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SilentDawning wrote:
Thought I would share the reaction of my daughter when I told her that seminary graduation is a requirement for BYU admission…her eyes bugged out of her head. I think it strengthened her commitment to go to Seminary. She started nodding her head and said that it was another reason to go.
Funny how no one plugs the “get into BYU” reason in my state(far removed from Utah). Thanks everyone for enlightening me on this one. I’m glad to hear this, because the “get into BYU” motivation in my area is strong. Some hard feelings develop when one year a student with very sketchy attendance is allowed to make up tons of work (or not!) and still graduate. Different year, different bishop, different student – and the standards aren’t the same.
I can imagine how some who graduate from Seminary, and who don’t get into BYU must feel — highly ticked off. SilentDawning wrote:I can imagine how some who graduate from Seminary, and who don’t get into BYU must feel — highly ticked off.
I’m sure that’s true. Seminary does weigh heavily, but it’s not the only criteria, just like grades and ACT score are not the only criteria. FWIW, they also appear to look closely at what people do besides church (really) and/or related to church, especially related to service and leadership.
I just want to say that I think Seminary is ridiculous. Kids already go to church on Sundays, FHE on Mondays, mutual during the week, maybe a second weeknight for church sports, and they are suppose to do personal scripture study every day. Isn’t that enough? If the church is true, wouldn’t that be enough to keep them with it? I am guessing that the purpose of seminary is to keep them active with the church, but maybe there is another reason. My personal experience with seminary was awful. I did release time for a few years when I lived in Idaho, and then early morning seminary in Nevada. I had to get up at 4:30 for that one! I went to bed at 9pm most nights to survive it and sometimes took naps after school too. But besides the sleep issue, I always had seminary teachers who said completely untrue outrageous things, or were openly embarrassing me for being quiet in class (when I was new and didn’t know anyone). I went to BYU and the seminary teacher who filled out my papers said something along the lines that she didn’t think I would get in or something like that (I guess I’ve blocked the details out of my memory). Anyway, my point is that I will be totally fine if my kids don’t want to go!
To be fair, the Church gets criticized for not teaching its members enough about its history. Take away Seminary, and what’s left? Less than one hour each week dedicated primarily to doctrine and history. Right now, according to a recent Pew Forum study, Mormons know the Bible better than any other Christians. Do we really want to take that away and leave it up to Sunday School teachers alone to cover all the material we want our kids to study – especially in situations where they don’t have solid support and/or understanding at home, which is becoming more and more of an issue as the Church spreads into other countries. All issues aside, just like so many other things that bother us, our complaints are coming from a position of relative luxury. We can complain about it if it doesn’t / didn’t work for us and/or our children, but there are many students for whom it is vital – and many others who absolutely love it.
I don’t disagree with all the teaching Seminary provides, or the benefits of some kind of church history training. But I do disagree with the lack of choice in the format of learning.
If you read the comments in this thread, the early morning component is a burden for parents, often resulting in lack of sleep and hardship. Student grades suffer in their secular school, and it often makes them cranky and difficult to get along with during these already difficult years. Much of the time is wasted in some seminary classes as well (my daughter complains about this too). Strong active families cite resentment about early morning seminary as a cause of less-activity in some youth.
I think an online/face to face hybrid would provide more balance to students, teachers, and parents. I think that giving families and kids a choice of a purely online format would also help. As part of my PhD studies, I assessed whether an online seminary format was feasible. My conclusion was that it was not for purely business reasons only — business reasons that serve the church’s financials more than anything else.
Before one looks at that conclusion as an argument in favor of early morning seminary — look at the reasons — BUSINESS reasons. The reasons I presented were
a) underutlized buildings at the early morning time of day, so the church can’t capitalize on the savings in brick and mortar facilities that online learning provides
b) increased IT overhead and support required due to the technology needed to support online learning
c) increased technical training of seminary teachers required (technology requires additional training and monitoring skills when people work without a structured time and place to meet and
d) increased resources necessary to follow up with kids and parents to ensure the work gets done. The early morning format is low-tech. But also highly inconvenient to students, teachers, and parents,
Therefore, the reasons against the online format are mostly due to the drain on church resources. It’s not as if online or blended learning (partly face to face, partly online) is new, or not effective. It is pervasive in our society now. And there is a lot of know-how about how to do it.
The argument in favor of early morning seminary (for the church) is the fact that the face to face format makes the students, parents, and teacher carry the cost of seminary — rather than the church.
To me, its another example of church egocentricity at the expense of the members.
