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Silent Dawning: I don’t really know you and I could be totally off base so forgive me if this is offensive, going the opposite direction as others, but here goes.
Your daughter wants to do this seminary program, right?
Think of it as an opportunity to spend an hour a day teaching her and her friends ON YOUR TERMS and make it worth it to them. In my observation about 70% of early morning seminary teachers are bird brains (90% of full time CES teachers) and it turns into a thrash, an enormous damaging waste of critical time. That is what is likely about to happen (Hawkgrrrl agrees) if they are desperate enough to have you on the short list and you bail. This for me would weigh out all else, including the over-baked descriptions in handbooks and your other recent concerns. The true spirit of pre-correlation Mormonism; you write the handbook, you define it.
Your original points:
1. No time.
You are driving her there anyway, so you are already there (90% of success is showing up).
You’ve been preparing for this all your life. Don’t take any more time to prepare any further. Teach spontaneously “by the Spirit”.
(Skip in-service if it isn’t worth it or volunteer to teach it the way you know it should be taught.)
2.Teach gospel.
The truth is the gospel. The current teachings of the church are supposed to be a close approximation of the truth but do not define the truth. Quite the opposite. We are not required to believe or teach anything that is not true. So as the appointed teacher you are allowed to teach your own approximation of the truth (with discretion of course). It is their responsibility to correct you or boot you if they disagree; so make them do their job, don’t do it for them. Most people greatly over-estimate the ill effects of teaching teenagers a few heretical ideas. Teach critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, how to find answers to questions, etc.
3. Seminary outdated.
You got that right and you think the youth don’t notice? Update the teaching methods, to the ones Jesus used. Simple, compassionate, non-judgmental, etc. Some of my ideas would be to have the older, more articulate students (often trouble makers) teach some of the classes. Use stories or a question-and-answer format to teach students how to look up information for themselves on their infernal digital devices they are constantly gawking at anyway.
4.No desire. Can’t help that. I’m trying to change that. See above and below.
5. Tired of teaching.
Lowell Bennion once was asked if he ever got tired of teaching BOM 101 every year. He replied that if he taught BOM every year it would get mighty tiresome. But he teaches students and they change very year so it is always exciting. Your daughter is not tiresome to teach is she? Or her friends?
6. Youth compliance and discipline.
Use a modification of the scouting model of boy leadership. Turn almost all of the discipline over to the youth leaders. Give them ownership of the class and remind them that you are not in charge but more like a consultant or a hired expert. Blame them gently when it doesn’t work (and it won’t from time to time) but then teach them how to make it work by trial and error. Most youth are harder on their peers than adults and will need to be reined in.
Elections are the key to the credibility of leadership. Allow them to happen and allow the youth to live with an elected imperfect leader for a few weeks. Don’t forget that women can be extremely effective leaders but in the LDS culture at this age they might need a little nudge. (They might not).
7. Social issues, snobbery or whatever it is.
This is a chance to change that. Seminary is more about social integration than about learning anything testable in the academic sense. Group therapy more than classroom instruction. Sounds like if the youth are anything like their parents they need it.
Secret: The single most important characteristic of a great early morning seminary teacher is…. BRINGS GOOD FOOD! You known da**ed well those kids didn’t get up in time to eat a decent breakfast. As Brigham Young used to say about the Indians, “it’s easier to feed them than fight them.” Have a back-up plan, but get the youth to bring you and their peers the food in turn; things like donuts or biscuits and gravy made the night before. Or my daughter’s favorite contribution: cinnamon rolls baking in the oven during seminary.
Appendix
Unintended consequences of early morning seminary:
Driving: You do realize that by far the most common way teenagers die is in traffic accidents. The single most critical skill you can teach a youth is safe, cautious driving habits. And at 6:00 am the roads are less crowded, more forgiving of mistakes and you have a chance to lecture a new driver non-stop for a few minutes every day. Don’t waste a single day of that “learner’s permit” period when they are required by law to have an adult with them to drive. Even if they didn’t hold seminary it would be worth it retrospectively just to get up and practice driving around every day at that hour. My daughter might have been a bit out of line when she bought an old red Celica off the internet with her money when she was 15 years old and we let her drive it to seminary every day but only with a parent riding with her. We later worked her little brother into the lineup so they each got three years of experience driving to seminary. We didn’t let her drive it to school or anywhere else until she was well prepared.
So when our kids asked in college if they could borrow the minivan and take some non-LDS friends to Florida or New Orleans for Spring break, we said in all sincerity, yes. But upon one condition: you do all of the driving because we trust you. (And the driver has more control over the other activities than the others will have). When we were in Cheyenne Wyoming heading to Utah and it started snowing I handed the keys to my daughter because she has sharper vision, better coordination, quicker reflexes, plenty of experience, etc. and we went into 9th grade early morning seminary driving mode with me riding shot gun where she had the benefit of my experience growing up in snow country, for what it was worth.
Partying: If your youth get up every day for early morning seminary and have tons of other activities keeping them busy the rest of the time, they will be too tired by Friday night to go out partying and getting drunk, stoned or layed. Won’t even be an issue. Just my observation…
It is worth it to keep your daughter in excellent seminary. But not in crappy seminary. You can make a big difference, if you wish.
