You can’t teach anybody anything, you can only help them discover the truth for themselves.

Does/did anyone else have an annoying “Peter Priesthood” in their class? How did you deal with it? He drives me NUTS sometimes becuase he acts like the teacher and/or everyone’s spiritual advisor.

Occasionally they ask me how I came to learn the scriptures so well. The first several times I was quite puzzled by the question, because my answer is always the same: “I went to seminary” (and it was early morning seminary). My questioners then will say something about how they always slept through seminary. (Even when they had release time).

Fast forward to my sixteenth birthday when I had an interview with my bishop. He asked if I attended seminary. Without any shame I said, “Nope.” He then challenged me that if I attended EMS each day for two weeks, and then decided not to attend any more, he would never mention it again. I accepted the deal. It was a cheap price to pay to get the bishop off my back. I remember waking my dad up Monday at 5:30 AM telling him I needed a ride to church. (He wished I had given him some notice, but I think he was still happy at my choice.) My first day in seminary, I introduced myself and announced it was my tenth-to-the-last day in seminary. I was wrong ’cause somehow, it stuck and I finished out the year and completed the entire next year.

I enjoyed EMS. Sure it wasn’t perfect–it is composed of pubescent kids taught by untrained volunteers in the wee hours of the morning. But for me, it was the place where I made my own decision to privately read the scriptures and pray about their message. When all is said and done, isn’t that the purpose of seminary?

BTW, I was admitted to BYU with my two year certificate of seminary completion.

My wife grew up in Colorado Springs, but also had release-time seminary (an anomaly–most of the Springs does NOT have release-time seminary). She says she loved it, as did most of her class-mates. And they had a real, paid seminary teacher, not some poor soul from the ward roped into teaching because they were too afraid to say, “No!”

Now my wife is an early morning seminary teacher. She prepares long and hard every night for a lesson the next morning. They meet in our house–the chapel is too far away to meet there. The kids resent it, most show up late and leave early. Occasionally they have fun (I hear them laughing and shouting), but they all resent having to go, despite the treats she prepares from time to time (at least once a week).

My take? Keep release-time seminary (with real, paid, CES teachers) and abolish early-morning seminary. Teenagers need as much sleep as possible, and going to bed earlier isn’t an option for most (nor does it help–teens REM sleep normally doesn’t occur until 11:00 p.m., no matter what time they go to bed). They don’t absorb material that early and it ends up just being a waste of everyone’s time.

IMHO, YMMV…

A senior could get accepted to BYU in the Jan-Mar timeframe of the senior year, and then drop out of Seminary. There is nothing that could hold them back at that point, I think.

Yes, but graduation is not required, particularly when lack of graduation can be explained compellingly.

I agree with the prep comment. Both times I taught seminary, 2 hours per day would have been excessive.

I have a web page opened to ldsces.org and wikipedia. I’m teaching on Micah and should make it to Nahum tomorrow. I should be through with my prep work by 10:15. Tops 15-30 minutes. Anymore means I’m doing to much of the talking.

I think the whole teacher engaging thing is kinda odd. I know that many times, I go prepared with a lesson and then have to throw the thing out 10 minutes in because the kids want to go down a different strain. We have had devotionals last the entire hour. My objective as a teacher is to send them off to school with a cheerful outlook and having had some sense of Christ in their life that morning. If I do most of the talking, my kids clue me and tell me I’m talking to much. I shut up and have them start doing the talking. Sometimes it is on topic, and sometimes not.

Seriously, if you have an ecclesiastical endorsement that explains a lack of graduation, that lack will not keep you from being accepted. As with any college, it helps if you truly stand out in some objective way.

I was told, and later found to be true after I was admitted, that seminary graduation is required for admission to BYU.

Unless you are a dependent of a General Authority, in which case you are admitted automatically. Although I’m sure most of them graduate from seminary anyway…

Not to sound harsh or anything, but like most things in life, seminary is what you make of it. If you’d rather be skiing, at football practice, doing the debate team, etc., there’s nothing seminary can do for you that’s positive. It just takes time away from where your heart is. If you think that seminary could be worthwhile, and that your participation *can make it so*, it can be a good and lastingly positive experience.

As a seminary teacher:
I was asked to teach early morning seminary a couple of years ago. It was tough, mostly because it was a decent time commitment (2+ hours a day in prep, 1+ hour in class, reading kid’s make up work, etc.). In spite of the rockiness, I have had positive comments from my students and their parents. The kids who wanted to get something out of seminary *did*, and feel like they’re better off for it.

Aside: Sometimes it was hard because there were two students who didn’t want to be there, but didn’t have the guts to not show up. They tried really hard to interrupt the class, steal focus, badmouth whatever was going on. Their parents wanted them to “graduate” (whatever that really means to anyone) and have “seminary leadership experience” (be Class President, or something). All this so their kid could have an advantage trying to get into a church school. I told the parents I don’t do titular leadership, and their kids had to actually *lead* students to “do good” and have a better seminary experience. I also said their kids weren’t getting any sort of letter of recommendation from me if the kids didn’t fix their attitudes and actually work-and-play-well-with-others in the class, including me. Surprise surprise, the kids stopped coming, and only showed up occasionally for social things, and weren’t planning on going to BYU anymore. I often contrast these kids to others that I had in the same class who have turned out quite differently.

About teaching:
At first I tried to run the class like I taught my college classes, and that flopped. The kids don’t have that level of inner motivation or responsibility. There had to be more spoon feeding than I would have wanted.

Believe it or not, in the class, we talked about the historicity and translation process of the Book of Mormon, dispelled faith-promoting-rumors, and even touched on polygamy as a church practice.
I generally tried to “inoculate” them before I knew about John Dehlin and his popularization of the term. I always just called it “earnest and detailed study.” All I wanted them to get out of the class was:
– camaraderie in the family of saints and body of Christ
– a knowledge of the contents of the Book of Mormon
– a knowledge of –and increased faith in– the Gospel of Jesus Christ (as expressed in the BoM)
– and a better commitment to living Christlike lives.

With those goals, I was less driven to trying to induce tears in or entertain the kids.

1. I went as a youth in the 70s in Illinois, where I grew up. My first year I learned a lot (such as the meaning of words like Apocrypha and Apocalypse, how to cross-reference scriptures, basic stuff like that). Then we got a new teacher, and from her I learned next to nothing, but I still liked going for the social aspects. My friends were there and I wanted to be with my friends.

2. I’ve never been a full-time seminary teacher (turned it down a couple of times; I’m a lawyer with a commute into Chicago, and it would be hard for me to do consistently). But I’ve subbed on a number of occasions. Teaching seminary is brutal. I have a (I hope deserved) reputation as a really interesting, engaging teacher, but I couldn’t reach those kids. They pretty much just slept, and nothing I could do would snap them out of it. It’s disheartening to prepare a different, really interesting lesson and have no one pay attention.

3. My children did not get along with the seminary program. My daughter went to a class in a woman’s home; it was just this woman, who was the teacher, her twin daughters and my daughter. Every day the woman just read from the scriptures. Absolutely nothing else; that was her teaching method. Towards the beginning of her second year she absolutely refused to go back, and I couldn’t blame her.

My son went to a much better class, and he was more open to the experience. But his first year he would get up extra early, wait for his ride, and his ride would either be way late or wouldn’t come at all. So his gung ho enthusiasm quickly waned. He lasted longer than my daughter, but in the middle of his last year he refused to go any longer.

I don’t really know, but I have my doubts that it is really a fruitful program.