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Ben Spackman’s thoughts on Sunday School


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9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I intend to start a thread on this soon...  

Looking forward to it.  I think that reading your explanation of your ideas would help me to understand where you are coming from, which is something I would like to do.  I'm not smart enough to infer the answers from a series of questions.

Edited by manol
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7 hours ago, bluebell said:

Did they discuss at all how a teacher or class spends time in quadrant #1 without using the other three quadrants to do it?  Like, if we removed the other three quadrants and were not allowed to do them, how would we teach just for quadrant #1?

(I'm asking because it seems like teaching in #1 is only possible through #2-4, but your notes make it sound like leadership does not see #1 as being dependent on the other quadrants, and I'd like to understand that better).

They acknowledged that all four quadrants are important, and that teachers should toggle between them as needed. I had the same thought as you --- how, exactly, do you teach doctrine by the Spirit without lecture, discussion, or giving info? Pictionary? Charades? Mime? Interpretive dance? :) The intent wasn't to imply that the quadrants are exclusive at the expense of the others. 

8 hours ago, bluebell said:

I haven't even heard this manual (TNGC) referenced in years.  Who exactly is using it at church?  Is this the manual for Teaching in the Savior's Way and I've just forgotten that's what it's called?

My bad on the Freudian slip. The old manual was TNGC, which became "Teaching in the Savior's Way" (current one). After Sunday, it will be merged with the CES manual (formerly only for Seminaries and Institutes) and available to everyone. 

The overarching intent seems to be not to keep the very best as a trade secret for CES, but to make our very best resources available for "home-centered/church-supported." 

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14 minutes ago, rongo said:

They acknowledged that all four quadrants are important, and that teachers should toggle between them as needed. I had the same thought as you --- how, exactly, do you teach doctrine by the Spirit without lecture, discussion, or giving info? Pictionary? Charades? Mime? Interpretive dance? :) The intent wasn't to imply that the quadrants are exclusive at the expense of the others. 

 

I think I understand their intent, but my brain (which gets hung up on this kind of stuff) is still trying to figure out--like you said--how one would toggle away (even if only for a few minutes) from lecture, discussion, and giving info and land solely on teach doctrine by the Spirit.  It's a weird idea that doesn't make sense to me so I would struggle to implement it.  Now, if they had said that we should strive to teach doctrine by the Spirit while toggling between the other three quadrants, that makes sense. 

Making "teaching doctrine by the Spirit" its own quadrant mucks up the equation for me.

Thanks for clarifying on the name of the manual.

 

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1 hour ago, rongo said:

it will be merged with the CES manual

Which CES manual?  Last time I checked all the teachers’ Institute and seminary lesson manuals were online and they were different for each year.

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2 hours ago, Calm said:

Which CES manual?  Last time I checked all the teachers’ Institute and seminary lesson manuals were online and they were different for each year.

Not the subject matter ones (BoM, D&C, OT, etc.) --- something that was only available for teachers and directors within Seminaries and Institutes. This is per my stake president, who is a CES teacher himself.

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9 hours ago, SkyRock said:

The church is the vehicle.  We must actually get in.  The teachers should do the best they can, but they are just like we are, flawed souls trying the best they can.  Likewise, speakers in church are not paid professional clergy, and many just try their best and have limitations.   Resources only go so far.   

Everyone should pray for help from the Holy Ghost and pray for a spiritual experience during the meetings. 

Yes, life is difficult and full of distractions.   I have gone to many church meetings distracted by my young children, health problems, work problems, etc. and mostly gotten nothing out of it more than just knowing I went.  I have prayed for answers for years that never came.   

And sometimes a random word from a mediocre talk will actually provide me with an answer for which I have been searching.   

And sometimes I have found answers to be the Lord wants me to increase in patience and humility and learn more than suffering.   I don't always like those answers.   They are not quick and easy miracles.   But I am grateful for the blessings I have received and changes that came from trials.

 

Yes, I agree with all you say here.

But if the engine doesn't work or the car doesn't have gas the car goes nowhere.

The scriptures say when we teach by the Spirit and we learn by the Spirit it edifies both.

So as individuals we definitely have responsibility to learn and grow, but teachers have responsibility as well. They don't have to be the best teacher,  but they should be using the gifts and capacity they have to help them teach by the Spirit. 

