Two Deep

[MustardSeed]

My girlfriend and I were discussing the two deep policy .  Neither of our stakes have two deep seminary classes.  I would assume this is due to how difficult it is to find ANYONE willing to teach, as its daily, very very early, and unpaid. 
 

I know many if not most actually are two deep.  Ours aren’t.  Since neither of us are willing to teach seminary, we aren’t complaining, just noticing.  
No questions here, just thinking out loud. 

 

[strappinglad]

Maybe ' two deep ' for seminary age is ' too deep ' ?

[MustardSeed]

1 minute ago, strappinglad said:

Maybe ' two deep ' for seminary age is ' too deep ' ?

Except that ym yw has to be two deep. I can’t give a 17 year old girl a ride home after an activity. 

[rpn]

Ours is two deep and it uses the parents who drive the freshmen to be the second. 

I think a seminary teacher should have a second person for her/his own protection.

[Garden Girl]

30 minutes ago, rpn said:

Ours is two deep and it uses the parents who drive the freshmen to be the second. 

I think a seminary teacher should have a second person for her/his own protection.

Not to mention covering for illness, vacation, etc.

GG

[Hamba Tuhan]

After a very successful trial of online seminary last year, we'd hoped to go fully online across our stake this year, but we got push-back from certain parents. Solution: tell them they're responsible for being the 'two deep' elements of their children's classes.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Hamba Tuhan

[strappinglad]

What a difference  100 years makes. When my father was 6 years old he was harnessing and driving a team of horses to harvest grain and hay. With todays ' helicopter ' and ' snowplow ' parents and government this generation will be lucky if they are allowed to brush their teeth by themselves. Self reliance is no longer a virtue and group work is all the rage.

( end of old man rant !! )

[Traela]

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

After a very successful trial of online seminary last year, we'd hoped to go fully online across our stake this year, but we got push-back from certain parents. Solution: tell them they're responsible for being the 'two deep' elements of their children's classes.

I would do it.  As a teenager, I valued the opportunity to meet with other Latter-Day Saints every day.  If we didn’t have release-time seminary here, I would want the same for my own kids if possible.

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

19 minutes ago, Traela said:

I would do it.

Our parents here have chosen to do it too. The next step may be to tell parents that we can continue early-morning seminary classes only if they'll agree to teach them. (I have elsewhere written about the challenges we face as a stake with offering early-morning seminary.)

[Bernard Gui]

8 hours ago, strappinglad said:

What a difference  100 years makes. When my father was 6 years old he was harnessing and driving a team of horses to harvest grain and hay. With todays ' helicopter ' and ' snowplow ' parents and government this generation will be lucky if they are allowed to brush their teeth by themselves. Self reliance is no longer a virtue and group work is all the rage.

( end of old man rant !! )

My mother was driving her Stake RS President grandmother around southern Colorado in a Model T Ford to visit wards and branches at the age of 12.

I heartily recommend The Coddling of the American Mind. A great treatment of these problems.

https://www.thecoddling.com

Edited March 3, 2020 by Bernard Gui

[Amulek]

20 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

I know many if not most actually are two deep.  Ours aren’t.  Since neither of us are willing to teach seminary, we aren’t complaining, just noticing.  

We are blessed to be in a stake with a good concentration of active members, so it was easy for them to simply call additional teachers. In a ward with fewer options, I would think parents would be a good solution. Even in the small ward I grew up in, there was usually at least one parent hanging out in the car / foyer who could have just as easily hung out in the classroom instead.

 

[ksfisher]

20 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

My girlfriend and I were discussing the two deep policy .  Neither of our stakes have two deep seminary classes.  I would assume this is due to how difficult it is to find ANYONE willing to teach, as its daily, very very early, and unpaid. 
 

I know many if not most actually are two deep.  Ours aren’t.  Since neither of us are willing to teach seminary, we aren’t complaining, just noticing.  
No questions here, just thinking out loud. 

 

The two deep policy applies to local wards and branches, not CES.

[bluebell]

9 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

The two deep policy applies to local wards and branches, not CES.

Does it matter that most seminary teachers who teach in areas without release-time seminary are not a part of CES?

[ksfisher]

18 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Does it matter that most seminary teachers who teach in areas without release-time seminary are not a part of CES?

Don't know about the teachers but the seminary system falls under CES, not the local units.

[bluebell]

2 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Don't know about the teachers but the seminary system falls under CES, not the local units.

I know that in those situations (when it's not taught by a CES employee), seminary teachers are asked to teach by the stake president and though no one is set a part to do it, it's basically a calling.  So I'm wondering if it's different than normal CES stuff.

[Meadowchik]

19 hours ago, strappinglad said:

What a difference  100 years makes. When my father was 6 years old he was harnessing and driving a team of horses to harvest grain and hay. With todays ' helicopter ' and ' snowplow ' parents and government this generation will be lucky if they are allowed to brush their teeth by themselves. Self reliance is no longer a virtue and group work is all the rage.

( end of old man rant !! )

More children are surviving nowadays. Even since 1950 the improvement is drastic.

