Classroom Management

I really love my Seminary class, each and every person. I love getting to know each student better and I appreciate their different personalities, interests, and contributions to our discussions. Like I've said, Sister Bindrup and I truly have some of the best youth in the stake. However . . . the class is unmanageably large. Forty kids is too many, sorry, I'm just going to say it.

I've heard people say, Yes, but the numbers will get smaller as the year goes on. I would counter with this: Which students do you hope stop coming? Which ones deserve to fall by the wayside? Which ones don't need rescuing? We want them all, plus more. But it seems incongruent to encourage our students to invite their friends when we hardly have room or resources to handle the number of those who already come to class.

I am really passionate about reaching "the one". I feel that it's vital to people--young people, especially--to feel loved. With our current class size, that's hard. We're not strengthening the most motivated ones, and we certainly aren't reaching the struggling ones. Perhaps my main issues are with classroom management--I have room for improvement there. (Today the kids were mostly attentive but extremely chatty. And I noticed as I walked around that some kids didn't even have their scriptures out. It's too easy to hide in a very large group like that.) But what I really want is the kids to learn, to enjoy the scriptures, and feel the joy that comes from studying and applying gospel principles in their lives.

I'm not one to complain (other than to my husband or to you) but I might really push for a class split. I would much rather lose 20 kids but know they are well-cared for by another set of teachers than lose 20 students in my own class to disinterest and unmet needs.