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Yikes, just been asked if I got ‘the email’ by the primary president to cover the 9-10 aged class to teach their class today. Sacrament just started. I hadn’t but said I would be happy to help anyway if there was no-one else. And then… discovered it’s: “Primary 5: Doctrine and Covenants and Church History, Lesson 11: The Restored Church of Jesus Christ Is Organized” Moroni’s visit
Receiving gold plates
Translating gold plates
John the Baptist and Aaronic priesthood
Melch priesthood restoration
Umm… How on earth am I going to do this? I don’t believe any of them happened the way it’s taught. I think Moroni was a vision of sorts, a spiritual experience embodied. I know the images of the Gold plates primary use are inaccurate and I’m not even sure there were Gold plates anyway.
As for the priesthood restorations. I think the belief that we have God’s mandate and ability to act on his behalf is meaningful and motivating, but I don’t think those heavenly visits actually happened.
So… given my daughter is in the class, I’ve got about 30 mins to work out whether to play it straight, lie to my daughter and lose my integrity or teach them what I think is more accurate and incur the wrath of parents!
I guess the ‘middle way’ is to teach ‘Joseph said he…’ I won’t be using the art kit though. Some of the most misleading content the church has.
This raises a broader dilemma. How do I do this going forward? I know that when I’m not teaching there will be no nuances. It will be taught in all its inaccurate simplistic glory.
“Joseph said” is a perfect way to teach things like that to children. There’s a place for nuance, and there’s a place for generalities. A 9-10 year old Primary class, with wide intellectual and exposure differences, is an appropriate place for the broad outline focusing on “likening all things unto ourselves”.
Thanks Ray, have been reading through and there’s enough on the organization of the church to fill a lesson and skirt over the earlier stuff. A lot of the focus is on restoring Christ’s church. So I can focus on how we fulfill the gospel instruction to care for each other.
As mentioned. This is also a question of knowing the kids don’t get nuances in their classes usually.
Tender mercies… The teacher turned up. So do I turn out their mental pockets and pick over their inaccuracies from primary?
Just teach something completely different. Play a game it’s not like they are going to fire you. Even in our search for truth we still fall under the spell of our Mormon training thinking we have to teach what they tell us to teach. We do not It’s a good point Cadence. I was planning to discuss the parable of the goats and sheep and how we can serve in similar ways today. Or something… But I’m now agonising over the knowledge of what’s taught instead. The primary answers version.
Having taught lots of kids in church, I’ve discovered that they often don’t hear what you do say and do hear what you don’t say. Hmm, that was a worry too. That if I taught the foundational stories, I’d be so I insincere that they’d see straight through it. I could not do it. Just like on my mission, 23 years ago, when I came to the conclusion, much of the gospel, at least in the literal sense was not true. I was a senior companion and a district leader. Much to my new green companions (I hated that label and called them new missionaries) dismay, I concentrated on service….free english classes, etc. I have refused a lot of callings over the years (when I was active). The last time I was active I was the 1st councilor to the YM (ironically at the same time as suffering as an alcoholic….no I did not drink and drive nor drink anything when I was about to go to church or be part of a YM activity). I loved it and the young men seemed to like me. I was a bit of a heathen in their eyes though they did not know about my drinking problem. I set no standards for how they dressed nor where they sat in class. My lessons were less than 10 min long and I ‘bought’ them off with weekly treats. When we drove to an activity, we all listened to heavy metal (I’m a middle aged head banger that never grew up). I don’t boast, but I did have a lot of less active 14-16 year old YM attending each week.
My advice is if you do this, keep it fun and buy them off with treats. Teach what is in your heart, but don’t mention anything controversial nor teach anything you don’t believe. Just teach a simple short 10 min lesson, then play games. They will love you.
Perhaps, I should accept callings. I think the church is headed for some growing pains. I think the church is going to need more open minded members….especially working with the youth. When things start coming up, those kids are going to need something else besides crazy orthodox people teaching them.
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