Your son will be influenced more by what you DO than anything you say. Teenage sons don’t often seem to be listening to lectures from their fathers, but they do tend to follow their actions and take on their character. My advice: find something your son loves and do it with him. Don’t just sit back and take a mellow attitude about church, but find something else to which you and your son can be dedicated together. Full LDS church activity tends to completely fill up our lives and if you are not that active then there is more room in your life. You will fill that room in any way you chose. Doing activities with your children is among the greatest of ways to do it
The best thing I did with my now 21 year old son was non-LDS scouting. I loved sports and my son has an athletic body (74 inches, about 190 lbs of hard muscle; strong as an ox and runs a 5K in ~16 minutes) but he is not the least bit interested in sports. He had little talent in music, remodeling the house, or fixing old cars, or several other family activities. However, we discovered he loves the outdoors; camping, hiking, etc. So to scouting we devoted ourselves. I probably slept in a tent for over 200 nights, hiked or paddled with him about 900-1000 miles and was there for maybe a third of the 300+ hours of service he did one year to earn the Presidential Volunteer Service gold award. For a couple of years doing merit badges was a father and son weekend activity although he earned about half of his ~80 merit badges without my involvement. He did his eagle project with minimal parental involvement (as it should be) which required a year of steady effort and his 70 page write-up has been likened to a PhD dissertation.
The very best leadership training my son will ever receive was working 1-on-1 on almost a daily basis for 6 months with an organizational genius (our scout master) as the 17 year old elected senior patrol leader governing about 80 scouts. This was preceded by years of other positions like patrol leader, quartermaster, etc. learning from other boys how to lead. My son was put in charge of 60 boys during the structured one week of summer camp. He was elected crew leader on 3 of the 7 high adventure expeditions with about a dozen people and 8-10 days of strenuous outdoor activity. Some of his fellow scouts struggled with and often overcame serious personal problems including drug abuse, attempted suicide, truancy, arson, parent’s divorce, vandalism, witnessing a scout’s father die suddenly of a heart attack or a scout’s mother die slowly of breast cancer, typical academic and girl problems, etc. We are definitely a wild, slightly crazy, boy-led troop by any definition and allow for probably too much chaos. Today, due to the method behind this madness, my son is a better man than I am. He has better basic leadership skills than any bishop I have ever had myself.
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My little brother has insulin-dependent diabetes and I was immersed in the reality of that condition; the twice daily insulin shots, testing (urine back then) and endless balancing of food and activity level. I believe with enough extra preparation, even a “brittle diabetic” (as my brother was described) could do everything I have mentioned above (although they would not have to go on the multi-day, away-from-medical-care activities if they felt it was too dangerous for them). Our scout master’s son has a congenital heart condition requiring a pacemaker and perpetual coumadin treatment and he required 2 more life-saving open heart surgeries as a scout after several during childhood. He was one of the most courageous boys I have ever met and he managed to go on most activities including one of the less physically demanding high adventures (Bahamas). To see the strong healthy boys (even the hoodlums) make it happen for him was almost miraculous.
It doesn’t have to be scouting, it could be any number of other activities that you and your son want to do together.
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Warning: You are probably not in a neutral position at church. Thinking of doing nothing is a bad plan that will frustrate you and others. At least 10 LDS men are called into the YM program in every ward, more if you have many youth. These are high-octane callings and they tend to be given to the most dedicated ward fireballs bent on proving themselves worthy for higher callings. Some of them will think they own your teenage children if you are not 100% in lock-step with their agenda and will defy usual boundaries. They will apply all kinds of pressure; gentle, devious, bribery, guilt-inducing, intense, etc., to get your son immersed in church programs, including the too often lame and cheating LDS scout program (every boy a 14 year old eagle my ass), the YM program, yearly EFY and treks, early morning seminary, and then full time missionary service. The LDS church is committed to this path of building a strong core of orthodox members.
Give your son real options. Temple trip or scout canoe trip, for example. Find a structured framework for him to learn to think for himself and make his own choices by giving him many options and support him even if he selects the temple trip you might not like.
My son also chose early morning seminary and got himself up every day at 5:30 am (excellent woman teacher) but not week-night YM activities (boring). He went camping with the inept LDS lads when he could but refused to accept any recognition from them, including taking down the plaque on the wall in the ward house honoring his eagle award. He was too busy every summer for EFY. He selected a top technical and science institute close to home and not BYU. He submitted his digital application for a mission on his own without parental encouragement but got into a power struggle with his single’s ward bishop over the timing of a haircut. Then he actually went on splits with the local missionaries and I think that is when he realized an LDS mission might be great for many people but was not for him.
At that point he was a man, not a boy to be pushed around. There was nothing I or anyone else could say or do to sway him from his course. (Many have tried; are still after him). He attends the LDS church meetings on Sunday, takes an institute class some semesters and is deeply but privately religious on his own terms. He graduates from college this spring with a degree in Physics and Mathematics after only 3 years of intense study (that would make a mission look like a vacation), aced the GRE and has the best graduate schools interested in him. A member of our ward and a top engineer-manager of a large company got into an intense discussion with him at a wedding reception (on a topic of research in which my son has published one paper) and offered him a job earning over $100,000 a year. My son was not impressed; it was not the first such offer, just the one I overheard.
His friends from the ward of the same age will return from their missions this summer, still boys really, all fired up with religious zeal, facing at least 3 years of college (maybe more to catch up), unprepared currently for any decent employment; while my son could earn a fine living right now and begins work on a PhD in Physics at a top university. My son’s maturity, character, and dedication are beyond what I ever would have anticipated only a few years ago. He has exceeded my expectations in every way. Our mutual commitment to genuine scouting was a huge part of it.
Dream big for you son, live large and forge a way for him to make it happen.
