In Seminary I taught the sophomores my first year (1/3 of a year), the freshmen last year, and next year--the juniors. I am really looking forward to that. The younger kids are still "forced" by their parents to come but by the time they're in 11th grade they're usually more mature, and if they're still coming it's because they want to (at least to some degree).
Teaching seminary has been probably the hardest calling I've ever had mostly because of how little my efforts seem to be appreciated. I do hours of studying, put together interesting lessons--and kids leave class early, look up "the scriptures" on their phones, and make silly comments to impress their friends. That was definitely my experience last year with all of those 9th grade boys. They wore me down and practically extinguished any joy I felt in being their teacher. I resigned myself to being the one that they reflected on later in life, "I know I had some lady that first year--I don't remember anything about that class though."
Regardless, I try my best because you never know when someone's paying attention or might be in a place to take the lesson to heart. Just this past week I had three kids reference something positive about our class.
Mary K. (from my sophomore class): "Everyone was watching a bad movie but I walked out because of a lesson you taught."
Zack: "I used to skip seminary all the time until one time you made me feel guilty about it, so I started coming again."
Kyle (to Bryce in teacher's quorum class): "I know that scripture because of seminary! Sister Jones taught us like a boss."
No one teaches just to receive praise but what a nice surprise it is to receive positive feedback. And what a surprise it is to hear that one of my most disruptive students learned anything besides how to set the clock ahead to confuse me, hide people's Bibles, or throw paper when he thought I wasn't looking. If he learned a scripture somewhere in there then I'm pretty darn happy.
Just when it seems like no one's paying attention, could it be that they are? I guess you never know.
That's what keeps me going.
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