I wrote the first half of this a year ago.
In breaking news, teens are either not getting enough sleep or don’t need as much sleep as we used to think. Either way, I can state with certainty that parents of teens who attend early morning seminary aren’t getting enough (consecutive) sleep.
This is a huge pet peeve for me. Here’s the circle I fall into:
- BYU is far and away the cheapest way to get my kids a decent college education. It’s simply a good value. The next lowest tuition at a semi decent state school is exactly double the cost. Let’s be honest. I’m cheap.
- Both early morning seminary and good grades are required to get in.
- Early morning seminary (and being a teenager in general) contributes to my son’s mediocre grades. He’s up at 5:20am to get out the door by 6am for seminary. He comes home at 4pm and crashes for a few hours until about 7pm when we have a hard time waking him up. Then he’s up doing homework (and looking at funny videos on the internet) until at least 10pm, often later. Then he goes to bed and the cycle starts again.
- Studies show that teens often have a later sleep cycle, but given when school starts, skipping seminary only gives him one extra hour of sleep.
If I could get him exempted from early morning seminary, I would in a heartbeat; he’d get more consecutive sleep and so would we, since he requires a human alarm clock and doesn’t yet have his driver’s license or a car. But I can’t because he needs it to get into BYU, which I’m not sure he’ll get into because his grades are not good enough, partly because of early morning seminary.
The church has also now added a test to the requirements for seminary graduation. Students must pass with a 75% to get credit for seminary. I can state with conviction that my kids are terrible scriptorians [2]. I think they view me quoting scriptures conversationally the way I viewed my mother singing “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” when she was making dinner. It just seemed like old-people weirdness, alternately endearing and horrifying. It seems to me that early morning seminary and in classroom seminary create a lazy approach to studying the scriptures. [3] Instead of personal close reading of the scriptures, we get a CES interpretation which then just has to be regurgitated on a test (which is basically what Rel Ed is like at BYU). On the upside, I imagine the kids benefit from the social aspect and the group spiritual experience thing, but this has never been my jam in the church. I’d rather have personal spiritual experiences than group ones, and I am skeptical about cheesy object lessons and eccentric teachers.
- Do the benefits of early morning seminary outweigh the drawbacks?
- Should the church be more consistent in allowing a home study alternative? [5]
- Would a hybrid approach (e.g. meet twice weekly in the morning) get better results?
- Is it fair that BYU weighs seminary graduation so heavily?
- Are the odds of kids falling away too great if we don’t indoctrinate and socialize them daily in seminary classes in addition to their twice weekly commitments?
Just for fun, I thought I’d add a quick poll to see what type of seminary experience you had as a teen. [6]
[poll id=”444″]
[poll id=”445″]
Wheat & Tares 
Oh what a topic. It makes me think of “good, better, best” talk from a few years ago.
I had a GREAT early morning seminary experience (mainly due to a GREAT teacher), but that was decades ago and I didn’t do any extracurricular activities in high school (something that is a must to get into BYU).
What hawkgrrrl describes is the exact same daily ritual at my house. I have had a few of my kids do good at grades, seminary, extra stuff at school. They certainly had issues with sleep deprivation, but they made it and are at BYU and doing OK. But now I have a kid that takes a bit longer to get homework done. Combine that with seminary, an extracurricular activity leader that thinks their program is THE most important and nearly breaks UIL rules to suck more time/dedication from the kids, and this kid is struggling. Even after getting 3 hours of sleep – he WANTS to go to seminary. I struggle because what my kid is feeling is that they are a failure. They want to follow in their older siblings footsteps, but what he is doing isn’t healthy.
I recall another blog that I generally like. This one actually made me stop going there for a bit. It seemed to lack sympathy for early morning seminary struggles and had more of a “here is the bar, if you can’t make it as a teen you are clearly not worthy.
http://middleagedmormonman.com/home/2014/09/seminary-seek-diligently-or-suck-it-up/
I had to stop commenting as his blog is not a place to arm-wrestle (his prerogative as it is his blog – I respect that).
I am certainly a parent that sets high standards for their kids, but I realize at some point pushing them too hard is going to make them snap – now or in a few years. I think it contributes to some of the explosive emotions when going through a faith crisis.
Thanks for writing this and I just wish other options would be explored as the time commitments and stress on our youth are increasing.
