Today in Sunday School Brother Tate demonstrated an example of how a teacher council for parents would begin if it were based on the question “how do we deal with or respond to children who choose to step away from the church?”
He wasn’t trying to do a teacher council but his lesson was based on the scriptures in Mosiah about the challenge of the rising generation rejecting the church that their parents, the adults who heard King Benjamin, had heartily embraced. Before he started teaching I had written down the following:
Thoughts for Sunday school presidency relative to having Teacher Council for Parents:
What if we ask various teachers if they have any observations about things that can be reinforced through teaching at home? This is a question for teachers in Sunday School, YM/YW, and Primary.
I am becoming convinced that holding a teacher council that is based on a question that parents might be dealing with is the way to organize a teacher council for parents. In fact, a part of me is wondering about the possibility of disbanding one of the Gospel Doctrine classes and using that space to hold a teacher council each Sunday School week (and occasionally on a non-Sunday School week) with a central question that has been published to the whole ward so that parents can choose when it is a topic that they want to participate in. (I think I’d hold a few one-off teacher councils for parents to prove the question-centered model was effective and that we knew something if the your of questions that drew interest before I considered that step.) This is killing me, if I were a Bishop or Sunday School President I would be pushing to try this out but now I’m just having ideas to share with the Sunday School Presidency.
The other half of this to explore would be finding the best way to solicit ideas for the topics that we should cover and also to consider the best approach for selecting people to lead the discussion on each topic.
After the lesson today I also want to study He Will Place You on His Shoulders and Carry You Home by Elder Uchtdorf (April 2016)
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