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Search Results for: Teaching by the spirit
Shauna
June 20, 2016
An Activity is not over until the Thank-You notes are written and sent.An often overlooked detail of planning an activity is the review and thank you step.When teaching leadership to youth and adults, this detail is just as important as the assignments…
Scott Knecht
May 17, 2016
As a classroom teacher I always wanted to control the teaching/learning atmosphere as much as possible. I would arrange the room, use the media well, and ensure that the walls had appropriate things hung on them. I worked under the belief that if the physical atmosphere was well managed then both the teaching and the learning would be elevated.
Teaching as a missionary brings a whole new dimension to the teaching atmosphere because a missionary can rarely control the physical aspect of it. You are invited into someone’s home and you just go with what is there. Here are 3 experiences I had last week. The first was in the evening. A mother and her teen-age son are studying with us. We went for a lesson and she was trying to get dinner ready, keep her other 3 younger daughters under control, keep the television off or at least keep the volume down, answer the phone, and be engaged in the lesson. Not an ideal situation.
That was followed by a lesson with a single man who lives in a hotel. We taught him in the lobby of the hotel. There were 2 chairs in the whole lobby. He sat in one, I in the other, and the two young missionaries stood. People were coming in and out, the desk clerk was right by us and there was the usual commotion associated with a public place. Again, not ideal.
Two days later we went at 10 a.m. to a home to teach a single woman. She lives in a 3-story, 6-unit building, the type that are so common in these parts. She couldn’t invite us in because one of her roommates had started drinking earlier in the morning and was well into his first six pack of the day and not in a good mood. So we stood on the porch and taught – we in our white shirts and ties, she in her bathrobe. We competed with her phone, the trash trucks, a fire engine, lots of neighbors flowing in and out of the building, and the general noise of the street. Far, far from the ideal.
All three of these situations would never be considered excellent teaching venues, but here is what happened. The first woman and her son were on their fourth discussion and it went well. She shared with us some experiences from her life where she felt the Spirit but didn’t know what it was that kept guiding her towards better things. We helped her see what it was and she was filled with the Spirit again. The second man had already committed to baptism and this was a little tune up lesson for him. He accepted it very well. He was edified as we all were. The third woman was very agreeable to the message, accepted a Book of Mormon, committed to read it each night, and invited us back.
What made these lessons come alive and overcome very poor ‘classroom’ set ups? Of course, it was the presence of the Holy Ghost. Nothing makes teaching too difficult for Him. When we pray and invite His presence, real teaching and learning occurs no matter what the setting and situation. Now, what will happen with these people and their relationship to the church only time and experience will tell. But I do know that on each of those particular occasions they were given the best opportunity to hear and accept the message because of the presence and active involvement of the Spirit in the teaching process
Pattie Moss
May 17, 2016
Singing Time Ideas May 2016 – Here I am in my element; teaching little kids how to sing and have fun. I pull sticks out of the can to be sure each child has a chance to come up and participate in the singing time games….I use lots of these “HUM…
Scott Knecht
April 8, 2016
Teaching is a very simple thing to do, when it appears in the hands of an accomplished teacher
Teaching is more complex along the path to becoming an accomplished teacher. Part of the complexity is who are the students in the class and what baggage have they brought with them.
I’ve been teaching a seminary class 1-2 days a week in our ward here in Brockton. There are 7-8 students. For convenience and proximity we meet in the basement of the home of a member of the ward. The class meets from 5:45-6:30am, and then the students catch a bus one block away to get to the high school. These are good and bright kids whose faithfulness is witnessed by their willingness to be in this class at such an early hour.
However, my first 4-5 times teaching I could not engage them. They were distant and nothing I did could bring them closer. We are studying the Old Testament, the second half, and it is a real challenge. I would go home each morning thinking I had failed them because I hadn’t reached them. They had just endured the class. I was reminded of a scene from the 1995 movie, “Mr. Holland’s Opus” where the coach is begging Mr. Holland, the music teacher, to find a way to teach Lou Russ, his star wrestler, to play the drums so he could pass his band class and stay eligible to wrestle. Mr. Holland is explaining that Lou simply can’t find the beat. The coach then says, “You’re a teacher and you have a willing student and you can’t find a way to teach him? Then you’re a lousy teacher.” (If you want to see that scene, go on Youtube and search Mr. Holland’s Opus and find the scene Lou Finds the Beat.)
Those words kept ringing in my ears – “You’re a lousy teacher” – so I spent one morning just thinking of ways to teach them. It came after some time pondering. The challenge was the physical Bible. It is big and I think to them impenetrable. I don’t blame them because among many adults in the church the last half of the Old Testament is difficult to grasp. Add to that challenge is this fact: English is a second language for all of these kids. They grew up speaking Portuguese Creole as their first language. They are fluent in spoken English but the written word is tough.