I loved Seminary. I had released time seminary and wish all LDS kids had that opportunity. I also took one year of early morning Seminary but it was at 7 am right across the street from the High School and I was able to drive myself, so it was not what you are going through with your teen.
Sleep is so important. As long as your son wants to continue early morning seminary I would let him but…sleep is so important.
How heavily does BYU weigh seminary graduation? There was a girl in my ward six years ago who was accepted to BYU who never participated in seminary. There likely are not many like her who forewent seminary and apply to BYU.
My wife as a seminary teacher tried something different one morning due to students varying final exam week schedules. Instead of coming to seminary, the students in order to receive attendance credit for the day were to study scripture of their choosing at home for a half hour before school and call her to report what they had studied. Out of fifteen or so students, not a single one called. We want our youth to all become self-directed, independent people who could leave home at fifteen, but very few I’ve met—even great, capable kids—are yet past the need for coaching on some responsibilities that they would otherwise neglect.
Hah. I did 3 years home study seminary which I loved. At that time my ward had both a home study and an early morning class. I really enjoyed doing the personal study and answering the questions. I wrote quite lengthy answers sometimes. I learnt a lot. The weekly teacher who marked the booklets was lovely. For my final year the home study class was discontinued, which really annoyed me. Part of this was because I wouldn’t get a “full set”. (Somewhat OCD that way, the change in Personal Progress books and YW programme while I was a mia maid put me off that big time as well.)
Anyway, my final year was the D&C year. I had to cycle to church for 6.30am which was steeply uphill (and downhill) both ways. I was too tired to take anything in. I had leave class 10 minutes early to get back home for breakfast and leave for VI form college, which began 8.30am, and I was usually 5 minutes or so late for class by the time I locked up my bike, and was dropping to sleep in the afternoon lessons (normally physics), which I could really have done with being awake for. The only thing I remember from that year was that we’d die of flu if we didn’t have cayenne pepper for the trek across the plains, or so the game worked out anyway. Looking back, that year in seminary was a complete waste, and I’d have been better off getting more sleep, and studying on my own at home. The home study course was much better suited to my learning style – reading and writing things down, neither of which happened in the final year early morning class.
I had tried to argue for a home study class, but was coerced into doing the early morning class.
I really wasn’t interested in the social element, and spent most of my time in youth activities feeling like a misfit anyway. Why would I want more of that?
In fact, I was so ticked off about seminary, and the coercion, that sorting through all my things before getting married, 8 years later, I actually threw my seminary graduation certificate (and the individual year certificates) away. I didn’t want it.
My kids are doing online seminary. There was no way I was going countenance early morning. The eldest has completed two years now, and was permitted to join the online class because of his Asperger’s. The younger started this year, and I was expecting a battle, because another family in the ward had wanted their kids to do online last, but been permitted to do it, even though they were no longer doing early morning anyway (the parents taught the course at home, but CES didn’t allow to pass the year). So, come the summer, I made it very clear that early morning was not an option. No-one was going to coerce me this time! Before the start of term an additional stake online teacher was called. The other family who’d been denied the previous year now also do the online course, but only after they were told, that passing for the previous year would be sorted out (and I’d hope so too, their kids felt they’d learnt more that year than they had the previous year early morning).
I don’t think the online is as good as the home study booklets though. It’s very directed. The questions are full of inbuilt assumptions, that really don’t apply to all students. And the multiple choice questions can be dire. In the booklets, if I thought a question was incorrect, I’d explain why, and write what I thought the scripture was saying. My youngest was really annoyed with one multiple choice question in particular, to which she thought none of the answers were correct (I agreed with her), but she had to make a choice before moving on, and there was no way she could say what she actually thought, so she has certainly noticed a certain desire to lead the students to read things a certain way, and only to illicit certain meanings from the text.
So, to your questions:
No
Yes
It’s another option
No
No. Insofar as they notice attempts to indoctrinate, that has to be counterproductive – could those structuring the online lessons please take note.
that should be “last *year*” and “had *not* been permitted”
What time is your early morning seminary? I lobbied the local school board to change the school start time, and a lot of (non-LDS) people jumped on board with it. High schools now start around 9 a.m., which means seminary can start at 7:30, which is a lot better than the earlier times that my oldest children endured.
