Church chatterbox

[Spaz]

Originally Posted by pelagius

I must admit I don't know what the finer points of the gospel are. Although I am pretty sure that we don't discuss the finer points here on cougarguard. I do agree that people need to censor their comments in gospel doctrine and priesthood and that there are clearly many things that are out of bounds. It is clearly not the time to prove to the class the you can name 30 of Joseph's Smith wives (and naturally all the polyandrous ones) or that you have memorized 4 different accounts of 19th century journal entries about the "second annointing." But I still maintain that there are plenty of thought provoking and interesting questions to entertain in Sunday School.

I thought about defining what I meant by 'finer points', but decided I'd do a bad job of it & chose not to.


I simply find discussions on things like the nature of Kolob (for example) to be discussions that do nothing for the individual learning & spirituality of the individuals involved.

Since I believe Sunday School & Priesthood should be places for feeling of the spirit, and enriching our lives with the testimonies of others, and since most of our testimonies are based on the 'mundane' points of the gospel (i.e., reading the BoM or a spiritual witness of Joseph Smith), I feel like those type of discussions have no place in those environments and should be avoided.


Lastly, because I hold the personal belief that I should not share certain stories & testimonies unless I receive a spiritual prompting to do so, I prefer to keep my mouth shut so that others can share theirs.



Hopefully that explains my thought process on the matter.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

When I do attend, one of the two GD instructors does not often solicit comments and not seem to appreciate non-traditional responses.

Maybe this is pretty common in well-functioning wards (I don't know how better to put it) and if so that does make it much harder to be a helpful contributor. The teacher has a very set idea of how they want the lesson to go so if your comment causes deviation from that goal it can be an issue for the teacher. Teaching is a tough gig so I am somewhat sympathetic to their thinking. Maybe this is a particularly issue in gospel doctrine because so many teachers feel compelled to get through a certain amount of material (and the material for many lessons as Tex mentioned is often quite large). I think most teachers are better off not worrying about how much material they covered but I have noticed that many teachers think it is important.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by pelagius

Maybe this is pretty common in well-functioning wards (I don't know how better to put it) and if so that does make it much harder to be a helpful contributor. The teacher has a very set idea of how they want the lesson to go so if your comment causes deviation from that goal it can be an issue for the teacher. Teaching is a tough gig so I am somewhat sympathetic to their thinking. Maybe this is a particularly issue in gospel doctrine because so many teachers feel compelled to get through a certain amount of material (and the material for many lessons as Tex mentioned is often quite large). I think most teachers are better off not worrying about how much material they covered but I have noticed that many teachers think it is important.

If there's one criticism I have of church instruction, it's that teachers are not trained well enough. We used to have a Teacher Development course (before it was discontinued) but it's curriculum was mixed at best, and if taught by someone who himself didn't have the skills, it could be a disaster. Each stake (if not ward) needs one highly-motivated and talented teacher to train and assist ward-level teachers who struggle. Sadly, some of our best teachers get stuck in leadership positions, leaving just the "left overs," if I can say that politely, for classroom instruction.

A good teacher who knows how to pace the class, manage sometimes off-the-wall comments from class members, and ask well thought-out questions is worth his weight in gold.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by pelagius

I think most teachers are better off not worrying about how much material they covered but I have noticed that many teachers think it is important.

This is exactly correct, IMO. Yesterday in our quorum meeting we were set to talk about John the Baptist. The instructor had us read a few scriptures, then a few paragraphs from the JS manual, then asked what Christ meant when he said no other prophet was greater than John the Baptist. This led to a very interesting discussion and the instructor never went to anything else. No one minded and I think we all felt edified.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Tex

If there's one criticism I have of church instruction, it's that teachers are not trained well enough. We used to have a Teacher Development course (before it was discontinued) but it's curriculum was mixed at best, and if taught by someone who himself didn't have the skills, it could be a disaster. Each stake (if not ward) needs one highly-motivated and talented teacher to train and assist ward-level teachers who struggle. Sadly, some of our best teachers get stuck in leadership positions, leaving just the "left overs," if I can say that politely, for classroom instruction.

A good teacher who knows how to pace the class, manage sometimes off-the-wall comments from class members, and ask well thought-out questions is worth his weight in gold.

This, to me, is maybe the primary drawback of having a lay clergy for all the other benefits it brings.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by Tex

We used to have a Teacher Development course (before it was discontinued) but it's curriculum was mixed at best, and if taught by someone who himself didn't have the skills, it could be a disaster.

When I lived in Chicago at one point there was a really good Teacher Development instructor. Actually, she is fairly well known in Mormon studies circles these days (Kathleen Flake). However, I was teaching 14-18 year old inner city kids whos definition of the law of chastity was basically, "as long as the girl says yes its ok." I was just usually happy if I could stop them from smoking in class.

[RockyBalboa]

I rarely comment.

It's usually the same people EVERY single week who comment incessantly and seem to be intent on showing everyone in the room how profound and knowledgable they are.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by RockyBalboa

I rarely comment.

It's usually the same people EVERY single week who comment incessantly and seem to be intent on showing everyone in the room how profound and knowledgable they are.

That's me! Are you in my ward?

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by creekster

That's me! Are you in my ward?

There is a very nice lady in our ward who we refer to as sister balloon hand. Drum knows about other good monikers of the past such as Brother Pan-Handler and Brother Uni-bomber.

[RockyBalboa]

There's also the Government Conspiracy theorist that every week finds a way to somehow turn the topic into something the Governement is doing to brainwash, while at the same scolding those who don't vote. He does this almost every week.

Dude is beyond weird.

It's like that person who stands up EVERY Fast & Testimony and you just roll your eyes and think "Oh no" to yourself and you just tune em out.