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I was the substitute teacher for Gospel Doctrine class today, and the topic was 2 Kings and the passing of the mantle of prophet to Elisha. I just thought I would share a bit about the experience. I would guess this lesson to be problematic for a lot of us in the faith crisis perspective. The lesson material talked explicitly about building up devotion and obedience to the prophet today. It also, IMO, clearly tried to imply that the way we have succession of authority is ancient, or very old, and has been “settled a long time ago” (quoting Joseph Fielding Smith). The lesson quoted one of Bruce R. McConkie’s many non-canonical books on the Gospel, which I thought was interesting in light of many people’s expectation, or the cultural expectation, of not reaching outside the scriptures for lessons. Anyway, the class went really good (I thought). I enjoyed going through the passages in 2 Kings. I got to talk a little about them as literature (being very careful how I did this), pointing out some of the interesting story styles and elements. We got a chance to talk a little about the succession crisis in 1844, and that it wasn’t in fact clear who the new prophet was supposed to be. Nicely, this was helped along by an older, vocal, well-respected brother in the class. So it wasn’t me bringing it all up. It did lead to a good discussion touching on some real history.
We got to talk about the positive nature of sustaining leaders, and how we help them be good leaders by freely giving our support (sustaining them). It did not go in the direction of one of those blind obedience frenzies. People were really good about this topic.
The main thing I tried to keep in mind was to just let people make comments, and go with them. They were expressing their experience of the stories and sharing them. I did not have to agree, and I could help facilitate 45 minutes of people sharing great ideas from their own perspectives.
Very excellent. I’m rejoicing with you! Brian, I am impressed that you can lead such a good discussion, despite your misgivings about correlated lesson materials. I could really learn some things from you! I took my oldest daughter to college this morning, and we left early enough to attend the small branch in the town where she will be living. The GD teacher talked about the mantle, but what I thought was fascinating was when he got to the story of the bears killing the 42 “children” (or “young men” – as it says in the footnotes). He said he has heard a lot of possible interpretations of that story over the years – and proceeded to list and explain briefly about four options. He then said, in summary, “My own favorite interpretation is that Elisha must have a terrible day and been in a really foul mood – and had to do some serious repenting after cursing them when he heard about the bears killing them after his curse.”
He said this with a huge smile – showing that he was kidding a bit, but he explicitly mentioned that there is a period (the end of a sentence kind of period, not a length of time) between the cursing and the attack of the bears – and that there is NO direct statement that the two events had anything to do with each other. He said that he believes the writers (and mothers of small children) took the two separate events and put them together to create a folk tale in order to scare the children and/or young men of the area into respecting the prophet.
The Priesthood lesson was on covenants – especially temple covenants, and it also was a fascinating example of a lesson that I think everyone here would have appreciated.
Brian Johnston wrote:
The main thing I tried to keep in mind was to just let people make comments, and go with them. They were expressing their experience of the stories and sharing them. I did not have to agree, and I could help facilitate 45 minutes of people sharing great ideas from their own perspectives.I think that’s the key. People always comment on certain lessons I’ve given, and to me the formula is to have good questions ready to ask the group, make it safe for them to make comments, and have an arsenal of compelling answers to your own questions you can contribute if the lesson stalls.
I like your idea of just going with other’s comments. I also like to probe the people sometimes if they are comfortable in the class — ask them why they feel the way they do, what motivates them to act the way they are suggesting in their comments, and take a short detour into their minds for a while before bringing the discussion back to its development….all good stuff!
SilentDawning wrote:make it safe for them to make comments
“Aha!” moment. So that’s what the church has been trying to tell teachers all these years. Sometimes I think (and Ray’s gonna nod) the leaders are really in a tug of war with the members, trying to get them to allow more diversity and a little dangerous and subversive discourse in the ward.
Could it be that when someone from headquarters asks us to stay away from alternate forums and soup groups they are hoping we will bring our heretical ideas into the classroom? Nah, that’s probably way too dreamy a perspective. Isn’t it?
Had a good experience last Sunday – we had a lesson on service, but happily it was NOT about blind obedience to the church and doing calling but on how we might help each other people in general, and we even got given practical examples of just that. Just so you know, I’m nodding, Tom. :geek: I tend to agree, just as long as some of the comments don’t head too far down the fundamentalist route where blacks and women are concerned.
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