It turns out that there are LOTS of good reasons to start a bit later. Studies from places that tried 9 a.m. high school start showed a drop in teen pregnancy, drug use, and crime. The biggest opposition came from football fans, because there is less daylight for after-school practice if a lighted field is not available.
I was impressed that the medical studies showing that teens really are naturally night owls came from all over the world, Israel and Japan stick in my mind.
Our stake has the online option.
I sell scripture study to teens with the “SAT words” appeal. And some of them have borne their testimony of how at least the old testament does help them in that kind of setting.
@Naismith – Starting later would help a bit. Where it wouldn’t help is there isn’t enough hours in the day for as much stuff that gets crammed in. My kid wakes up at 5 AM to get to 6 AM seminary, and then some days of the week he gets home from band at 8:30. If the band then kept them until 9 then they still don’t have time to do their homework.
And I just have to say, God bless all those early morning seminary teachers. My kid has some really great ones now and there is so much love between the students and the teachers that I am just astounded and feel blessed for that.
The online seminary deal seems odd to me. It says on the site that it’s ‘not an option for everyone’ and I’m not sure which party they’re implying the limitation exists with. They’re focusing on it being a time period (starting with hymn and prayer – not sure I’d feel sane, singing a hymn at a monitor) then class of scriptural curriculum you can work through at your own pace, like they want it to primarily be a time of spiritual experience (but you’re getting a test at the end of it). Why is access to the online course limited, and by what parameters? I expect the compromise between mine and my husband’s religiousity will mean my children will go to seminary, but I’d hope they’d do online so I can monitor the curriculums more closely and limit folklore/CES ridiculousness.
To answer questions:
-No, I don’t think the benefits of early morning outweigh drawbacks; in my experience, few peers were even awake enough to contribute properly to a good discussion.
-The church should permit people to study however the student/parent feels is best. Early morning seminary just can’t be the be all and end all at that critical point in a student’s life. If it’s so important it needs to be The Priority, then even more argument for it not necessarily to be at an ungodly hour. Hybrid would be optimal for many, I expect. Teacher included. My poor teachers had families and full time jobs, yet every night had to prep to teach a bunch of teenagers who could barely keep their eyes open.
-I think it’s fair BYU weighs seminary heavily. They want cougars, and run on tithing money, so I think it makes sense they want some proof someone’s invested in mormonism.
-I think it’s an well-meant attempt to perpetuate Mormonism’s insularity (socially too) but I don’t think its effective for a lot of people. The very people the church might think would benefit from full submerging are often the ones who are overwhelmed by early morning seminary and don’t show up.
*Than, not Then.
N – your last comment is so true – “The very people the church might think would benefit from full submerging are often the ones who are overwhelmed by early morning seminary and don’t show up.”
This is a concern both my bishop and the seminary teacher have expressed to me and they had. On the middle age Mormon man blog I linked above, that was one of my opinions I posted. Making the qualifications a bit harder does drive the “I am going to do whatever the requirements are” to do it, but at the expense of pushing some away.
Naismith “sell scripture study to teens with the “SAT words” appeal”
Scripture study certainly does that (and then I have to explain to school why my son would be using the word ‘bondage’).
A Happy Hubby ” Where it wouldn’t help is there isn’t enough hours in the day for as much stuff that gets crammed in.”
One plus of online, is that at least there is no travel time, and the getting ready to go time, and the waiting to be picked up/to pick up time, all of which adds up with a busy school schedule loaded with homework. My kids get home, eat, do their online seminary and then get straight into homework.
n “not sure I’d feel sane, singing a hymn at a monitor”
My daughter has fun with the hymn, by ramping up the speed and reducing the volume of the soprano part. Amazing how many hymns sound like they could grace an Austin (Jane) ballroom that way.
The lessons are expected to take about 45 minutes, which is similar to early morning. Home study booklets were more flexible though.
CES has made some steps to make non-traditional seminary (online or home study) more available than it used to be, but it is still tough to manage. CES has always been a one-size-fits-all program (in two flavors, release time or early morning) and redesigning the program to fit teens rather than making teens fit the program — well, that way of thinking is a mild form of apostasy for traditional CES. A little bit of honesty about BYU admissions would be refreshing, as well. Seminary has relatively little impact (if any) on the admit or deny decision for the vast majority of BYU applicants. Good grades will trump good seminary attendance 100% of the time.
