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.