Report from the Seminary
Cam
By C.S. Bezas
Editor’s
note: Welcome to our new column written by C.S. Bezas for
LDS Seminary teachers. Herein you will find specific teaching
tips, games to play with your students, and ideas on how
to approach challenges you may face in your seminary classroom.
Each Wednesday, C.S. Bezas will present a new article replete
with teaching tips and resources for your use. At the first
of the month, there will be an overview of pressing issues
for seminary teachers entitled Points to Ponder. Each subsequent
article in the month will provide games for the classroom,
answers to questions readers have written, and creative
activities to share with your seminary students. Meridian
readers are welcome to mail their questions and feedback
by writing seminary@meridianmagazine.com.
When asked the best part about
teaching seminary, most seminary teachers probably would
say, “Helping the youth grow in their testimonies of Jesus
Christ.” Truly, could there be anything more rejuvenating
than that?
Yet seminary teachers also
grapple with students who are habitually tardy, refuse to
participate, and perhaps even hate coming to class. Seminary
teachers encounter rudeness and other distractions that
impede the presence of the Spirit. And it is disheartening
to hear of a seminary student who has been caught making
spiritually dangerous choices outside of the classroom.
What is a teacher to do when
the mandate of both the teacher’s heart and their teacher’s
manual directs teachers to “assist the individual, the family,
and priesthood leaders in accomplishing the mission of the
church” (Teaching the Gospel: A Handbook for CES Teachers
and Leaders [1994], 3), yet some students pull the opposite
way? A difficult task indeed, this, to accomplish in a seminary
room with students who squirm, sleep, or toss spit wads
(and other nefarious items) at each other!
Most teachers would agree that
days like this might be few and far between. And most teachers
know what to do when they privately are spiritually spent.
Prayer and scripture study will refresh the most tired of
teachers. But sometimes, even after prayer and study, our
“creativity factory” needs rejuvenation or even repair.
For example, we might sigh,
“Just how do I teach 3 Nephi 11 in a moving way that will
capture the hearts of these particular students?” Or, “How
do I present the stripling warriors, those faithful sons
of the Nephites, in a way my students will want to emulate
their behavior? I don’t want to be a blabbing mono-tone
at the front of my classroom!”
Indeed, as teachers we want
dynamic classrooms where every student is engaged and gravitating
toward spiritually sound lives — but our minds at times
may run dry of creative approaches to bring that about,
especially as the seminary school year wanes.
Thus the purpose of the Seminary
Class Notes column stands to help you when you need help
most. Coupled with prayer and scripture study, we at Meridian
Magazine aim to provide the tools necessary to help you
achieve the dynamic classroom you desire. Whether your need
is for scripture mastery games, student challenges, or teaching
tips, this is the place. So let’s get started! First up
for this week: Points to Ponder.
Points to Ponder.
Who wants to hear a teacher
blab on minute after minute, with barely a break in the
flow of words? Especially for those of us who teach early-morning
seminary students, it’s a tricky path to negotiate — balancing
sincere gospel instruction with creative activities that
keep sleepy-headed students awake long enough to grasp important
spiritual doctrines.
Imagine for a moment that for
the next five days of teaching, the Meridian “Seminary-Cam”
floats in your classroom, recording one week of instruction.
At the end of that week, what will the camera have shown?
Join me as we answer the following
five questions, paraphrased from several of my own CES directors:
1. What would you estimate
was the amount of time you as the teacher spent in front
of the camera?
a.
20 percent (of class time).
b. 40 percent
c. 60 percent
d. 80 percent
e. 100 percent
2. What is the amount of
time the students spent explaining a gospel principle to
another student?
a. 20 percent
b. 40 percent
c. 60 percent
d. 80 percent
e. 100 percent
3. What is the amount of
time students spent actually reading in the
scriptures, rather than just hearing about
the doctrine or the stories?
a. 20 percent
b. 40 percent
c. 60 percent
d. 80 percent
e. 100 percent
4. How much class time did
the students spend in quiet contemplation/review time?
a. 20 percent
b. 40 percent
c. 60 percent
d. 80 percent
e. 100 percent
5. How much class time was
given for students to share their personal feelings about
the gospel principle taught that day?
a. 20 percent
b. 40 percent
c. 60 percent
d. 80 percent
e. 100 percent
If the Seminary-Cam were a
real camera with real video footage, we might be surprised
to learn that perhaps there are days we spend far too much
time teaching center-stage. While it is true we are to lead
out as seminary teachers — testifying of truths so the Holy
Ghost can confirm these truths for our students — we still
can over-teach.
There comes a time, and it
should happen in every class, when the students need to
test the waters spiritually. In other words, just as watching
a fisherman fish does not another fisherman make, gospel
study must be dived into personally — not just heard about.
What does this all really mean?
The most valuable advice I received as a new seminary teacher
came from my CES director after observing my classroom.
“Make sure every day your students are in the scriptures
themselves.” I soon learned that it is actually in reading
the word of the Lord that one falls in love with the scriptures.
It is in personally experiencing the peace the scriptures
bring that we can proclaim for ourselves we “know these
things to be true.”
It is a must that we allow
our students to have this same opportunity to discover for
themselves the sweet savor of actual scriptural verbiage.
Then they, too, can declare they have heard and know for
themselves the voice of the Lord (see D&C 18:35). For
in no other time-period in history could this be more essential
— our students must learn to recognize the voice of the
Savior. What better place to do this than in the rich pools
of wonder found in the seminary classroom?
That is why we do not
remain too much “in front of the camera.” Otherwise, we
rob our students of precious, guided “research” and “witness”
time. As my CES director put it during one early morning
visit, teachers should be in front of their class no more
than 40 percent of the time. He encouraged me to make sure
the rest of the time was filled with students studying
the scriptures themselves through various classroom activities,
then sharing what they learned with their neighbors,
and then to finish it all off, testifying of their
new gained knowledge. What spirit-filled moments!
But in all practicality, how
does a teacher bring this about, without the students running
rampantly away with class time? Stay tuned, because next
week I’ll bring the first of many activities intended to
bring sparkle to your students’ eyes and joy to their hearts!
Again, our Meridian seminary column, “Seminary Class Notes,”
promises to bring consistent ideas to help you as the teacher
effectively balance your time on and off “camera” in the
wondrous pool of knowledge known as the seminary classroom.