[mfbukowski]

On 3/2/2020 at 10:19 AM, MustardSeed said:

My girlfriend and I were discussing the two deep policy .  Neither of our stakes have two deep seminary classes.  I would assume this is due to how difficult it is to find ANYONE willing to teach, as its daily, very very early, and unpaid. 
 

I know many if not most actually are two deep.  Ours aren’t.  Since neither of us are willing to teach seminary, we aren’t complaining, just noticing.  
No questions here, just thinking out loud. 

 

We're even having trouble getting two deep primary

We go into priesthood Relief Society and Sunday school to get volunteers to go and sit in primary.

[Calm]

8 hours ago, Amulek said:

We are blessed to be in a stake with a good concentration of active members, so it was easy for them to simply call additional teachers. In a ward with fewer options, I would think parents would be a good solution. Even in the small ward I grew up in, there was usually at least one parent hanging out in the car / foyer who could have just as easily hung out in the classroom instead.

 

Not mine, wasn't a small ward either, though in numbers and not in area (Northern California has or had a lot of Saints when I grew up there).  Most took the school bus that stopped outside the chapel.  The few that went to the other high school in our ward boundaries went with an older student driving.  

Parents seem to drive more for everything these days...or so it appears to me.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 hours ago, bluebell said:

I know that in those situations (when it's not taught by a CES employee), seminary teachers are asked to teach by the stake president and though no one is set a part to do it, it's basically a calling.

Our seminary teachers are sustained by the stake, and I'm pretty certain they're set apart.

[mfbukowski]

18 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Our seminary teachers are sustained by the stake, and I'm pretty certain they're set apart.

Agree 

[bluebell]

16 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Our seminary teachers are sustained by the stake, and I'm pretty certain they're set apart.

That makes sense.  The one that i've known specifically said that it's not a calling, and I don't remember ever sustaining one, but maybe I'm not remembering correctly.  I'm sure they are set a part.

[Boanerges]

We had this discussion in stake council a year or so ago and the SP said the two deep rule absolutely applies to early morning seminary just like everything else involving children and youth. The solution in my small ward was that a parent had to stay, which isn't a huge deal because what do they do anyway? They mostly don't go back home because it's too far. It was just a slight imposition for someone who had to remain in the room rather than walk the halls, play in the gym or sit in the foyer.

FWIW, in my stake seminary teacher is a calling sustained stake wide and set apart. In addition to early morning here we also offer an online group. My older children all did early morning but the youngest did the last part of his online and he got way more out of it than the others. Online requires that you actually watch the video or read the passage and answer questions about it - in other words, you have to interact as opposed to just sitting there (and/or sleep). 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Boanerges

[The Nehor]

On 3/2/2020 at 5:44 PM, strappinglad said:

What a difference  100 years makes. When my father was 6 years old he was harnessing and driving a team of horses to harvest grain and hay. With todays ' helicopter ' and ' snowplow ' parents and government this generation will be lucky if they are allowed to brush their teeth by themselves. Self reliance is no longer a virtue and group work is all the rage.

( end of old man rant !! )

So what did your generation do so wrong to cause your children to be such horrible parents?  
 

Personally I am all for coming up with ways to allow children to be more productive in youth but we do not have a farm culture. Instead we teach children how to work by putting them in government sponsored daycare masquerading as education and set them to performing mostly mindless busy work. The smart ones realize early on that effort is not rewarded in any way except for grades on a slip of paper that influence not much of anything so learn to get by and game the system to put as little effort in as possible to get a decent reward. When we do let teenagers work their jobs are generally the scut work of society and, even more than in the past, are dehumanizing and stripped of dignity working under adult failures with inferiority complexes taking out on employees. So work is either pointless or underrewarded and often degrading. Yet people wonder what is wrong with the kids that they do not have a good work ethic. Why should they?

It was bad when I was growing up and I got an okay work ethic mostly due to parental influence. I think if I was growing up today I would be much worse.

[bluebell]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:19 AM, MustardSeed said:

My girlfriend and I were discussing the two deep policy .  Neither of our stakes have two deep seminary classes.  I would assume this is due to how difficult it is to find ANYONE willing to teach, as its daily, very very early, and unpaid. 
 

I know many if not most actually are two deep.  Ours aren’t.  Since neither of us are willing to teach seminary, we aren’t complaining, just noticing.  
No questions here, just thinking out loud. 

 

I looked it up and the handbook states that Seminary is supposed to be two deep just like everything else, so your stakes will probably eventually follow along or go to online only.  

[strappinglad]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

So what did your generation do so wrong to cause your children to be such horrible parents?

Those people who were my father's age went though 2 world wars, the great depression and the Spanish Flu. Tough times. They raised my generation and we enjoyed a major increase in affluence , home ownership, education etc. The sexual revolution hit my time ( although I seem to have just missed it !)  I raised my children in a stable society where a good education could still lead to good jobs and expectations were high, so was that feeling of entitlement. Things will always get better and better and the children must be protected at all costs. No one should be confronted or challenged or faced with real life because , well just because. 

   How does the saying go? : strong men make good times , good times make weak men, weak men make bad times, bad times make strong men