Teaching instruction: simplicity vs "depth"

[jay santos]

Some of you (Arch, SIEQ, others?) ache for more depth in church lessons with the simplicity nearly killing you of boredom.

Boredom nearly kills me sometimes, too, so I can't judge anyone for that.

Yesterday one of the lame high priests that thinks he's the ward gospel font of knowledge subbed in for gospel doctrine teacher. He had Christ's Gethsemane experience as the text. I'm thinking if there's a week out of four years of Gospel Doctrine lessons that you should be able to form an interesting lesson out of the material while keeping with the text, it should be that lesson.

No, instead we got into the following topics:

How long has God been God? This got bantered around for a while with no pure doctrine taught and 100% speculation BS taught. The instructor's final word was none other than 2.5B years, as hysterically taught by BRM in an obscure letter first seen by me on CG a few weeks ago. The instructor said this was taught by Joseph Smith and confirmed by BRM in conference talk.

How many worlds did Christ create? This also got bantered around for a while with no good coming out of the discussion only confusion.

As I sat next to the tattooed jeans wearing new member in the ward, I was steaming inside wishing for "simplicity" not depth.

My beef with depth in gospel teaching is that most people want to take depth in directions of speculation which to me is never positive but nearly always destructive--in a church setting where many people take what is taught as gospel truth.

Depth or meat, to me, is to take simple doctrines or teachings and explore them in a deeper way or explore the applications in modern world. It's not to dig up esoteric early church history quotes or speculate on doctrines not taught in the church today.

[Indy Coug]

There's a reason why I abandoned Gospel Doctrine for Gospel Essentials a few years ago.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by jay santos

I'm thinking if there's a week out of four years of Gospel Doctrine lessons that you should be able to form an interesting lesson out of the material while keeping with the text, it should be that lesson.

Let me disagree slightly with you here, Jay (although, I think your general point is very good). I actually think this is one of the more difficult lesson to stay close to the text with if you want to teach an atonement lesson. You are right that the text is extremely interesting, but the text itself says almost nothing explicitly about atonement (the disputed text in Luke about the bloody sweat is by far the most explicit). Thus, my hypothesis would be that this is one of the lessons where the median teacher actually examines the assigned text the least. If scriptures are used then I bet scriptures like D&C 19:16–19; Mosiah 3:7; Alma 7:11–13 are used more (also Orson F. Whitney's dream/vision gets talked a lot in this setting as well).

Of course, the lesson you where subjected to seems like a complete drag and it looks like it was primarily an outlet for one person to try to show off his mastery of obscure church history facts. I also agree this should not be confused with depth. I think obscurity and depth have very low correlation with each other. Also, controversial should not be confused with depth. I don't think good teachers need to resort to controversial to bring interest or depth to the classroom.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by pelagius

Let me disagree slightly with you here, Jay (although, I think your general point is very good). I actually think this is one of the more difficult lesson to stay close to the text with if you want to teach an atonement lesson. You are right that the text is extremely interesting, but the text itself says almost nothing explicitly about atonement (the disputed text in Luke about the bloody sweat is by far the most explicit). Thus, my hypothesis would be that this is one of the lessons where the median teacher actually examines the assigned text the least. If scriptures are used then I bet scriptures like D&C 19:16–19; Mosiah 3:7; Alma 7:11–13 are used more.

Of course, the lesson you where subjected to seems like a complete drag and it looks like it was primarily an outlet for one person to try to show off his mastery of obscure church history facts. I also agree this should not be confused with depth. I think obscurity and depth have very low correlation with each other. Also, controversial should not be confused with depth. I don't think good teachers need to resort to controversial to bring interest or depth to the classroom.

Depth is probing, examination and introspection, not obscurity, controversal nature or lack of authority.

It seems in part we see a lack of depth due to the high speed nature of our commercial world. We don't ponder any longer, we need it fed to us immediately. Answers don't take time.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Depth is probing, examination and introspection, not obscurity, controversal nature or lack of authority.

It seems in part we see a lack of depth due to the high speed nature of our commercial world. We don't ponder any longer, we need it fed to us immediately. Answers don't take time.

Your comment and Jay's earlier one brings up in my mind how we can increase the "quality" of instruction in gospel doctrine classes (How can we get Indy to come back into full gospel doctrine activity?). I don't know. I guess one solution is to put a higher priority on gospel doctrine. It strike me that very few people in a ward in a given week have the ability to affect or enhance the worship of as many people as the gospel doctrine teacher. Maybe, its staffing priority should be higher? My guess is that in a given ward there are as many good teachers as there are organists.

Of course, the second option is to improve the teaching of those who are typically called. This strikes me as a very difficult thing to do and clearly the church has tried/still is trying to do it.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by pelagius

Your comment and Jay's early one brings in my mind how we can increase the "quality" of instruction in gospel doctrine classes (How can we get Indy to come back into full gospel doctrine activity?). I don't know. I guess one solution is to put a higher priority on gospel doctrine. It strike me that very few people in a ward in a given week have the ability to affect or enhance the worship of as many people as the gospel doctrine teacher. Maybe, its staffing priority should be higher? My guess is that in a given ward there are as many good teachers as there are organists.

Of course, the second option is to improve the teaching of those who are typically called. This strikes me as a very difficult thing to do and clearly the church has tried/still is trying to do it.

You make a great point.

When we've had a great GD instructor, the quality of worship improved. However, the numbers of great GD instructors are limited in any given stake. It seems the Bishop needs a higher priority in selecting that person. I don't think you can improve the person if they don't already possess the skills.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Archaea

You make a great point.

When we've had a great GD instructor, the quality of worship improved. However, the numbers of great GD instructors are limited in any given stake. It seems the Bishop needs a higher priority in selecting that person. I don't think you can improve the person if they don't already possess the skills.

i have been in few wards with good GD teachers. I'm not even convinced there is one per ward. There are two that I can remember ever having, and we've moved around a fair bit. One from a ward right after I got married and one from 2 years ago.
The first was called to be EQ Pres and the second is the current HP group leader, which really bummed me out.

I think the impact of a good GD teacher is really underestimated.

[jay santos]

You could easily make a case that the Gospel Doctrine teacher is the most influential person in the ward. The GD teacher probably has the most impact on me of anyone in the ward.

You might not know who has the potential to be a good GD teacher. Where I live, they generally don't stray outside the core group of BYU professors and CES guys. My wife would be excellent but they probably wouldn't ask her. Women are better for things like baking bread for new neighbors.

[All-American]

When does depth exclude simplicity? The best teachers do both.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by jay santos

You could easily make a case that the Gospel Doctrine teacher is the most influential person in the ward.

I can't see how this is possible. In my wards of times past, only 10-20% of the ward membership ever attends gospel doctrine at any given time.

I think some of you folks are vastly over judging the value of a 40-minute gospel lesson, once a week. While I too don't think charging headlong into bizarre space doctrine is appropriate for the class, time constraints vs. the body of scripture really leaves time for only cursory looks at gospel teachings.

Class is intended more to give members an opportunity to share insights gained during their own studies, and to suggest applications of doctrine. The teacher is to provide direction and guidance in this process. If I'm not mistaken, it was maybe 15 years ago or so that the entire Gospel Doctrine process was redesigned to be less research-heavy, and more lightweight and scripture-centric.

It isn't to say there isn't more value to be had--I like many others find pelagius' notes to be enlightening. But I wonder how much of his material he himself gets through in an average session?