Seminary Woes

I'm the home study Seminary teacher in our ward, and we're hitting end-of-year crunch time. In home study you have to go through the assigned activities in the book on paper and turn them in to the teacher for a grade, sort of like homework. (Well, it makes sense, considering that it's home study Seminary.) But it's easy to put off doing the assignments, especially when you're busy with school, and our deadline is right around the corner. I'd heard that last year they'd had a chat room where they worked some of the assignments together, and that had worked well. (I was not the one teaching last year. This is why it was news to me.) Anyway, I thought it might get the students motivated a little, and give them a break from having to work through all those exercises themselves. So I figured out how to set up my own chat room, worked up a big involved schedule for us to work on the assignments during the next week, and called everyone to invite them to participate. (I was very proud of myself.)

The time for our chat arrived, and no one logged in! I guessed that no one was interested, and I went about my evening. Then about 20 minutes later I got a phone call from one of the guys who had been trying to log in, but couldn't get it to work. So I worked with him for several minutes, trying to get the problems solved for him. Then I got another phone call from another student in a similar situation.

The end result was, we spent the whole time trying to get the chat room to work, and it never did. Well, it did when I logged into it. My husband could log into it, too. But apparently no one else could. I feel bad that it took so much of their time that they COULD have been using to work the activities on their own! It seemed like such a good idea at the time I set it up.

But I really have to put in a plug for Seminary here. It is such a GREAT program! I graduated from home study Seminary myself in Clinton, Oklahoma, and I learned so much. In fact, much of my understanding of the scriptures and my testimony of the gospel stems directly from the time I spent plowing through those Seminary lessons. So keep at it, guys! It is so worth it in the end!