How Should I Handle Bishopric Involvement in my Class?

[Anonymous]

Quote:

“Does a Sunday School teacher have the authority to ask a disruptive student to leave the class?”

Probably not, but s/he does have the right to find the SS President and ask that the student be asked to chill or leave. Local politics make that difficult in most cases, especially like a Bishop’s wife or Bishopric member . . . We do it with children in Primary all the time in egregious cases by getting their parents – but what’s the equivalent for when adults act like children? Getting their Home or Visiting Teacher? 😈

The flip side of allowing everyone to participate is that everyone can participate. Think Fast and Testimony meeting.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

Does a Sunday School teacher have the authority to ask a disruptive student to leave the class :

In a secular/university setting, definitely. And if the student refuses to leave, you can shut down the class, or even get a security guard or manager.

At Church? I would say rarely, if ever — only in the most extreme circumstances. I would probably prefer to simply break everyone into small groups to discuss a question I write on the board to keep them busy, and then ask the person to step outside and have a conversation about their disruptions. And if the person is in a higher position of authority, it’s even worse, because of the respect for authority that is encouraged.

I’m still lost on my problem, unfortunately. I asked a couple long-time attendees of my class how they liked the questioning in small groups and they said it was just “OK” but she didn’t like that no one bonded like they do when it’s lecture and discussion. I can’t do this as a matter of course every week for the entire lesson. And to make matters worse, the BP member in question showed up AFTER the group discussion was over and took the role of creating closure to the topic. So, I was right back into feeling like I was on trial again.

You know, the purpose of Church, in my view, is to get the Spirit in there so people feel motivated and inspired. The actual correctness of narrow historical events or interpretations of finer points of doctrine etcetera aren’t critical — that’s for BYU classes and Institute etcetera. And these people who feel they have to get all disruptive and disagreeable drive the Spirit out of the meeting.

I’m getting to the point I’m dreading teaching that class. In my work, at least every 8 weeks I get a new group of people, and I rarely ever have someone above me in authority attend the class, with the same level of knowledge I have. With this problem, there is no end in sight!!!

My next approach is to try the team-teaching approach with the WML so I cut my involvement in half. He’s been away over Christmas and was sick last week, so I wasn’t able to approach him about it yet.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

these people who feel they have to get all disruptive and disagreeable drive the Spirit out of the meeting.

Yup. Drives me nuts, as well.

I can’t believe I haven’t asked this already, but have you spoken directly with the SS President and/or Bishop about this?

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Quote:

I can’t believe I haven’t asked this already, but have you spoken directly with the SS President and/or Bishop about this?

No, I haven’t for a couple reasons. This BP member is sort of a friend — he invites us over to his house and I generally enjoy his family’s company socially — there is never any Church in it. It’s always over common interests, and we have a few that we really enjoy.

Second, I’ve always believed conflicts should be handled at the lowest level possible, which means with him directly; but I’m not comfortable doing that because of point number 1. Plus, he’ll probably launch into the narrow doctrinal issue he was head-shaking about, which frankly, I don’t care to be corrected on as I don’t believe it to be a core doctrine, or one that has a definitive answer.

Third, he’s only done it twice now — once verbally,. and I just dismissed it as an isolated incident a month or more ago, and then the second time with violent head-shaking etcetera. So, while this is a problem in my mind, he hasn’t done it so much it’s disruptive to the class — only to me. It’s a sleeping giant I’m sure I’ll awake again and I find it disturbing — like a dreaded event waiting to happen.

However, I have seen disruptive people in the past, hence my comment above in general.

Anyway, I’m going to keep trying other ways of minimizing myself in front of the class. Part of the problem is that our new Bishop has mandated that he attend that class, the whole time, each Sunday. At first I thought it was just me, but I’ve since learned he wants both of his counselors in the adult Sunday classes. This Bishop also attends High Priest Group. I guess he wants everyone to get their Church in, even if they are leaders. Little does he know the problems he’s causing with his good intentions!!!

[Anonymous]

I think I come back again to the idea that the most practical solution is for you to adapt and care less about this guy. I don’t mean stop being friends with him, but care less that he shakes his head or disagrees with you while you are in the spotlight. I totally understand how that is a rub.

You could continue to manipulate and manage the classroom environment to reduce HIS ability to react the way you don’t like. That is a solution to try. I am not saying it can’t work. But it seems like a lot of work (just my opinion putting myself in your shoes).

This is probably just my personality speaking, but I would focus on caring less about his reaction. Ultimately, you can’t completely control what he does — both as an individual, and because he “outranks” you in the hierarchy of the situation.