So I did a few things different the next class. I removed all of the copies of the scriptures from the tables. In their place I had prepared a one page sheet with 6 verses we were going to focus on. I modified the words slightly so as to make them more easily understood. I rearranged the tables in a new configuration to signal to them as they walked in that something was different about this class. And then instead of standing to teach I just sat at the tables with them. When the class began I told them that our goal was to simply understand what was written here and learn one gospel principle from this page. It took some gentle leaning on them but at the end of class they got it. I was elated.
The next class I did essentially the same thing and the results were even better. It was a real class with talking and exchanges and challenges and laughter. It was a great seminary class even though it lacked a class presidency, a devotional, scripture mastery, and 50 minutes of instruction. It was just a class stripped down to its essence – students, scriptures, teacher, and especially the Spirit. Two of the chronically tardy students even came on time.
This whole experience reinforced the idea that some students and classes are easier to reach and others take more time and effort, but all can be reached, and all are worth reaching.
Rachel Davis
March 20, 2016
Hey friends! I’m happy to share a guest post that is up today at Or So She Says. I’m guest posting once a month (check out some ideas on how to Make Your Sabbath a Delight). My post this month falls on Palm Sunday and I couldn’t resist focusing on Holy Week and the special […]
neisha
March 16, 2016
Thank you for the wonderful feedback about this amazing series of #hallelujah Easter projects, printables and inspiration! I have even more goodness to share with you and am excited to present the seventh post in my… More
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Jess
March 9, 2016
LDS.org Primary 2, Lesson 11: I Can Tell Others about Jesus ChristI LOVE this Bright Ideas! And shows just how we can be a member missionary!For this lesson, play a game of flashlight tag!Share the scripture Matthew 5:16″Let your light so shine before …
Scott Knecht
March 2, 2016
I sat in on a missionary discussion the other night. It was with a woman and her son who both had recently joined the church. They were being taught a follow up lesson on the Plan of Salvation. I was with two really good missionaries. They teach well and they teach well together, almost seamless in their transitions from one teaching to the other. After the lesson we three talked about it and they both agreed that it wasn’t their strongest teaching effort. I offered, as I always do, to give them some feedback and they readily accepted, as they always do.
The feedback was this: they taught the Plan of Salvation in an unnecessarily complicated way. They taught it in the standard way that we all seem to use, with circles and lines representing different spheres of existence and transitions to and from those spheres. But it took over 30 minutes to get all of that on paper. And the reason it took so long is that there were dozens of digressions.
The Plan is vast and it touches at the very heart of what we believe. It helps us understand where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. As we begin to talk about it and teach its truths, we are easily distracted by another example, another appendage to it, another story we’ve heard about one of the facets of the plan, by any number of things that keep us from communicating simply and clearly what that Plan of Salvation really is. We, the teachers, are not bothered by the digressions because we understand the basics, but those trying to learn them get confused by what is really important and what is less so. And when the lesson is over they are not really sure which points are critical. If we can’t teach the Plan in a straightforward way, we lose people who can’t hack their way through the dense forest of facts we have built for them in order to see the truth at the center.
The lesson of the feedback was this: the best teaching is clear and simple. It is always clear and simple. The circle and line drawing can be put on paper in 10 minutes. It can be clearly explained in not much more time than that. If we teach it in that manner and the Spirit is present, the student/learner will have questions. She will begin to ask questions about the parts and pieces she is interested in and that she doesn’t understand. We can then address those. It will be a much more useful learning experience.
I’m not short-changing the beauty of the plan in suggesting that we can teach it very well in a much shorter time. What I am saying is that this particular subject is so filled with details that we could talk about it for hours, explaining more and filling in more with scriptural backing. That is not only unnecessary but confusing to a beginning learning of these things.
If we lay it out simply and clearly it will be easier understood and will create in the learner an increased desire to understand more.
One of the marks of an effective teacher is this: can he teach simply and clearly.
Rachel Davis
February 15, 2016
I recently heard someone say that everything in Primary is about reverence and staffing! I simultaneously laughed and cried–it’s just so true. Whatever else we do in Primary–teaching, encouraging, instilling–it begins and ends with worries about reverence and staffing. Always and forever. So I thought I’d dedicate a couple of posts to these topics. Today I’m going to […]
Scott Knecht
February 10, 2016
I have mentioned before in this blog that the style and quality of teaching is not really important if no learning is taking place. The whole purpose of teaching is so that people can learn. If that is not happening then we need to readjust our teaching so that the outcome is achieved.
