Ask a random Latter-Day Saint off the street what the state of teaching is within the Church today and you could get a response anywhere from ‘decent’ to ‘horrible’–likely directly related to the quality of the 3-4 most recent lessons they’ve attended.
Generally speaking, in the Church today, there are:
- A few great teachers
- Some good teachers
- A great many adequate teachers
- Lots of poor teachers.
Poor teachers leave students depressed, unfulfilled, and sometimes angry after class ends. People start habits of leaving church after sacrament meeting–sometimes going inactive entirely–because of poor teachers.
Adequate teachers fulfill their callings without leaving students in a bad mood afterwards. Students receive some basic gospel instruction during the lesson which is presented in a competent manner…and which is usually forgotten about thirty seconds after they walk out of the classroom.
Good teachers leave students in a happier mood than when they came. Students receive gospel instruction that will stay with them throughout the week, if not longer. Most of the important gospel lessons that Church members retain and internalize throughout their lives come from good teachers.
Great teachers leave students sad once the block hour is over…because they want to hear more. Great lessons leave students feeling ‘reconverted’ to the gospel, and give them knowledge and wisdom that they not only remember and act on throughout their lives, but have the desire to share with others also.
Church members despise poor teachers, tolerate adequate teachers, appreciate and respect good teachers, but actually look forward to lessons from great teachers.
Teaching is fundamental to the gospel. From the beginning, the pattern has been: God teaches gospel truths to a handful of people–and then they share those truths with everyone else. The very first teachers (Adam and Eve, naturally) were specifically told they had a responsibility to teach their posterity:
“Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence; for, in the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name, and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous Judge, who shall come in the meridian of time. Therefore I give unto you a commandment, to teach these things freely unto your children” (Moses 6:57-59)
Likewise, Church members of all ages after A&E have been given the responsibility not only to learn gospel principles themselves, but teach those principles to others. The fundamental purpose of every part of Church meetings following the sacrament is to teach and be taught.
Why have this pattern? (In other words, why can’t we learn the gospel directly from God’s mouth instead of through the opaque filter of other Church members?) Because teaching is a part of eternal progression, not only for the students but the teachers themselves.
Teaching is not a zero-sum game. Passing on knowledge to a receiving person does not diminish the giving person–in fact, teaching benefits both the giver and the receiver: “Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together.” (D&C 50:22)
Since organized teaching is important and omnipresent within Church life, improving the quality of teaching is vital. President Spencer W. Kimball once said:
“Stake presidents, bishops, and branch presidents, take a particular interest in improving the quality of teaching in the Church. I fear that all too often many of our members come to church, sit through a class or meeting, and they then return home having been largely uninformed….We often do vigorous enlistment work to get members to come to church but then do not adequately watch over what they receive when they do come” (Teaching of Spencer W. Kimball, pg 524)
Okay…but how do you improve gospel teaching, then? Oftentimes the simplistic response is just to “call better teachers”. But this presumes teaching ability is hard-coded in DNA and cannot be changed–that good teachers were born good (and poor teachers likewise) without recognizing that teachers can improve. What if that great gospel doctrine teacher you love to listen to every week wasn’t always great–she became great only through experience and study…and a ‘training’ period of being adequate or worse before she figured out what she was doing? Are there specific things that teachers can do to move themselves up the quality scale?
In my opinion, yes. Since my mission, I’ve been an Elders Quorum teacher, Priests Quorum teacher, Primary teacher, Young Men’s teacher, and a Sunday School teacher; some more than once. My current calling is in the Stake Sunday School Presidency, where one of our main purposes is to visit the Sunday School classes of the different wards, and work with ward teachers and SS presidencies to improve the quality of teaching. I’ve taught many lessons (and attended many more) through the years. I’ve made some terrible teaching mistakes (which you’ll hear about), but have through time and experience learned from the mistakes and have been able to improve. I’ve seen many common mistakes that teachers make which undercut the power of their lesson, and will attempt to share some of my limited experience in written form. It is the same concern that Pres. Kimball shared several decades ago that is the primary motive for this series: how to improve gospel teaching.
There is no ‘right’ way to teach (although you can argue there are certainly many ‘wrong’ ways): Attending the same lesson taught by several different ‘good’ teachers can all be inspiring, despite being almost completely different in structure and execution.
“Teaching by the Spirit” (the scriptural ‘right’ way to teach—see D&C 42) is the key to successful gospel instruction…but even then, as a guiding principle it is fairly broad. Good teachers find a variety of useful and effective ways to ‘teach by the Spirit’–and, frustratingly, some teachers with strong testimonies and gospel backgrounds often fail at ‘teaching by the Spirit’ through poor execution. How can teachers more regularly harness the power of the Spirit and make a meaningful connection with their students? Hopefully, this series will be able to analyze some important factors, and provide some basic advice as to how to improve gospel teaching in the Church.
NOTE: ‘Teaching’ within this series will refer primarily to ‘lesson teaching’–organized classes in the second/third block hours taught by a teacher working from a lesson manual–mostly because that happens to be where the bulk of my experience lies, and the area specifically addressed by President Kimball above that needs guidance and improvement. “Lesson teaching” in this context includes all Sunday School classes, EQ/RS classes, and YM/YW classes–although not Primary so much, because as any Primary teacher will tell you, teaching young children is a different animal altogether. (Primary probably deserves its own series…by someone else with more direct experience than me.)
Some of these principles will have application to other forms of teaching in the Church, from sacrament talks, to FHE, to missionary work, but the primary focus will be teaching organized lessons to Church members 12 and older.
NEXT: How to be Adequate…