We ultimately have the most control over our own inner landscape. It’s the only place we control. The reality of it is this: You know more than him. Sure, he’s shaking his head and giving a sign of disapproval or disagreement. But so what? He’s wrong! (I don’t remember if you told us the actual doctrinal points)

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

I think I come back again to the idea that the most practical solution is for you to adapt and care less about this guy. I don’t mean stop being friends with him, but care less that he shakes his head or disagrees with you while you are in the spotlight. I totally understand how that is a rub.

You could continue to manipulate and manage the classroom environment to reduce HIS ability to react the way you don’t like. That is a solution to try. I am not saying it can’t work. But it seems like a lot of work (just my opinion putting myself in your shoes)

Good points. It IS a lot of work, that is for sure. I was thinking of this as I was running around to make copies of my small group questions and trying to track down the WML to team-teach the class. In the past I could spend 45 minutes reading over the lesson and making some notes and then reacting to what people say on impulse. This IS a lot of work.

I think I have to be away this weekend because my school work is spiking and I can’t see any other way of getting my work done given the continual interruptions from my kids — unless I stay home and get it done while they are occupied at Church. So, this weekend it may be a moot point.

The minor point of doctrine by the way, was a phrase in the Word of Wisdom scripture (89) about how the wine for sacrament shouldn’t be purchased, but made by one’s own hands or similar, due to conspiring men. Someone asked what that meant and I opened up the question to the class, and it came back that conspiring men will put things in food to make it addictive (someone cited certain caffeine drinks) and I mentioned that I heard there may have been fear in the early days that congregations could be poisoned as a result. He shook his head violently at that one. Perhaps it was too deep for gospel essentials, but that’s what you get occasionally when you teach in real time, on impulse, flowing with the comments in the class.

I then posted the question on a TBM site where there are a few scholars (actual BYU guys) and scripture enthusiasts and they thought both interpretations were viable. In fact, they brought out an experience by one GA that he used to confirm the meaning of that scripture to him.

Regarding the necessary attitude conditioners to do this — I’m trying to list them so I can run the script in my head in preparation for the next onset from this guy:

1. The CLASS isn’t disagreeing with me — even the old-timers. So why worry about HIS isolated reaction?

2. Nothing says I have to react at all to him when he uses body language like head shaking (however annoying). If I don’t react, the impact ends there. End of story.

3. If he says something, I can resort to the simple “Thank you” or simply ask someone else with their hand in the air and treat it as one of many comments on the subject — not as a personal attack.

I think visualization of this happening again, and then my neutral/non-response will help that response be dominant, and not the one I’m having now. Frankly, it bothers me I have to put so much effort into dealing with such problems.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to be late to the discussion. I’ve had a lot of experience with this (not the exact scenario, but tons of teaching in the church and professionally in a business setting). You said:

Quote:

My role becomes one of a summarizer and simply bringing high-level closure to the class.

I think in teaching adults, this is pretty close to the ideal role. It’s just about creating a discussion for the students to have with each other. You put up the canvas, but they create the painting. All you are doing is framing it out for them. So I always view myself as a facilitator more than anything. In church terms, you invite the Spirit, but they are the ones who bring the discussion to life.

When confronted with verbal “heckling” or dissent, I always throw it back to the class in a friendly and neutral manner: “What do the rest of you think?” They can agree or disagree with what was said or it might prompt something totally different on their part. I don’t engage directly with students who confront. Period. And the guy in the BP sitting in IS a student, regardless what he might think.

If you’ve got non-verbal disagreement, I would just call it out, again in an inviting way: “Bro. So-and-so, you don’t seem to like that thought (or “you seem to have a reaction to that” or “you seem deep in thought”). What’s your perspective?”

I would also consider talking to him after class if he’s not forthcoming in class. You could just ask what he was thinking about when he was shaking his head and point out that it was distracting. It doesn’t have to be a confrontation. If he were any good at this sort of thing, he’d be a bit more subtle!

[Anonymous]

silentdawning wrote:

My role becomes one of a summarizer and simply bringing high-level closure to the class.

Quote:

Hawkgrrl: I think in teaching adults, this is pretty close to the ideal role. It’s just about creating a discussion for the students to have with each other. You put up the canvas, but they create the painting. All you are doing is framing it out for them. So I always view myself as a facilitator more than anything. In church terms, you invite the Spirit, but they are the ones who bring the discussion to life.

