Comments on: Teacher Development Developments

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 02 May 2016 07:13:53 +0000

I checked this morning and the manual is now up on the Church website

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 01:17:44 +0000

I was in a ward conference once when a member of the stake presidency ran off the names of the ward leadership for sustaining. The Sunday School President was named and all of us looked at each other in confusion. He hadn’t been to church in years and, probably partly due to a boundaries organization a couple of years prior, none of us knew who he was. It was a small ward.

I’m now 2nd counselor in my current ward’s Sunday School Presidency. It’s a clear sign the ward doesn’t know what to do with me. Guess that’s what I get for moving from the Midwest (where I was EQP for most of my time there) to a large, very conservative, very conformist ward in the Mormon Corridor where all the stereotypes are true.

By: Terry H

Terry H — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 23:56:03 +0000

As for your question about what the SS Presidency does, a good friend of mine passed away due to an accident. He was the 2d Counselor in the SS Presidency. A year later they called his replacement and never did release him. This was noted by my Home Teacher who said he always knew the SS Counselor positions were the cushiest in the Church

By: Alison K

Alison K — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 23:47:18 +0000

Thanks Julie! I am embarking on the teacher development course starting this coming sunday. Thankfully our sunday school presidency happened on this manual while trying to decide what they wanted me to teach.

By: MJ

MJ — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 18:24:52 +0000

#17, a coordinating council, as noted by Beth, is a training meeting held by area authority 70s with the stake presidents they train and oversee. It generally is held 2-4 times a year. At general conference the 70 gather and are trained by the 12 and the presidency of the 70 and then go out and train the stake presidents.

By: Beth

Beth — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 18:17:17 +0000

The coordinating council is by area seventies and includes stake presidencies (and others by invitation), as I understand it.
Thank you, MJ (#16), that explains a lot! We should expect to receive instructions via our bishops soon. But there’s no harm in starting to talk about at the ward council level now.

By: fbisti

fbisti — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:37:18 +0000

Primarily because my wife has been a teacher in all the auxiliaries and was once the “Inservice” leader, I applaud the church finally paying more attention to developing more skilled teachers. However, comment #16 says,

“Stake presidents received/are receiving training on it during their current coordinating councils,”

Regarding “coordinating councils,” can someone educate me? I searched LDS.org and found references back to Ezra Taft Benson about this–but nothing current at all. Sometimes it is referred to as a “correlation or coordinating council.” Having been in 7 bishoprics, a high council, and a stake clerk twice, I have never heard of this “council.” Though, obviously, the Ward Council is technically the Ward Correlation Council. In my stake’s online calendar I can find no reference to it or a correlation council.

So, I have my doubts that anyone in leadership in my Phoenix, AZ stake has even heard of it. Unless they are closet liberals and faithless sinners who use the LDS-oriented Internet blogs. ;-)

By: MJ

MJ — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:42:41 +0000

We are rolling this out in our stake this week. The 70 received training on this during their last general conference training. Stake presidents received/are receiving training on it during their current coordinating councils, and then they are supposed to go back and train the stake council/bishops. I was told to start as soon as we can get it going/get people trained. The training videos and other materials can be found at teaching.lds.org.

By: esodhiambo

esodhiambo — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 13:32:26 +0000

I do teacher improvement in my ward (heaven knows what the SS presidency does) and have been doing these councils about quarterly, always with positive responses from attendees. I’ve just been making them up. It will be interesting to look at this and think of doing them more regularly. Thanks!

By: Niklas

Niklas — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:31:32 +0000

I wonder that if they are going to translate this manual to other languages, will they also translate the Gospel Topics essays. Otherwise it is kind of silly to refer to them. My hope is that they would translate both the manual and the essays as soon as possible.

By: Niklas

Niklas — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 09:25:19 +0000

It is interesting that the manual is online, even though it is not formally rolled out. There is no official letter about it, and unless you know the direct link, it is almost impossible to find it on lds.org.

But since it is online, it should be okay to use it. I just told our newly-called SS Pres. about this. He seemed enthusiastic. I will mention this in the next ward council too.

By: coffinberry

coffinberry — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 22:17:59 +0000

It sounded to me that the topics are chosen by class participants, and it specifically says the modules need not be done in any particular order nor need be confined to only one month.

By: Mike Maxwell

Mike Maxwell — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:50:53 +0000

Thanks for sharing, Julie. As the SS president in my ward, I had heard nothing about it until your post. I shared the new manual with our Ward Council this morning (no one in our Ward Council was aware of the new manual either) and the response was very positive, especially regarding the Council meetings. We are going to start those Council meetings in our Ward in May. It will be interesting to roll this out in our ward. I think this will be a very positive step to enhance teaching in our Ward.

By: Emma W.

Emma W. — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 16:29:48 +0000

I think that there is less of a conflict for the youth teachers than there is for the adult groups. As a youth SS teacher I don’t see a problem with meeting with the AP/YW teachers for a meeting at the start of their hour. Everyone would need to show up promptly and ready to discuss the topic. All they would miss would be their respective announcements. If they were really concerned about not having enough time to teach their lessons (and if we are having a productive discussion they may not) then they could ask their respective presidency member to teach that week.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 13:50:21 +0000

Great, I think more coordinating with other teachers is good–especially since the church disbanded the quarterly teacher inservice meetings. The youth teachers could benefit the most from coordinating since their topics overlap so much, but as Beth pointed out, there seems to be a scheduling conflict.