But teens and parents can nevertheless make their own decisions. For parents, the welfare of the kid outweighs the success of the program. Yes, it is a good program, but it has to work for the kids. That’s just reality. Seminary is … just a program.
Hedgehog: Your experience is identical to my own, including which course we did each year. I thrived in home study for 3 years, and absolutely couldn’t hack it when we switched to early morning my final year, and then the D&C problem with polygamy and united order threw me over the edge, but I was already there due to lack of sleep and being afraid to drive so far on icy roads while it was still dark. Plus I had a part-time job most days after school. Kids today generally have more homework than I did, which also makes it tougher for them.
And I agree with all who extol the virtues of the early morning seminary teachers. Although they are sometimes eccentric or speculative, they have a tough job in that calling, and it requires a lot of creativity and sleep deprivation.
I loved my seminary home study experience and have stayed close to active members of the class, and actually some inactives too. It grounded my testimony and I had a great experience of the scriptures- but I was always a curious and motivated reader.
My brilliant teacher taught us our weekly lesson during sunday school time, so we got to discuss scripture in a meaningful way having studied alone during the week instead of being harangued about dress standards or our possible sexual behaviour.
It worked, she brought everyone into the program by making it accessible.
My kids were musicians playing with orchestras and other gigs, so early morning seminary was a non-starter, and guess what, early morning seminary was always held in the homes of the largest families who simply had to roll out of bed and onto the carpet. All graduated.
We struggled on with home study for three years until the conflict was beginning to be experienced as indoctrination by our daughter. At last I got that she had free agency and seminary was not a measure of her value as a person to me or anyone else.
Our subsequent experience with seminary was home study with our son who we taught one-on-one, due to illness that kept him out of school for four years. We taught him every day until year three when he too felt that he was being indoctrinated by his parents.
We had another sick child that we tried to bring into the program. We backed off more easily this time, but let him know that we missed the time spent with him. Since he was also struggling to get his head around polygamy and the illiberality of the church towards gay people,and not being a naturally religious person, we have left it there, and are determined for the church not to become an issue that drives a wedge between us.
I have noticed the tendency for seminary to become a selective club for the most powerful families in the ward. Those whose schedules clash or parents aren’t in a position to run them around the county at 5am (no car? sickness in the family? parents whose commute doesn’t accommodate the timing?)find they are out of the club,and so out of the church. I watch it happening, I can tell which kids will still be active in three years time. So I feel this is a program which only the fittest will survive rather than being according to the capacity of the weakest.
I’ve been convinced ever since early morning seminary started that it would turn out exactly as it has, and that’s not even taking into account the need for sleep or the student who strives for excellence in any other field.It created failure in our family that we are striving to overcome, but surely this can’t be right.
I’m hoping that at length we will realise what my clever teacher knew all those years ago, that the program has to be tailored to meet all circumstances so that all can partake, and have the opportunity to know their religion before the world takes greater hold. The current system may work in Salt Lake neighbourhoods where all institutions allow for it, but not out here in the real world.
You shouldn’t have got me started.
Seminary bored me. I skipped and did something else whenever I had the opportunity. It was release time and I graduated with an “A” because I memorized my scripture mastery. I saw it as a waste of time, particularly because I missed a school period when I could take other classes which I then had to make up.
I had release time seminary (outside the mormon belt) and it frustrated me to no end. I barely scraped by with enough credits to graduate and only then because we got credits for our “senior project” and school work portfolios we had to build for state requirements. All I wanted to do was take early morning seminary so I could actually take some of the interesting electives I missed out on by losing a period to seminary, but because we had the option of release time in my high school we were not allowed by the bishop/whomever is in charge of that stuff to go to early morning. Even though other wards in our stake had early morning classes I was barred from attending.
To be honest it made me pretty unhappy and resentful. Especially when all my non mormon friends had so many extra credits they only had half days senior year and I was still spending my only free period of the day in seminary.
I was generally displeased with early-morning seminary. Parents and leaders rationalized it with manipulative rhetoric about how we would be “blessed for making the sacrifice” to the point of suggesting that the Lord would somehow give us a boost in academic prowess to make up for the lack of sleep. My high school transcripts tell a very different tale.
