Atheist Mormon Posted August 17, 2017 Posted August 17, 2017 3 hours ago, The Nehor said: I miss British pub food. Don't even go there....While I'm eating lame left over lunch at my office
The Nehor Posted August 17, 2017 Posted August 17, 2017 3 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said: Don't even go there....While I'm eating lame left over lunch at my office Someone quit so I got cake today. Free lunch!
clarkgoble Posted August 17, 2017 Posted August 17, 2017 On 8/16/2017 at 7:37 AM, Doctrine 612 said: What are your thoughts on the 2018 curriculum for priesthood and relief society, https://www.lds.org/bc/content/ldsorg/manual/2018/instructions/14888_000_InstrCur2018.pdf?lang=eng Sounds not that different from what we've been doing half the time anyway. Just more of the council meetings. I couldn't tell if that 1st Sunday was combined or not. Main difficulty is in wardhouses where the space for combined RS/PH is inadequate. It's great if you can use the chapel. If you can't it's a real pain. I kind of wished they'd broken away from the strict chronological scripture study. It'd be nice if there was for Sunday School something doctrinal for a year or two. 2
sheilauk Posted August 18, 2017 Posted August 18, 2017 To be honest, at the moment it sounds horrible to me. I teach the youth using come follow me and it is hard work to plan the lesson each week. It is also very repetitive. I already find RS a struggle because most of our teachers are uninspiring, particularly when looking at conference talks! most use no aids and simply regurgitate the chapter / talk. Like Nehor, I do something else while listening! At least now i can read the chapter or take and make my own notes, i even sometimes read the lesson beforehand, both much harder to do with the come follow me format. And I'm not sure about the counselling together. To do it well, teachers will have to up their game and accept that they need training! (Our teachers councils aren't very good either!). oh well, I don't suppose it will be worse than now!
clarkgoble Posted August 18, 2017 Posted August 18, 2017 Bad teachers = bad lessons No avoiding that. 2
rongo Posted August 18, 2017 Posted August 18, 2017 I think the aim is good and noble with many recent changes, but "lowest common denominator" quality control is gone. That is, the lesson manuals, missionary discussions, etc. compensated for "bad teachers" and provided a baseline of minimum quality control. The bar is raised under several new initiatives, but actual results on the ground fall far short of the aim. Preach My Gospel, Come Follow Me, monthly teacher training meetings, weekly self-reliance groups (with a 12 week commitment), Come Follow Me for adults, monthly RS/priesthood counsel meetings, JustServe, etc. are all pretty similar in their approach and execution. I think the results speak for themselves over a period of several years. Ostensibly, we're supposed to have Spirit-filled discussion about basic gospel principles week in and week out. Actually, church has become consistently and steadily more and more boring and repetitive. Good teachers can only do so much within this framework. It's getting to where even the really good ones have a hard time providing a good and stimulating learning experience week-in and week-out. I'm with sheilauk. At the moment, this sounds horrible to me, too. It's like expanding the excitement and relevance of the monthly teacher training meetings to everyone in the 3rd hour! 2
juliann Posted August 18, 2017 Posted August 18, 2017 I'm so glad to get rid of those prophet manuals, I'm open to anything for RS.
rongo Posted August 18, 2017 Posted August 18, 2017 14 hours ago, juliann said: I'm so glad to get rid of those prophet manuals, I'm open to anything for RS. I agree, but we could be in "be careful what you wish for" territory. We may find ourselves lusting after the flesh pots of the prophet manuals . . . 1
clarkgoble Posted August 18, 2017 Posted August 18, 2017 (edited) 15 hours ago, rongo said: I think the aim is good and noble with many recent changes, but "lowest common denominator" quality control is gone. That is, the lesson manuals, missionary discussions, etc. compensated for "bad teachers" and provided a baseline of minimum quality control. The bar is raised under several new initiatives, but actual results on the ground fall far short of the aim. I'm not sure that's true other than one can just read the lesson manual aloud and hope someone asks a question. Not to turn this into a debate on teachers, but finding good teachers can be hard. My sense is that this will let good teachers flourish. However I also agree this will really make bad teachers struggle even more. Part of the problem is that the people who are often good teachers also have other skills and get picked for other callings. For completely understandable reasons. (I'm not criticizing here) What I suspect we need is a choice where things are flexible and open for good teachers but more "paint by numbers" for people who don't have the skills yet. I'd also like to have more emphasis put on teacher development classes. There's lots of people who could be good teachers but simply don't know how due to fear or not understanding how good teachers do it. But honestly, with even just a mediocre teacher it's not at all clear to me what the problem is. Maybe I'm missing something obvious though. You are suggesting it's primarily a limit on good teachers and not just a problem for bad teachers. Edited August 18, 2017 by clarkgoble
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