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Please do not confront him (even politely) in front of others. 1) I don’t think this would be good for your students. Maybe they aren’t ready to see differing interpretations, maybe it is the whole contention is of the devil
👿 thing.2) From what I understand of church culture this might illicit a negative response from leadership. They might have been receptive to switching the bishopric member that comes to your class, or alternating, or having a Bishop refereed mediation about acceptable “diversity of opinion.” But after you make it more public, their collective back could be in a corner. Any concessions made then might be a tacit acknowledgement that Brother SilentDawning knows more about the Gospel than the Bishopric or even worse that many areas of the modern Gospel are speculative.
😮 :silent: I urge restraint on this matter.
Roy wrote:Please do not confront him (even politely) in front of others.
Thanks for the feedback — I’m brainstorming here. Other perceptions are welcome.
With the SP member that did this years ago, I think pulling him aside would have been the rigth thing. I can’t remember what I said – I think I said “Then that’s something you and should talk about privately — afterwards, so let’s make a point of talking about it when this is over”. And then I moved on.
SD- I feel for you I get the headshake from time to time when I teach GD. Something that has worked for me is I have gone out of my way to point out when the class has different thoughts on the same topic. It has taken a couple years but I now have a very open class. The lesson that helped me point out that every member views God differently was one Sunday I scrapped the lesson from the manual and asked the class one question. Why do you love Jesus? Everyone had a different answer and we talked about everyones answer and how it was wonderful that God and the gospel mean different things to each of us and yet we can all worship together.
The lesson was really powerful. I even had class members share their answers in testimony meeting because they did not get a chance in class. The class still talks about the lesson and the class has become much more tolerant of each other. I still get the head shake from time to time but the class is much more open to discussing different ideas. I am not sure this helps but I think if you can slowly change the culture of the class the class will take care of the headshakers for you.
Maybe one way to respond/defuse quickly without causing tension is to say matter of factly something like, “Of course, there are other ways to look at it, as Brother Jones is indicating right now.”
Tom
As long as you say it with a huge smile on your face and a twinkling in your eyes. Be the Santa!
I like Tom’s suggestion, coupled with Ray’s smile: One thing — I’ve also had them come with with statements like “But this isn’t an opinion — you’ve got your facts wrong” or something blunt and tactless like that in response to a diffusive comment I have made. So, in spite of the teacher’s attempt to diffuse the situation, they escalate it.
Ideas on how to respond when they start escalating the conflict in spite of your soft attempt at diffusion?
One thing I’ve learned from years of teaching is that students can drive the culture of the class, particularly if they are formal in or informal leaders — so it’s important to take charge of it publicly at times so you’re in control of key shared values. It’s important lest the blunt students inspire other long-standing members to abandon propriety and tact and the disrespectful behavior continues. I’ve often felt that giving into someone who is confrontive in hopes the moment will pass is akin to feeding a demanding tiger a steak and expecting it’ll make him a vegetarian. Doesn’t happen.
Old-Timer wrote:As long as you say it with a huge smile on your face and a twinkling in your eyes.
Be the Santa!
Yes. My one wish is for a Santa Claus sized spirit.
“Of course, there are other ways to look at it , as Brother Jones is indicating right now
.” SilentDawning wrote:
Ideas on how to respond when they start escalating the conflict in spite of your soft attempt at diffusion?.
Humor. As much as possible. Helps diffuse.SilentDawning, I feel for you. You are in an uncomfortable situation, because of someone IMO who is exercising unrighteous dominion. Even if he were right, he is handling it in a way that is not right. I taught the Gospel Principles class for two years, and had an ex-first counselor who sometimes tries to control unreasonably. I tried to respect what he said, and honor requests that were reasonable, but it isn’t easy. Ultimate I outlasted him, but you may not have such good luck. I will share my experience hoping it might be of some help. One of the things I did in the class that drove him nuts was that I would supplement the material in the manual. I felt appropriate to expand to lesson to more completely explain the principles and their implications. But I never made a point without basing it on scriptures or GA statements and I documented it with sources I passed out to all in attendance. I believe that the Gospel Principles manual is the best manual in the Church because it is the only one organized around principles, rather than order of it’s appearance in the scriptures. So the ex-counselor had little ammunition. Hope this is of some help.