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On 6/10/2022 at 2:06 PM, manol said:

Looking forward to it.  I think that reading your explanation of your ideas would help me to understand where you are coming from, which is something I would like to do.  I'm not smart enough to infer the answers from a series of questions.

Well thanks, I'll think about it!

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On 6/15/2022 at 4:46 PM, The_Monk said:

I'm not saying YOU say it. But something like your dismissive hand wave  shows up every time. "Oh, they want Sunday school to be like an academic class, instead of spiritual." NO, I just want to actually talk about the scriptures open in front of us, instead of your vague paraphrase of some Brigham Young quote you heard once in a BYU class, or how The World is Evil, or whatnot!  

And yes, you create a strawman and dismiss my criticism by calling it "academic" in spite of my repeated protestations that what you *claim* I want isn't remotely what I want!

And, yeah,  I do have a lot to say about this. I've met plenty of people who had "spiritual experiences" in Sunday classes, never actually learned squat about or from the scriptures, and now they're atheists. 

Scripture, when studied closely, has both an intellectual and spiritual power to lead to lasting conversion. Shallow conversations occupying precious group study time don't have that effect. 

I find the "let's talk about me!" approach to lessons stullifying when that is the main content. I know more and more members who are skipping GD although they go to RS/EQ.  I dislike Come Follow Me more and more. There is so much stimulating stuff to be discovered in scriptures if we approach it on the author's own terms. 

My pet peeve is that we have literal bumper sticker summations of text chapters in lesson manuals. This time it was those wicked people picked a king over God. Like, huh? There are competing pro-kingship verses, at one point Samuel gives Saul a secret annointing and blessing. What inevitably gets left out is WHY they thought they needed a king. Something about that primal instinct to survive could be an important consideration before we make judgments about ancient people....

We have a good new teacher. He managed an interesting and thoughtful discussion that I enjoyed....but we only saw a couple of verses for the entire lesson. 

[We have a serious problem with this in sacrament meeting talks, too. It seems we had an emphasis on Christ for awhile and now we are meandering back to talking about ourselves as examples of God's love. Mormons really seem to have a blind spot when it comes to reading the audience, many of whom didn't receive that kind of love or miracle. As in, when you have members who have lost close family, do not...do NOT get up and talk about how you were miraculously saved because God decided to watch over you.]

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18 minutes ago, juliann said:

 I know more and more members who are skipping GD although they go to RS/EQ.  I dislike Come Follow Me more and more . . . My pet peeve is that we have literal bumper sticker summations of text chapters in lesson manuals.

Come Follow Me is brutal. Are we back to the same Book of Mormon manual next year? 

I'm the high councilor over Sunday School, and I've observed lessons in 10 of the 12 wards so far. All Things considered, the teaching is pretty decent --- with CFM being a real limiting factor. 

I hope there are some other things in the works, because CFM represents a four year sabbatical from write lessons and manuals. We have a running joke in our family about the predictable questions (what do you feel prompted to do this week as you read about the dimensions of the Tabernacle? :) ). 

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30 minutes ago, juliann said:

I know more and more members who are skipping GD although they go to RS/EQ. 

Didn't that happen before though?  It seems  like in several wards in my stake people would hang out in the chapel during Sunday school, but then attend RS/EQ.

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31 minutes ago, rongo said:

Come Follow Me is brutal. Are we back to the same Book of Mormon manual next year? 

I'm the high councilor over Sunday School, and I've observed lessons in 10 of the 12 wards so far. All Things considered, the teaching is pretty decent --- with CFM being a real limiting factor. 

I hope there are some other things in the works, because CFM represents a four year sabbatical from write lessons and manuals. We have a running joke in our family about the predictable questions (what do you feel prompted to do this week as you read about the dimensions of the Tabernacle? :) ). 

I wish that we could actually study the entire book of scripture in SS, rather than just parts (because of the time crunch).  This would mean that you knew what the teacher was going to talk about and could have relevant stuff ready to add to the discussion AND all parts would be covered instead of just the same "easy to incorporate" stuff that's talked about to death.

Edited by bluebell
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4 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Didn't that happen before though?  It seems  like in several wards in my stake people would hang out in the chapel during Sunday school, but then attend RS/EQ.