Yesterday I went on a teaching appointment with 2 of our elders. We went to the home of a woman who is committed to being baptized in a week and a half. She was a delight and is so full of faith and hope that I was more edified when I left her home than when I entered. During the course of the lesson, which was on commandments, she asked a question about tithing. One of the elders opened to Malachi 3 and read to her verses 8-10, which as you know is the classic biblical reference on the subject. She listened as he read and when he finished she said “I don’t understand a word of it.” It wasn’t said in a mean way, just a factual way.
He then handed her the book and invited her to read the passage, thinking that her own voice might help in understanding. She did read and when she finished one of the elders immediately said “So what do you think it means?” She hesitated, then stumbled a bit in her explanation. Eventually, with the help of these excellent missionaries she came to understand the passage.
As we drove away the Elders asked me how I thought the lesson went. I told them that I would give them a tip about scripture reading. “You could go to any strong, well-established ward and read that same passage and there would be many adults and youth who would tell you that they don’t understand it. Scripture language is in some sense a foreign language until we pay the price in time and effort to understand the language. Not everyone has yet paid the price, even people with strong testimonies. So my tip is this: don’t assume that people automatically understand the scriptures, just because they were read aloud.” I shared with them the reference in D&C 68:25, the one that says that parents in Zion need to teach their children the basics of the gospel. But the sweet spot in that verse for me is the line that says “…and teach them not to understand…” It is not just the teaching that is key – it is teaching to understand. That takes more time and more effort.
When I teach, my first question after reading a passage of scripture would not be “So what do you think that means?” because my steady assumption is that they didn’t fully understand what was read. That is not a comment on a person’s intelligence. It is rather a feeling I have about what it takes to learn to understand things of the Spirit. And if they truly didn’t understand then we put them on the spot and they mumble something and hang their head and learning stops. We don’t want to embarrass people.
My first response after reading is to comment on it myself and pose a few simple questions to aid them in understanding. After reading “Will a man rob God…” I might say, “Did you catch how God talks about us robbing Him? Can you see in that third (or fourth) line what He says is robbery in His eyes?” I want to summarize and point them back into the passage so that they grasp the meaning of it for themselves. They will begin to understand. They want to understand, they just need help and we, as teachers of the gospel, are in a prime position to help.
It takes listening and sensitivity and a great desire to see people learn in order to help them get the most they can from a lesson. Think of every student as the Ethiopian described in Acts chapter 8. He was reading the scriptures and wanted to understand. When Phillip approached him, he asked “Understandest thou what thou readest?” The response is a classic: “How can I, except some man should guide me (verses 30-31).” Here was a student who wanted to learn and just needed a little help. We can be that help.
Scott Knecht
January 11, 2016
I have not posted anything in this space since last June. When I retired from my teaching career that month I stepped away not only from teaching but also from thinking about it. It was just a natural response to not being directly connected with the teaching/learning process professionally.
Last week my wife and I began a 2 year mission for our church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – and will be in the Boston area for that time. Since missionary work is real teaching work I now have a new motivation to begin seriously thinking about teaching and learning again. I am going to write about things that come to me as a full time missionary, related to the subject at hand. Here is the first one.
When we were in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) last week I had forcefully come to mind two very basic thoughts about teaching the gospel. The first was that a teacher can never improve without practice and feedback. It can’t be done. We can watch and listen and observe all we want. We can go into our classrooms and try on our own. Nothing will change until we open ourselves to an observer who loves us and cares for our progress and is willing to be bold enough to tell us what was seen and offer some ways to improve. Lacking that, we will limp along forever in our old habits, perhaps trying very hard but not making any real improvements.
In the MTC we had to role play at teaching on 3 of the 5 days there. Most people did not want to do it because it is a new thing and becomes painful when we have to discover that we missed the mark, either slightly or by a lot. But we all had to participate – no one was exempt. When the little teaching session was over, there was competent feedback and by the end of the week there was obvious improvement seen among many people. The cycle that leads to this improvement is: instruction, practice, feedback, and correction – repeat as often as necessary until competency rises. If you are a teacher who wants to improve, there is no short cut around this process.
The second thing driven home again to me is how much the Spirit is involved in gospel teaching. My wife was nervous about the role playing but once she opened her mouth and allowed her reliance on the Spirit to shine through, she was great. One time our instructor was listening to her specifically and when she finished the instructor started to applaud. It was that good, from a woman who didn’t think she could teach very well. On our own, none of us is very good but with the Spirit we can all rise up and be very effective.
Keep practicing, continue to seek competent feedback, and remember where the power comes from in gospel teaching. Learn to trust the Spirit in the gospel classroom.
Rachel Davis
January 6, 2016
Last fall I attended a brunch with our Stake Primary President. The pumpkin pancakes were delicious, but what she taught has really stuck with me: she stressed the importance of helping lead the Primary children in our stewardship to the Covenant Path. Ever since that brunch I have been thinking about the Primary children with that […]
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