It doesn't always have to be...

...all singing, all dancing.

In the quest to find spectacular attention grabbers and memorable object lessons it can be easy to forget what a great time you and your class can have simply delving into scripture. This morning, not because of any lack of preparation, but simply because of the nature of what we were studying, we just read in depth, piece by piece, Luke 14.

In Monday's lesson we had done some group work exploring the concept of discipleship which had involved a fair bit of moving around and therefore, at the crack of dawn on a Monday, met with 'varying degrees of enthusiasm', shall we say? Today we were continuing the theme of discipleship but we just put our heads down and got stuck into feasting on the word. There was some great stuff there. My goodness - verses 7-11! That's brilliant advice just on the level even before you look at humility in greater depth.

Talking to my coordinator after last Friday's lesson I was reminded of another lesson I did early in the course where little was required other than a set of scriptures. We were studying Luke 1-3 and I decided we would have a testimony meeting with 'special guests'. There are 9 different witnesses of Christ (detailed below) in those chapters, not including John leaping in the womb. I gave out slips with the scripture references and so each student effectively got to 'bear the testimony' of a scripture character. We discussed the nature of those testimonies, what they focussed on and what they had in common. The students then had some time to write their own testimonies of Christ in their scripture journals and at the end I invited a couple of them to share what they had written.

I think the trick is to mix it up, vary the pace. Having done a very 'studious' lesson today I might look for something a little more energetic or creative tomorrow. I might not though...who knows? The most important things in teaching seminary are to prayerfully prepare and to follow the spirit.

Testimony Meeting Special Guests

(lifted straight from the manual btw)

Mary	Luke 1:46–55
Zacharias	Luke 1:67–79
the angel in the fields	Luke 2:10–12
the heavenly host	Luke 2:13–14
the shepherds	Luke 2:20
Simeon	Luke 2:29–35
Anna	Luke 2:38
John the Baptist	Luke 3:4–6; JST, Luke 3:4–11
Heavenly Father	Luke 3:22

Some promised pictures and other sundries

I didn't get to post a picture of the last Big Paper excercise. We did a similar activity today so you can see the results below. Today's lesson was about Hypocrisy as found in Luke 11-13. The attention grabber was a food can apparently containing Cherry Pie filling. As we were to be having waffles for breakfast I had a good reason to get one of the students to open it. I gave him a spoon to have a trial taste. When the tin was opened, lo and behold, Oxtail Soup. (Matt, being a game lad, and also a perpetually hungry one, dived in anyway.) This illustrated the book/cover discrepancy inherent in hypocrites.

Another activity which I tried today was to give pairs of students a scripture reference, or a a couple with a similar message, and allow them to discuss for a few minutes to get the the heart of what was being taught. We then came to order and they found out that the had to present what they had extracted to the rest of the group in a sentence where they take alternate words, a la I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. (One for the Radio 4 listeners there.) They obviously didn't have time to plan it so it was funny seeing the looks of surprise as their partner's word took the sentence in a direction they hadn't intended. It was a fun activity and I don't think the meanings became *completely* shrouded in the confusion. It was a bit of a gamble doing something untried and untested as we actually had our CES coordinator visiting us this morning.

So - the Wiki. This was done while I read an abridged talk by Elder Joseph B Wirthlin entitled Without Guile.

 

 

 

And finally, for my lovely students, if you are reading. Brother White commented on what a wonderful class I had. I had to agree...Love you guys.

 

Exploring links

I LOVE this activity. It is one I remember from my ill-fated flirtation with professional teaching and is great for examining and also remembering a number of different concepts. This was with reference to the miracles of the Centurion's Servant and the Widow of Nain. I divided the class into pairs and gave them 3 minutes to make a colourful poster featuring a key word. (Just felt-tips and A4 - nothing fancy). The words were Compassion, Service, Faith, Mission and Bless. (Exactly the same words work brilliantly for the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis btw.) We then collected the posters into the middle of the table and I arranged them into alphabetical order, telling the students what I was doing. The students were then able (one at a time but as inspired and in no particular order) to move the posters somehow and explaing why they were doing it. They start grouping words, or placing some words as a foundation for others, or using one word to link others.

It doesn't matter if they do daft ones too like colour groups or other random stuff (hey, I started off with alphabetical!). It's all good as long as they explain what they are doing.

The kids came up with some great suggestions including one that formed the basic shape of a tree sprouting from faith. They found that compassion and service were virtually inseparable. We considered how the relationship between compassion and service was like that between faith and works, the outward manifestation of an inward conviction.

The best time I ever ran this activity was for a family night based around D&C 88:119. My children probably even now remember all the 'houses' we should have.