If it would be of help, I have my notes for all the lessons, with documentation for everything, especially covering my my heresies. If you are interested, let me know and I’ll email them to you. Also I am teaching from the same book now to the HP quorum. I’ve been asked by the 2nd counselor to stick to the manual, despite the fact he values my supplemental material. Hhhhhmmm Obedience trumps wisdom. Anyway, I asked the Group Leader if that were a personal opinion or a consensus of the presidency. He said no and continue as I have, and not expect any “spys” from the ward or stake monitor wandering in. Nevertheless, the whole thing got me agitated, and I assembled a collection of scriptures, GA quotes, and quotes from other manuals that basically showed the narrow presentation they asked for is non scriptural and not even a consistent direction in other directions from Salt Lake. I can email that to you also. Let me know
Dash – I would love a copy of your notes and sources if you’re willing to share. dash1730 wrote:If it would be of help, I have my notes for all the lessons, with documentation for everything, especially covering my my heresies. If you are interested, let me know and I’ll email them to you. Also I am teaching from the same book now to the HP quorum. I’ve been asked by the 2nd counselor to stick to the manual, despite the fact he values my supplemental material. Hhhhhmmm Obedience trumps wisdom. Anyway, I asked the Group Leader if that were a personal opinion or a consensus of the presidency. He said no and continue as I have, and not expect any “spys” from the ward or stake monitor wandering in.
Nevertheless, the whole thing got me agitated, and I assembled a collection of scriptures, GA quotes, and quotes from other manuals that basically showed the narrow presentation they asked for is non scriptural and not even a consistent direction in other directions from Salt Lake. I can email that to you also. Let me know
I’d love to see it — I thought I was going to have to turn this into a 4 hour preparation exercise every week now in order to cover myself. Your notes will help I’m sure.
I’m also going to rely on caveats before certain statements “This is my personal opinion…..”and then say something, so it’s clear when I’m stating official doctrine and when I’m speaking personally.
I don’t get how responsible men feel they can be this way in classes — would they do the same in a class at a university? I don’t think so, as this rarely happens to me in my university teaching — except when you have people in the class that think they know more than you do — and even then, it’s fairly rare. I think the absence of grades (nixing any kind of reward power on my part that tends to keep people in line), the presence of their familiarity with the subject matter, and their position power turns the tables somewhat. I have to say, it makes for a new experience at Church.
I’ve got literally hundreds of pages of notes/outlines/ supporting articles, etc. Sending that by PM or even email could be difficult. Perhaps the best way is if you tell me what your next lesson is and I can send a couple of them as samples. If you find it helpful then I’ll figure out how to set up a blog somewhere that would better handle the volume. In the meantime, I will send cwald and silentdawning a copy of notes I made addressing whether gospel discussions should be restrictive (narrowly following a single manual) or expansive. I wrote it up recently when feeling a little pressured from my HP leader, and will keep it in reserve in case he brings it up again. You might find it useful now. Also, I can recommend an excellent discussion of Church “policy” on such thing. Policy is not as set in concrete as it might appear. You can find it at
http://mormonmatters.org/2010/09/24/teaching-from-the-manuals/#more-12802 Well, I experimented with the small group discussion technique in Gospel Essentials class. There was a member of the SP there as well as the Bishopric counselor for parts of it…..It went OK, but it was less engaging for the class members than the typical lecture and discussion format I usually use. But more people got to talk than usual. Personally, unless I can find a way of making the group discussion more personal, with people sharing personal experiences and the conversations flowing according to the needs of the individual small groups — I’m not sure if this is a long-term strategy for my problem. They mostly ran through the questions, scriptures, and open-ended questions like it was a laundry list of things to talk about and check off rather than something to spark meaningful discussion. Funny, I never run into this when I use this technique in secular settings. it’s almost as if you need a skilled facilitator in each group, who has prepared before the meeting, to make the technique effective.
Interesting, I tried asking a long-time member if he would share his feelings about the Book of Mormon next week after reading part of it — consistent with the CHI. He had an issue with that for some reason. The time I spent here has me wondering if perhaps he doesn’t have a testimony of it, but is here for social reasons — particularly his wife and daughter who attend. In fact, he perked up when I sensed this was the issue, and said it could be from the Bible — then he was willing to do it.
I think the conversations I’ve been having here gave me the insight into his reluctance to share feelings about the BoM….a common theme here is how to cope with being put on the spot to testify about things that you struggle with.
However, for this discussion, that’s peripheral to the larger question of this thread — how to get through a lesson without being annoyingly corrected by leaders and other members who feel their role is to correct unsound doctrine.
Incidentally, I went to Gospel Doctrine class and there was some conflict between the instructor and the Bishop’s wife about whether some Messianic prophesies referred just to Christ or also included John the Baptist. I left after the first exchange back in Isaiah 👿 but my wife later told me that it really got heated in John.😈 (As an aside, I ended up helping in nursery until Priesthood. I don’t believe I am more sensitive to the spirit of contention than others, I just think I have less tolerance for narrowly defined and exclusive interpretations of scripture and/or doctrine.
😳 )It was the general consensus that the Bishop’s wife was being disruptive and rude. In thinking about this incident and your situation I have wondered, Does a Sunday School teacher have the authority to ask a disruptive student to leave the class
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