[Part 3 in a series about improving gospel teaching. Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2]

Taking the next step from adequate to good is not as easy as going from poor to adequate. At this level, there aren’t specific things a teacher can mark down on a “To Do” checklist before class to make sure it’s a ‘good’ lesson. Teaching now involves more than just ‘not getting in the way’–good teachers actually add something to the lesson, augmenting the inherent spiritual power of the gospel instead of just being a non-obtrusive bystander. At this stage, good teaching starts to rely much more on the skill and preparation of the teacher.

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[Part 2 in a series about improving gospel teaching. Previous entries in the series: Part 1]

Describing how to be an adequate teacher might also be termed “How NOT to be a poor teacher” (thus no need to give poor teachers their own section).

Oftentimes, the difference between a poor teacher and an adequate teacher can be summarized in a list of “Don’ts”. In many cases, the breaking of some bad teaching habits can be all that is needed to lift a poor teacher into adequacy–perhaps making the difference between someone willingly sitting through a class, and finding excuses to skip it every week.

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Ask a random Latter-Day Saint off the street what the state of teaching is within the Church today and you could get a response anywhere from ‘decent’ to ‘horrible’–likely directly related to the quality of the 3-4 most recent lessons they’ve attended.

Generally speaking, in the Church today, there are:

• A few great teachers
• Some good teachers
• A great many adequate teachers
• Lots of poor teachers.

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I just saw this article in the Boston Globe, which I thought was unusually well-done for that newspaper. The basic point is that, while Mormons are generally conservative, they have key differences with evangelicals and conservative Catholics. Mormons are less likely to oppose abortion in all instances, they are more likely to support stem cell research, they are more likely to support the teaching of evolution in schools and they don’t get as riled up about the prayer in public schools issue. In general, given the Globe is a liberal newspaper, the article is complimentary (“those Mormons are not as crazy as those Neanderthal evangelicals” is the general tone).

The article even points out that Mormons are much less likely to get politically-tinged sermons at church.

In general, an article well worth reading.

Later on in this post I will quote extensively from an e-mail I receive supposedly from a Denver emergency manager. As you may know, Colorado and the central/northern plains had two blizzards in a row in December, and snow was so high it covered roads, stranded people and in general caused havoc.

The e-mail makes a very important point: since when is it the government’s job to rescue people who don’t prepare for natural disasters?

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