I'm posting a post about post-its

We know how much I like Big Paper. Well it turns out I'm also a fan of little bits of sticky paper. Post-it notes have tons of uses in a class room. They can facilitate collaboration, allowing everyone to contribute. They can be moved, sorted, and resorted. They can be used to give feedback or annotation and they can be stuck around the room on anything, even people.

 

In today's activity we were reading about Christ's declaration to the people of Nazareth, his home town, that he was the Messiah as recorded in Luke 4. Christ spoke of how Old Testament prophets Elijah and Elisha went unrecognised in Israel yet miraculously blessed the lives of foreigners. In an activity designed to open a dicussion about the human nature of our church leaders coupled with their divine commission, I gave each student a few post-its and asked them to write down anything they knew about President Monson and stick them around his picture on my white board.

 

 

 

 



We then sorted the notes into things which are unique to President Monson and things which apply to many people, which really became a separation between things that are part of his nature and things which are by virtue of his calling.

As always my students succeeded in both educating and entertaining me. There was an odd fixation with his ears. "He has Grandad ears," and "He can wiggle his ears."  Jacob suggested that he had lines around his eyes from "smiling too much" but William stole the day with the brazen claim,"His pin number is XXXX".


P.S. If you want a really cool recap of conference check out this blog http://beckstrombuzz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/monday-sketchbook-conference-recap.html

Har Har

I 'borrowed' some hazard tape from work for an object lesson (the Sabbath Day one from here if you're interested) and Jacob and I thought this would be a good wheez to play on the rest of the family. Their responses were very gratifying.

Play Dough!

Oh, this was fun. We were looking at miracles, specifically Christ's ability to heal people from physical and spiritual disabilities (re. Mark 2 and 3). I divided the class into pairs, gave each pair a blob of play dough and instructed one person in each pair to make one of the following: a blind man; a lame man; a leper and a man with a withered hand. Amusing results depicted below. I then asked the other person to 'cure' each affliction, which they found quite easy.

The leper...made whole

The blind....could see

The lame...walked 

The man with the withered(?) hand...sat down to recuperate?

The question was posed, what would be even better than being healed of a physical ailment and the answer came, being healed of a spiritual affliction. I then brought out my 4 perfect little play dough people. I picked up the first and told the students that this person was dealing with an addiction to pornography. I handed it to a student and asked them if they could fix it. They somberly shook their head. The next character was struggling to forgive someone for a wrong they had suffered. Again, can you see it, can you fix it? The third was weighed down with guilt and feeling unworthy. You see where I'm going with this...

My 'perfect' people, wighed down by sin and grief

 
The class got the message that just as some people suffer afflictions that may be obvious, many are struggling with things we can't see. This led into a discussion and a consideration of whether we have faith that Christ has the power to heal our ills and forgive our sins.

A successful lesson, I thought, with the only downside being a drop in quality of the second topic covered due to the continued interst in play dough.


How do you read and make them want to listen?

Sometimes you find a discourse or a passage that is too good not to use. Using it, however, can be tricky. I know enough of teaching young people (especially at 6.30am) to realise that it does not take long for them to zone out if you are just expounding from a text.

So how to engage them and help them take it in and process it?

I shared one idea, the wiki, here. Another way I was pleased to think of (and by that, of course, I mean receive inspiration about) happened in my first week. We had yet to turn to the first chapter of Matthew, and were first studying the intertestamental times. There was a lovely narrative at the back of the manual detailing all the civilizations which overran Judea in those years. I wanted to use it but knew they would need a reason to listen to it. The inspiration I received at 11.30pm the night before, which in fact allowed me to go to bed, was simply a prop. I got a sword (we have a few of those lying around) and as I started to read gave the sword to the person at one end with the instruction that every time Judea changed hands they were to pass the sword on. At the end of the history each person then had to tell us who they were with a couple of sentences about themselves. As well as the need to listen they also had the benefit of being able to associate each ruler with one of their peers helping them to remember both the characters and the sequence. Thus an activity which could have been entirely aural became accessible to visual and kinesthetic learners. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for that one.

So - your turn. Recognising that we can't all be John Bytheway, I would love to hear other ideas for how to read (or share conference-type videos) in a way that your audience will absorb it.

My intention

...in writing this blog is not to give anyone fully prepared lesson plans for seminary. There are other sites which do that, besides, I think that prayerfully studying the material, deciding what points to bring out and how to do that are very important parts of being a seminary teacher. I love what this calling does for my own spirituality and for my own 'hungering and thirsting' that I would not want to deprive others of this opportunity. What I do hope to do is to suggest transferable ideas that can be used in many teaching contexts, and not just for seminary but for scenarios such as Family Home Evening too. I'd also love to have contributions from readers with their hot ideas too.