That’s what I normally do, but I like to bring closure to subsections of the lesson too — and also contribute to the discussion with some of my own ideas before giving it back to the class. Also, there are times when the class says something wrong, and if you don’t correct it, or correct it improperly (according to the mind of the BP in class, anyway), you get called out.

But I too agree with this approach. I saw one teacher structure a class so his Powerpoints were all questions, nothing more. I thought it was brilliant use of Powerpoint.

Quote:

When confronted with verbal “heckling” or dissent, I always throw it back to the class in a friendly and neutral manner: “What do the rest of you think?” They can agree or disagree with what was said or it might prompt something totally different on their part. I don’t engage directly with students who confront. Period. And the guy in the BP sitting in IS a student, regardless what he might think. If you’ve got non-verbal disagreement, I would just call it out, again in an inviting way: “Bro. So-and-so, you don’t seem to like that thought (or “you seem to have a reaction to that” or “you seem deep in thought”). What’s your perspective?”

Yes, I tried that bringing out his comment so I could do that, but he pointed to someone else in the room who had their hand up, saying “over there is someone who wants a comment”. That’s when I realized his head shaking was directed at me, and not because he had something to share with the class on the topic.

Quote:

I would also consider talking to him after class if he’s not forthcoming in class. You could just ask what he was thinking about when he was shaking his head and point out that it was distracting. It doesn’t have to be a confrontation. If he were any good at this sort of thing, he’d be a bit more subtle!

That probably would have been the right approach at the time, but if you read my post on the documentary on memory in the GEneral Discussion thread, you’ll see that I have huge, internal, invisible emotional reactions to events. In this case, that made the prospect of discussing it with him undesireable. I just hoofed it out of the room, I was so shocked at his behavior, when it was over. I left him sitting there, and he was staring at me. HOpefully that sent a message that I didn’t like that form of participation.

I like the idea that it’s my class though — because it is — and its my portfolio to manage what happens in it. What complicates things is the fact that he’s a higher ranking official, so to speak.

[Anonymous]

My MIL teaches the GD class every Sunday in her ward. She sticks to the manual 100%. Her class also happens to be horribly boring. It isn’t even b/c she wants to follow the guide so closely but b/c she isn’t very well read. According to my DH anyway.

Would it really be terribly rude to ask for thoughts or opinions when he shakes his head? Seriously if someone, anyone is trying to show their opinion through sighing and obnoxious body movements – would it be so bad to ask them what their thoughts are? They obviously have an opinion or an answer. Even my MIL does it all the time – not out of anger but out of curiosity. I’m sure if you asked him once in a while while he was shaking his head … that he would be more mindful of it. Kudos to you. These days I’d probably tell him off Reason why I don’t really go to church anymore!

And ……. I just read your above comment! He sounds like a gem of a guy 🙄

[Anonymous]

LaLaLove wrote:

Would it really be terribly rude to ask for thoughts or opinions when he shakes his head? Seriously if someone, anyone is trying to show their opinion through sighing and obnoxious body movements – would it be so bad to ask them what their thoughts are?

That’s what I did. And he deflected the attention to someone who already had their hand up. So, he didn’t want to share it with the class — it was between myself and him.

I had a similar experience with an ex-Mission president who called me out in front of the class because, in making some humor, he thought I made a joke of someone’s worthy comment. He was very rude, saying “No, he made a good comment over there and YOU’VE made a joke of it”.

This was someone who tried to hijack the lesson a few weeks before, and I dealt with it by giving a humorous quotation on the subject I wanted to return to, and took the lesson back. I think he resented that and called me out on this other issue later. I’m shaking my head….

[Anonymous]

Problem solved, new problem presented.

They called me into the Bishop’s office today and he released me from my SS calling. They had someone sustained an hour later in Sacrament meeting. Funny, when they extended the release I asked “Have you found someone else yet to replace me?” thinking I might just share how on the edge I’ve been feeling this last year, and how teaching that class might be the best thing for me for the next while (presuming I can fix the head shaking leader in my class). They replied they had someone in mind but hadn’t spoken to them yet — but that my release was happening no matter if I accepted the new calling they offerred me or not. So I didn’t say anything or share any feelings.

An hour seemed like a short period of time to extend a calling to someone else and get their acceptance for sustaining in Sacrament, so I asked the person afterward “when did you accept the calling”. They said “last week”. Don’t know what to think about the discrepancy between what the Bishop said and what the new person said.

