEG: A main function of the support group is talking about that shared background. This week, the topic of discussion is how Witnesses treat higher education. It's something that's played a major role in Zachary's life.

LINDERER: I wanted to be a physicist² or an oceanographer or something having to do with the sciences, but it was very clear that I wasn't going to be able to do that.

VANDER PLOEG: Zachary's dad had heard stories about college.

LINDERER: He told me that he knew people who were into science, and it drug them right out of the truth.

VANDER PLOEG: There was some secret dangerous piece of knowledge that universities taught.

LINDERER: I didn't know what that was, but it was just like a bogeyman. It's just there, and it's going to get you. And if you do it, it's going to ruin you.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ANTHONY MORRIS III: I have long said the better the university, the greater the danger.

VANDER PLOEG: That's Anthony Morris III, a member of the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Witness leadership declined to speak to NPR for this story. This is Morris in an online video.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MORRIS: One brother likened his experience in a university setting to being in a house that is on fire. Spiritually speaking, he said, even if you escape alive, your clothes still smell like smoke. It has an effect on you.

VANDER PLOEG: Corrupting³ influence is just one of the reasons Witnesses frown on higher education. They also believe the end of the world is imminent⁴ and time in college would be better spent going door to door winning converts. Zachary Linderer's family discouraged education so strongly that he never even finished high school. He did end up going back to get his GED and becoming an electrician, but he says that longing⁵ to study science never left him.

LINDERER: I think I had that feeling, that sense at 17 years old or so that that was like - that's what I wanted it to be. That's what I needed to be, and there's been this hole ever since then.

VANDER PLOEG: That's a sentiment I heard from nearly all of the 100 plus ex-Witnesses I talked to, that feeling of being robbed of something. It's not unheard of for Witnesses to graduate college, but it's very unlikely. Pew Research shows that only 9 percent of Jehovah's Witnesses get a bachelor's degree. That's well below the national average and the lowest of any faith group. The same study also shows that Witnesses have some of the lowest income of any major religion. Amber⁶ McGee falls in that category. She grew up a Witness in rural Texas. Her parents pulled her and her siblings⁷ out of school at a young age.

AMBER MCGEE: My mom herself who was supposed to be our homeschool teacher was not capable of doing it emotionally, mentally.

VANDER PLOEG: Amber's mother never finished high school.

MCGEE: She had three young children. She was by herself very far from family and even just grocery stores and that sort of thing.

VANDER PLOEG: Eventually, Amber's mother gave up teaching them. The girls had to do it themselves using workbooks.

MCGEE: I would do all the multiple choice and true and false, and they would write all the essays for all the subjects. So it was really bad. I literally⁸ barely graduated.

VANDER PLOEG: That's made life difficult for Amber. She's 34 years old and the most she's made in a year is about $14,000. Amber and her husband left the Witnesses a year ago. They're doing better now financially, but it's still far from what Amber had hoped for her life.

MCGEE: I was taught very, very young to stop dreaming, to not have dreams, that you'll never ever be a famous person or a doctor or nurse. It's not possible. So now as an adult, I'm learning to start dreaming again.

VANDER PLOEG: If not for her own future, then definitely for the futures⁹ of her kids. For NPR News, I'm Luke Vander Ploeg in Los Angeles.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。

3 corrupting   

（使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏

参考例句：

• It would be corrupting discipline to leave him unpunished. 不惩治他会败坏风纪。
• It would be corrupting military discipline to leave him unpunished. 不惩治他会败坏军纪。

4 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

5 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

6 amber   

n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的

参考例句：

• Would you like an amber necklace for your birthday?你过生日想要一条琥珀项链吗？
• This is a piece of little amber stones.这是一块小小的琥珀化石。

7 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

8 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

9 futures   

n.期货，期货交易

参考例句：

• He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
• Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。