SS has always been the red-headed step child of the sunday block.  I think CFM was an attempt to make things better.  Speaking for myself, I don't like it any more than the old version, but I don't like it any less either.

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20 hours ago, Rain said:

OK, well I gave my lesson.  I have learned so much from Ben Spackman and from other books and several versions of the bible.  I've listened to the comments here.  I listened to the program that Elder Uchtdorf gave.  I thought of my strengths and weaknesses.  I thought of the things that I learned from church resources about teaching. 

I've never been very nervous about lessons I have given as I subbed in RS or SS or taught in Gospel Principles or Missionary Prep. But for reasons I won't go into I was nervous about this lesson and because of the sister I mentioned in the thread and overall because I am just not an OT scholar and because my brain just doesn't work the way it should anymore (while I can remember principles I don't remember names, and details of stories etc.)

I started with the first verses of 1 Samuel 16 and had several good men come up including my husband who is tall.  And one by one I shared a good thing about them and then had them sit down because they just weren't right.  Then I left up our newly called EQP.  We talked about how we don't know why the Lord called this man at this time, but the Lord does because He looked on that man's heart.

Then I asked everyone to  find other scriptures of where the Lord looked on the heart of people.  I had them write the references on the chalkboard and then when everyone was done I had them share what was in those scriptures.  I asked them to look for the other scriptures for various reasons.  One is that I heard Elder Bednar talk about as we stretch and do things we are more receptive to the Spirit.  So bringing stories to remembrance does this, but having then search the scriptures for the references does this more.

Also, the next thing I did was look for patterns in those scriptures.  With actually looking at those scriptures then they might see patterns they wouldn't have seen before.   I got this idea from  "Misreading Scripture through Western Eyes" where the author talks about things we often miss in a scripture because we are not in a place to see them.  His example was in the prodigal son where people who are not in places where food is scare usually don't notice the famine in the story and that often makes a difference in what they think the story tells them.  

Then I talked about Elder Bednar's Doctrines, Principles and Applications and had them try to see what doctrines and principles might behind 1 Samuel 16:7.  And then we talked about practical applications we can take from it.  I'd really like to use this idea more in future lessons.

One place where I made a mistake was asking an "Guess what I'm thinking question." It wasn't meant to be that way.  I just didn't explain the concept of doctrines well enough and then didn't word the question well.  

So it definitely wasn't a Ben Spackman lesson, but I'm not him and I'm ok with that. I do want to put more of the academic stuff in future lessons, because I believe wholeheartedly with Elder Maxwell that academic learning is spiritual learning.  But this time around overall I feel I had the concept that Heavenly Father wanted me to share.  It wasn't scholarly, but did have people searching for scriptures and looking for patterns.  It wasn't long winding stories of experiences, but it did have people sharing things from their heart.   

 

👍 😍

Edited by Tacenda
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9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

 I think CFM was an attempt to make things better.  Speaking for myself, I don't like it any more than the old version, but I don't like it any less either.

A bigger problem in my view is that the PH/RS lessons are conference talks. Have been for years, and will be for the foreseeable future. In many wards, so are the sacrament meeting talks. 

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2 minutes ago, rongo said:

A bigger problem in my view is that the PH/RS lessons are conference talks. Have been for years, and will be for the foreseeable future. In many wards, so are the sacrament meeting talks. 

Using them as sacrament meeting talks can be a really boring and horrible double edged sword, but I don't mind them used for RS/EQ.  It's kind of nice to have some place to discuss them actually.

And I can't imagine anything else that would be more worthy of the time.

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18 minutes ago, rongo said:

A bigger problem in my view is that the PH/RS lessons are conference talks. Have been for years, and will be for the foreseeable future

I don't mind them.  We tend to have active discussions about the principles being taught.  I like the current format for PH/RS more than the teaching of the prophets series.

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8 hours ago, bluebell said:

Using them as sacrament meeting talks can be a really boring and horrible double edged sword,

Agreed.  Listening to someone talk about someone else's talk just doesn't do it for me.

Some of the best sacrament meeting talks I've heard in the past couple years have been when we were in lockdown and my family would put on a talk from a past conference.

Edited by ksfisher
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