Reflections on seminary teaching

As part of a class (and so that I could gather information for my decision about a career - see my previous post) I taught a seminary class for two weeks. In summary, I loved the first week, but I thought that I could have been more exciting. And during the weekend between the two weeks, I decided that I would teach computer science as a career (as opposed to seminary).

On Tuesday of the second week, I taught about Mosiah, chapters 3-6 (in the Book of Mormon). I wanted to be more exciting than I had been, but those chapters are very sacred because they testify directly of Jesus Christ. It's easy to have fun with historical chapters of scripture, but those chapters are a king and prophet's final words to his people. The class was attentive, but I could tell that it wasn't terribly exciting to them.

Then, on Thursday, the students filled out feedback forms about my teaching. Afterward, I taught Mosiah 7-10. These chapters were mostly historical and we had some fun with them. The class broke up into four groups and each group took one of the stories found in those chapters. Two of the groups told the class their story by skit and the other two drew diagrams on the board and explained. I think they had fun, and then we wrapped up.

When I got home after teaching, I took a moment to read my feedback. I was surprised (and so were my friends) to see that my comments consistently told me to be more interesting or enthusiastic. One student told me to have a personality!

It took me a little while to assure myself that I did actually have a personality. Since then, I've done a lot of thinking.

I thought about the necessary balance between information and entertainment. If I focus on teaching and spend no time trying to make my presentation interesting, I can communicate more information. On the other hand, efforts to make my presentation entertaining help students to pay attention (and learn as a result).

I also thought about how people teach and learn at BYU, as far as I have been able to observe. The general rule is that it is the students' responsibility to learn and the teachers' to teach. If the students don't pay attention, that's their problem.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm curious. I don't just try to learn. I fight to learn. That said, I have a lot of trouble staying awake in lots of my classes. Part of this is the fact that I don't make myself sleep enough at nighttime. But part of it is because many of my teachers focus at conveying information. They're good at it, but there isn't much flair in their presentation. Even though I really want to learn, I have trouble paying attention when classes are boring.

And if I, who am extraordinarily curious, cannot learn as well from boring (but informative) classes as I can from entertaining classes, then I definitely must learn to teach in an entertaining manner. After all, the point of teaching is students' learning.

Since it will take me a few years to receive a PhD, I won't be teaching for a little while. I'd still recommend that you brace yourself now, though. This is a lesson that I intend to apply.