In my view, the extra hour of sleep is more beneficial than half-asleep correlated scripture study. I am very much in favor of alternative forms of seminary outside of the early morning model.
Is seminary graduation absolutely required for BYU admission? Dunno about now, but 20 years ago I was friends with a family all of whom applied to BYU as a super-safety, and none of whom attended seminary. All were admitted and received full merit scholarships. (None attended, they went off to various Ivies and such.) Have things changed to the extent that a relatively mediocre student with seminary complete will be admitted over an otherwise more competitive student?
Jack, yes. I hate all that rhetoric, and the academic prowess just isn’t true. Two of the youth in my ward have had to resit a year at school, though they participated in and graduated seminary. Growing up my brother who did no seminary did very well academically, whilst my sister who was seminary student president or similar didn’t get the grades she needed. My grades suffered, but I was lucky that I was in the bat h of students who had begun a year early, so my A level exam year was free of seminary. The way CES abuse statistics also aggravates me.
^ I broke down crying in the toilets after my A-Level maths class, preparing for our exams, because I the teacher brought up some stuff that I’d forgotten to study, because I hadn’t taken notes on it, because I’d fallen asleep in that 9am lecture, having been up at 5:40 that morning and up until 2am the night before revising. I was assured there would be blessings in my A-Levels by faithfully attending seminary. I’d also like to brag that I was scripture mastery champ in my stake. I got a B in the exam. It should have been an A. IT SHOLULD HAVE BEEN AN AAAAAAAA.
Although I’m an adult convert, my wife and all of my five kids have attended early morning seminary. When Sister Iconoclast was a student, she had an immense amount of trouble getting up to make it on time especially after she got a driver’s license and became responsible for getting herself there. She is really not (still not) a morning person, and got almost nothing out of seminary. So they called her as the stake seminary president, which was a youth calling apparently open to students of the female persuasion back in the early ’80s.
My kids have had varied experiences. #1 son did OK, #2 son liked it but had trouble staying awake. #1 daughter liked the content (which she took with a grain of salt, and she had great teachers, fortunately) but was bullied a bit by some of the hot-shot boys in her class. #3 son thrives on it; he’s a junior. He just got a job, so we’ll see how it goes when he has that to add to his schoolwork and seminary. #2 daughter has real trouble in the morning, and every so often it catches up to her and she comes home at 3PM and goes straight to bed until the next morning. The kids have to leave about 5:40 to get to church by 6:00, so we’re all up and saying family prayers together and we all leave about the same time.
I’d love to see it start later, but schools here (the two wards in our building cover 5 different high schools) start around 7:30 or so, and for some of the kids it’s quite a drive. We had one group that went to one HS meet in the home of their teacher, a lot closer to their school than the chapel. They tended to be on the higher end of the socioeconomic scale, so some of the social benefit was lost as all of the cake-eaters were thus hanging out together.
Bro. Jones: “Is seminary graduation absolutely required for BYU admission? Dunno about now, but 20 years ago I was friends with a family all of whom applied to BYU as a super-safety, and none of whom attended seminary. All were admitted and received full merit scholarships.” A lot has changed in the last 20 years. BYU is incredibly competitive now. My oldest son barely got in, and his SATs were very high (his grades were average). My second son will not get in with his grades. They don’t make many exceptions for the church-insider requirements now: seminary graduation and eagle scout / personal progress. Those things are newer than my entry to BYU in 1986 when my ACT score was considered “honor” level and is now the low end cutoff for admission.
I did the homestudy worksheets and then met on Saturdays with other kids from the ward. The first three years were super awesome because we had a great teacher. My last year was super weird. Due to ward boundary changes we ended up in a ward where most of the kids lived close enough together to have early morning. Me and my siblings ended up doing worksheets and meeting on Saturdays in the home of a lady who was really an odd duck. I guess it was actually her elderly parents’ home. The parents weren’t members so we ended up having class in her bedroom. Also it was D&C church history that year. I don’t believe in early morning seminary and I’m not going to make my kids go.
