NOM

I teach my son's primary class with DW, I figure it is family time and keeps DW relatively happy and I can observe the indoctrination. Recently the ward doubled the number of primary teachers, allowing DW and I to have the 2nd hour for SS or PH/RS. Yesterday was one of our weeks off, and there was a Teacher Council; a meeting organized by the SS Pres where the teachers can discuss ways to have better lessons. I attended with DW. They said some good and reasonable things about how to teach, but I left with the same feeling I used to have after ward council with a broken shelf.


The Good:

- Bad questions are not helpful
- Bad questions include questions that are too easy or one-word answers.
- When you lose the lesson to a discussion you didn't have planned that is usually a good thing.
- (from me) Some people are uncomfortable participating and that is okay, no need to push them away by trying to force them to participate


The Bad:

- Leading questions are good, and so is "How does that make you feel?" [Gross]
- Kids, youth, and adults who make comments that disagree with church stuff are a problem, annoying, and wrong. [I get that it's church, but it still bothers me...]
- Several comments implied that not participating in lessons is inherently bad, and needs to be fixed.
- The suggestions for keeping lessons on track for kids and youth. When someone mentions that it's tough to keep 12 year olds on topic at church the correct response is commiseration, not suggesting 6 ways that everyone has tried that don't actually work.
- Comparing kids to cockroaches.


The Funny:

The SS Pres lost the discussion a bit when he decided to liken the classes to a book club, then he admitted that he had never participated in a book club, but that he imagined that they were what the classes should be like. Several RS women noted that they had been to book clubs and that they were great, you just touch on the highlights of the book and then talk about whatever you want. The book club isn't so much about the book, more about the camaraderie with your friends. It was the truest parallel I have heard in church in a while.

I'm actually a bit jealous for your and your stake. I was on the Stake SS presidency for about 2 years before I went inactive. It was a complete waste of time. They only thing they ever accomplished was to hold meetings. Nothing ever came out of it and they never even held any sort of teacher training.

Just This Guy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:11 pm I'm actually a bit jealous for your and your stake. I was on the Stake SS presidency for about 2 years before I went inactive. It was a complete waste of time. They only thing they ever accomplished was to hold meetings. Nothing ever came out of it and they never even held any sort of teacher training.

It was implemented from the top down a couple years ago in my stake. Before that I was SS Pres, and they were pushing us to hold these meetings but didn't suggest when or where we could hold them. I ended up scheduling different groups during the times they weren't teaching and it went pretty well. I'm still kinda proud of what I did in that calling. The way it is setup now is similar to what we did while I was involved. On a side note, meetings with the teachers are the easiest. They are mostly willing to participate and many have good insight.

I attended one or two of those in the last year (skipped the rest), and they were awful in my ward. Someone would always start weeping and talking about the importance of teaching, and how so many youth are falling away. They would also call on people randomly to answer questions, so there was a forced participation that I didn't like. I couldn't stand those meetings. You are right, you should skip those.