Saturday was the All Day Teacher Inservice for Seminary Instructors for the Bay Area. This will be my 4th year teaching the Los Gatos High School students. If you add on the 2 years I taught in Boston (4 plus 2=6); you would think I'd be an Experienced Veteran yet I still feel like a Novice at times! This year we're studying The Book of Mormon (my first time to teach it). I'm really excited about that! I loved teaching both the Old Testament and New Testament but found the year of Church History more challenging.
The inservice classes are helpful! Two Saturdays a year they hold Training and I find it quite worthwhile. They open with an inspiring keynote speaker then you get to select various workshops to attend. These run the gamut from game ideas, tricks to memorization, activities that work for teenagers, gospel doctrine application, teaching by the Spirit, etc. It's a lot of information to take in at one sitting but it definitely gets the ideas churning in my head. And I always leave feeling Motivated to Do Better and Be Better (both as a Seminary Teacher and as a person per se).
One of the biggest Leaps I took a year and a half ago was getting a MacBook and learning to use Keynote for Class Presentations. It opened up a Whole New World of Material and Visuals I incorporate into lessons. I have to thank Webb and Brent for convincing me that I Needed a Laptop; I'd been reluctant and now I CAN"T IMAGINE teaching without it. Poor Paige; I was her Seminary teacher my Rookie Year so she really didn't get the benefit of the bells and whistles of the powerpoint type presentations, etc.! When I tell Paige I'm a much better teacher NOW than during her year, she gives me that "Yeah, Sure" skeptical look!
The Book of Mormon has so many valuable messages that really do align with current challenges we face in society. I'm grateful to have an opportunity to teach and study it more closely. This might be my final year since I've been through the 4 year cycle and becoming a Perennial Instructor is not my Secret Ambition. I'll probably never feel completely adept but teaching has been a Great Experience nonetheless! It's a ton of work for me (I won't lie) but Seminary Instructor is definitely one of the Best Church Callings, Bar None!
