[Part 8 in a series about improving gospel teaching. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7]

Some concluding thoughts, including a few things that need to happen to improve gospel teaching in the Church:

Wise choices for teachers: We noted in the first article in this series that good teachers aren’t born good–they achieve ‘goodness’ through time and experience. However, this doesn’t mean choosing the right people to be called as teachers in the first place isn’t important. Some church callings–and we won’t embarrass those people by naming names–are places where less active or faithful members can ‘hide’ without having to do much, and without causing much damage to those around them. Gospel teachers are NOT places where poor members can ‘hide’…

I recall visiting a class with a particularly poor teacher with fundamental problems in both preparation and execution. I asked a member of the bishopric about this teacher, who shrugged and said, “Yeah, his classes are tough to sit through, but we found making him a teacher was the only way to get him to read the scriptures at all!”

No. No, no, no, no, no! Teaching callings are NOT the place for ‘projects’–members whom the bishopric and/or SS presidency want to ‘help’ by giving them important responsibilities in an effort to increase their activity and/or testimony. Any supposed benefits that the teacher might gain themselves in being a teacher and preparing a lesson every week will be canceled out immediately by the loss of meaningful spiritual experiences by the students who have to endure lessons by poor teachers week after week.

Teachers can and will improve while teaching, but the Church needs the right kind of people to step in front of the chalkboards every week. As noted, good teachers are not defined entirely by ‘skills’–knowing how to ask good questions, or managing class discussion. Good teachers are also those who care about the gospel and about their students. A teacher who has those attributes can develop the other skills through experience. A teacher without those attributes is far more likely to become a burden to their students–and to their ward–regardless of their secular teaching skills.

There really is no upper bound to how much good teachers can add to the spirituality of a ward…and no upper bound to how much bad teachers can take away. Teaching callings should be some of the most wisely and prayerfully considered callings in the Church.

How to call good (or at least potentially good) teachers? I’ve seen wards that use a teaching ‘pipeline’ where they identify potential teachers ahead of time, and have them attend a teaching improvement class long before they are called as teachers so they have some experience and can hit the ground running (and possibly weed out some of the unsuitable candidates at the same time). Some wards use a ‘tryout’ method, where they invite a potential teacher to teach a one-off Sunday School or other auxiliary class, which they can then attend and can get some first-hand experience as to how the teacher prepares and handles classroom discussion. Bad experience–minimal damage, and no need to invite them to teach again. Good experience–put their name on a short list for consideration for upcoming teaching callings.

Effective Sunday School Presidencies: Everyone knows EQ/RS/YM/YW/Primary presidencies are ‘important’ callings, and usually saved for ‘upper tier’ ward members–who usually are motivated to take responsibility for the quality of teaching within their auxiliaries, oftentimes handling the teaching themselves.

Not so for callings in the Sunday School Presidency, which are largely regarded (by both themselves, and by others) as ‘cake’ callings that are both easy and largely irrelevant. (“Hey, I just need to make sure each class has a teacher every week…and if not, find a substitute or combine classes or something. What a great calling!”)

The recent announcement that the Teaching Improvement Coordinator calling has been eliminated Church-wide should be one wake-up call for many Sunday School presidencies that by and large have been coasting by with little effort. Responsibility for the quality of teaching in the ward during the Sunday School hour now (assuming it ever left…) lies directly on the Sunday School Presidency’s shoulders. It now becomes their responsibility to coordinate teacher training (however that is defined) and teaching improvement. Regular feedback meetings with teachers will largely need to be done by ward SS presidencies, as even those stake SS presidency members (like myself) who do ‘drop-by’ training visits to teachers can visit at most one class of each ward per month.

Teaching will improve when SS Presidencies start playing an active role, and catch a vision of what their responsibilities are and of what they can accomplish through their calling. Some SS Presidencies we’ve talked to recently, admit that they do not hold regular presidency meetings (“There’s nothing to talk about…”) If there’s nothing to talk about in a SS presidency meeting, something’s wrong. SS Presidencies should be talking about any of the following: how is each class under our jurisdiction going? How are the students responding? How can we help students come to class better prepared? What specifically does each teacher in our ward do well, and could possibly improve on? How are we going to help each teacher become better? What schedule are we going to institute so that we know, through regular class attendance and face-to-face teacher meetings, exactly how each class is and what challenges they face?

There seems to be very few people, inside or outside of a Sunday School Presidency, that hold callings in the SS Presidency in ‘high regard’–as they might for a EQ or RS president. Many bishoprics, in fact, may view the SS Presidency as one of those ‘second tier’ callings where it really doesn’t matter who it is, as long as they show up to church most of the time. The recent Church announcement appears to be a sign that the Brethren would like this to change–that SS Presidencies have an important position to fill within each ward, and need motivated, faithful members who magnify their callings. Members who do their best to become great teachers themselves, helping both the teachers and the students in the ward have better Sunday School block-hour experiences.

One final note: I’ve discussed very little about the role of the student within organized lessons. The main reason is that this series has been written from the perspective of a teacher, and the teacher honestly has little control over whether students come to class ‘prepared’ (however we define that) or not. Everyone knows students are supposed to come to class having read the assigned scriptural passages for Sunday School, or the section of the Teachings of the Prophets manual for EQ/RS…but every teacher knows some will and some won’t.

A teacher can’t create a lesson that’s completely impenetrable for those who did not first do the reading, because those students will always exist and they need to have a spiritual experience as well. But, a teacher can’t create a ‘remedial’ lesson that basically reads the scriptures or quotes from the student manual that were supposed to be read before class for the sake of those who didn’t–this is redundant, ineffective, and only provides negative reinforcement for those who did prepare, and who are then less likely to spend the effort to prepare next week.

Since I (the teacher) have no control over students preparing or not preparing (and I know both groups will exist), I tend to counsel teachers to choose “None of the Above”–try to come up with a lesson that outlines the important points from the assigned topic in reasonably in-depth ways that neither deliberately exclude the ones who didn’t read nor deliberately ‘punish’ the ones who did.

I recognize this is probably a ‘cop-out’ answer, born of my own independent personality and tendency to ignore things (I think) I have no control over. I don’t know how to increase the ratio of prepared students versus unprepared, so I try to find a way to work around it. A better teacher probably has effective ideas for encouraging and rewarding student preparation, and any such teachers are invited to share in the comments…

Conclusion: This series has admittedly been constrained to a fairly narrow, ‘niche’ focus–organized lesson teaching, which virtually all Church members have experience with as students, but only a handful do as teachers. I hope to add articles now and again on the subject of teaching as different topics come to mind, and hope that my experience has been somewhat valuable to those who are or will be called as teachers in the future (if not satisfied…we’ll refund your M* subscription fee in its entirety!)

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