So, yes, it works for some people, but not for others. What about those others for whom does it not work? We have the technology, know-how to provide choice in the format students take seminary. And it wouldn’t surprise me if we also have the funds to support it as well.
So why do we not provide this option for people who want it?
Quote:But I do disagree with the lack of choice in the format of learning.
I’ve already said I agree completely with that, SD, and would like everyone to be able to choose the best study method for them. Just saying.
I’ve got sympathy with some of the viewpoints here. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I feel every morning as if I am tied to the bed. I’ve always found it hard to get up, lack of light doesn’t help. When I used to work as a construction laborer, I had to get up early, but not as early as seminary!
It shouldn’t interfere with school that’s bad.
Regarding the financial argument. Church buildings have to be lit and heated while it’s going on.
Studies showfrom the link above
Quote:One study concluded that adolescents required 9.2 hours of sleep a night for best daytime functioning
So lets do the math. Here where I live, Early Morning Seminary starts at 6 am. So kids have to wake at 5 to get ready and be there by 6. Nine hours would require them to be asleep by 8 pm the night before. How is that going to work????? If they are a good TBM they are at Scouts/YW at least one night a week until way after 8 pm. And then there are after school sports, homework, etc. Early morning seminary has no payoff except for getting into BYU. I was SO GLAD when my youngest daughter turned 16 and could drive herself!
A brother in our ward once gave a talk, and mentioned how their family had two kids quite late in life. His biggest regret was that he was going to be driving to Seminary at age 64!
I think 9 hours would be about right. Worth remembering adolescents are undergoing massive physical, emotional and neurological changes… I’m definitely with Sheldon and the studies that show kids aren’t getting enough sleep. Like I said, it’s ironic that in order to get into BYU, my son had to attend early morning seminary requiring him to be up at 5am, resulting in him not getting enough sleep and his grades suffering. Because his grades weren’t good enough he didn’t get in to his two top school choices anyway and HAD to go to BYU. His younger brother may not be so lucky, as BYU’s admission standards get higher and higher. Like I said, they would never agree to skip it; their friends are there. Just to put it out there, almost no teenagers are getting over 9 hours of sleep each night – and teenagers in agricultural societies never have gotten over 9 hours of sleep each night. I agree with that as the ideal, but lack of sleep absolutely isn’t unique to the LDS Church. This isn’t a Mormon problem; it’s a societal problem – and, as an educator, it is an educational system problem, as well. High school students have FAR too much homework these days.
Early morning seminary was a great blessing to me as a teenager. 1. My home life was a wreck and I needed support from people OUTSIDE of our family.
2. We moved multiple times and I didn’t get to put down “roots” much. I take a long time to trust and make friends. I needed whatever friends I could get.
3. There were few very Mormons in the places I lived and it was nice to feel less alone. The Mormon kids on our wards were spread over a large-ish geographic area. That meant we had to be out of the house super early to travel. But teens care about peer relationships. It was worth it to me to have peers with something in common, and feel less lonely. The Mormons I knew all went to different high schools. We didn’t get to see each other much. Without those weekdays together I’d have had less opportunity to make friends.
4. Seminary taught me to pray and have a relationship with God. I was going through rough things, and that was a lifeline.
5. I’m a morning person, so it wasn’t a big deal for me. But our seminary was early enough that we usually had time to play a little basketball or go out to breakfast together after class (and before school started). That was priceless for me.
True I was taught a great deal of nonsense masquerading as doctrine (think BRM’s “Mormon Doctrine”). But for me as a youth, the good outweighed the bad.
However, since we live in Utah, I expect my son to not need the above as much as I did. I hope he will opt AGAINST early morning.
I have mixed feelings about early morning seminary. Institute is better in my opinion, but it’s too far out of my way to go to it. Anyway, I like the fact I was able to be around other members of the church my age. (I even had crushes on a couple of the girls there. Hahah.) It helped prepare me to gain my own spiritual testimony of the church, Christ, and Heavenly Father. I liked the seminary teachers alot, although I was closest to my second seminary before he got excommunicated. Due to me not being able to go my senior year of high school, my wonderful seminary helped me make up the rest of the work through take home work. My biggest issue with having it so early is that the church was a 10 to 15 minute drive from where I lived, but most of the seminary kids lived in the same town the church was in was that they only had to go across the street to get to the high school. And too often the teachers would go for too long and if the weather and roads were bad in the winter I’d be late for first period. So it was fun, but it would have been far better if the ward would have been big enough to have it after school.
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