They extended another calling to me. Frankly I would rather slide down a razorblade, landing in a bucket of vinegar than accept the calling they’ve extended. It is somewhat time consuming, web/computer intensive (and I do computers all day already), error prone, working alone, and detailed, full of random requests and phone calls and updates. It’s like a job I had a few months ago part-time that I’m no longer doing, and didn’t like. I’m not good at it, and don’t want to be good at it. Honestly I’d rather dig ditches than do the calling they’ve extended.

[Aside — I asked the Bishop if I did something wrong to get released like this. He said “No”. I asked a couple long-time TBM’s who attend my class if I did anything they considered apostate or eyebrow-raising as a SS teacher, and they said “No” and gave kudos — one even said it was odd that I would even suggest that was a problem, so I guess I shouldn’t read too much into this]

I’m thinking of just saying “no”. And then suggesting some other places I would like to serve. Honestly, I’m booked with my post-grad studies and working full-time, and my commitment is weak right now. To saddle me up with something I detest is probably the worst thing for me right now.

On one hand, I remember what it as like to be a leader and have people refuse to do things. ON the other hand, my inner peace is important. And once in the new calling, I’ll be expected to stay in it until they see fit to release me. Seems better not to do at all and not give them that power . That’s what caused my trial of faith 14 months ago and prompted me to join this site.

Suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Tell them you want to serve in a calling, but that you can’t have one right now that is time intensive with everything else that is going on in your life. Tell them again that you do want a calling, but that you’ve thought and prayed about this one and you just don’t feel right accepting it right now. Ask them directly what is available that would be less time consuming and might work for you right now. If they say, “Nothing” – say something like, “Please get back with me whenever something opens up that I can do. I really do want to serve somewhere.”

[Anonymous]

I’m so late to this discussion I probably shouldn’t even chime in, but it’s my nature to want to pipe up when I feel I have something to say.

This is why I would have handled the head shaker completely differently. If I notice someone giving me overt body language of disagreement, I generally ask them directly and immediately what’s up or what they’re thinking (but in a kind, non-threatening way). If they are threatened by being put on the spot, oh well… I’ll notice that and will apologize, then again apologize in private.

I also don’t think “higher authority” really applies in a Sunday School class, but I may be in a minority. The BP counselor is just another guy, serving in a different calling. He has no more authority or power than the teacher in that situation, in my opinion. He can press the bishop to release you, that’s about it.

I’ve taught enough in and outside the church to understand how off-putting it can be to have a disagreeable audience member. We generally want to be accepted and respected. But, experience also tells us that we cannot please or entertain everyone, and that we’ll have off-days. So, you let it roll, at least that’s what I do. Use humor, like someone mentioned, find common-ground with the person, keep the pace going, and avoid letting them take the pace up a totally different river. A mix of humor, confidence, and humility seems to work best, in my opinion.

I find it odd that BP would tell you the person hadn’t been called yet, but then again, there may be good explanations for the apparent discepancy you found. For one, counselor could have already talked to the new person, but forgot to inform bishop. Bishop might have forgotten that the person had already been called. Person may have been talked to about the calling, but BP didn’t feel like it was an “official” invitation to calling as yet. I wouldn’t stress about it.

As far as the new position you’ve been asked to accept, the new CHI is now very clear about what comes first and it’s not the calling. If this would cause significant stress to you and your family, turn it down. I was surprised about how many people actually turn down callings. You always hear people saying (bragging) that they’ve never turned down a calling because it’s always inspired and comes from the Lord, but anyone who’s been in the position of calling people knows that’s not the case. I was surprised at how many DO turn them down. Maybe my ward is different in this case as we had a bishop who stressed looking at all callings through a family filter, then the next bishop who is rather liberal as bishops go.

Your inner peace is more important than fulfilling a calling you don’t want to do. By your description, it sounds like they want you to be the ward website specialist. In my experience, that calling is relatively easy to fill and the ward doesn’t stop if the website is down, so I wouldn’t worry. If you were the only piano player in your ward and you hated to play piano, then maybe I’d understand some feelings of guilt, heh.

[Anonymous]

My thoughts are similar — the calling is more than just the webmaster calling, involving other jobs that touch on it, but you’ve encapsulated my feelings pretty much exactly. Thanks to you both!

[Anonymous]

Get someone to tape his reactions in class. He probably has no ideal how his reactions are. With evidence in hand to show him how distracting he is; your talk may be very effective. If he chooses to want to take this on up the chain of command you have evidence to show exactly what is distracting you and your students. Wish I had a cell phone with camera when I was teaching High School. I did survive 32 years without getting shot or sued. This is Hardball but if you use it; it will work You might want to tell the class that you will be using shots of students to evaluate if they are comprehending what is being said class

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