I also did home study seminary. I got a lot out of it and gained a deeper knowledge of the scriptures. We met with a teacher once a week. She was sweet but no scriptorian. One of the boys in my seminary class used to grab my books and copy down the answers into his book. It really annoyed me especially since he was someone who looked down on others as less spiritual and inferior. Frankly I have met way too many LDS men with similar attitudes. Somehow they think they are “extra special” because they were male, LDS, and priesthood holders. GAG! I digress. My children have release time seminary. Their teacher is a dottering older man who has very sexist and antiquated notions.He is often offensive and is putting my children off of the church. I have always encouraged them attending seminary because of my experience and I have been disappointed that they do not have a better teacher.
I did early morning seminary as a kid and got a lot out of it. I ended up strenuously disagreeing with one teacher over a couple things taught (she called my parents about it, worried about me), but I didn’t feel my disagreement was all that important. I had no intentions of breaking any commandments, and I figured if I was wrong, God would straighten me out on the other side.
My kids have all been positive towards seminary. Sure, they complain about how early they have to get up, and how boring it is sometimes, and they occasionally ditch when they’re on homework overload, but they’ve uniformly agreed they’re glad they have it. In the words of one daughter, “I really need that spiritual boost before going to high school. There’s just so much bad stuff in high school. It’s nice to start off right”
I think BYU uses seminary attendance as a metric of self-discipline and church dedication. Not entirely fair, but BYU is in great demand. By the way, I’ve had mixed feelings on BYU, but now I’ve got three attending and they’ve all been SO happy and thriving there, I’m truly grateful the church remains so committed to it.
Good article. I teach early morning seminary in Colorado, and I think the social benefits of early morning seminary may be its greatest benefit. That and the sacrifice it takes may benefit a person who is willing to do what it takes to nourish their testimony (like getting up early). Some mornings the students put their heads down on the desk in front of them and sleep. I get it – we’re all tired. I had a nap this morning at 11 am. Monday I encouraged my students to talk to their parents and pray about how they could get more sleep.
As far as those kids who want to go to BYU, I say if that’s the only reason they’re going to seminary, it’s not a good enough reason. I suggest they go to BYU-I or start at a community college, rather than committing to above a 4.0 gpa and really high ACT scores. If it’s between seminary and extra AP classes, I want my kids to take seminary, not just for the scriptural learning, but for the interaction with other dedicated kids. My son worked really hard, took lots of AP classes, had above a 4.0 gpa, was ranked #7 in his class (weighted) but didn’t do any clubs, etc. other than getting an Eagle Scout award. He got a 26 on the ACT, which I didn’t realize at the time wasn’t a high enough score to get into BYU. (It wasn’t high enough for Colorado School of Mines, either.) I should have told him to retake it. That would have been good for him, because taking it with everyone at school was noisy and hard for him with his ADD. Taking it later, in a quieter setting, he would have scored better.
Fortunately for him, Utah State was recruiting big time for out of state students to fill in the gap of those early, younger missionaries. When all is said and done, I think Utah State (in state tuition with his scholarship) will be approximately the same price as BYU. But even better, I think it is the right school for him. (I don’t think BYU or BYU-I would have been right for him.)
As far as the way that I teach and at least one other teacher – we read the scriptures and highlight what we feel is important. Then we read the lesson. If what the lesson emphasizes is not what we learned from the section of scripture, we emphasize what we feel the Lord wants our class to know and we also try to get the students to search for answers on their own. That is actually the newer way that the church wants us to teach – to put more responsibility on the learner and less on the lesson book.
whatever benefit i could have gotten from early freaking morning seminary for 4 years, was neutralized by the fact that i was forced to go, and i was seriously sleep deprived for all of high school.
I think seminary was a huge waste of my time. Not only was I exhausted, but I really feel like I didn’t learn very much about the scriptures. I had two seminary teachers “terminated” (from their volunteer, unpaid position) because of how absolutely preposterous their teachings were. Real examples from the classroom include:
–Continually referring to all of the darker-skinned students as “Lamanites”
–Asking if there was anyone in the class from the tribe of Judah and yelling at the poor student who raised his hand “You’re a Jew! We have JEW among us!”
–Spending an entire class period watching the teacher show us how he makes dollhouse furniture from empty beer cans
–Spending an entire class period going through the highlight reel of the YM Basketball team my teacher took to the championships (back in the 80s)
–Being “taught” that Adam was baptized by God lifting him up into the air, floating him above the water, dunking him in, then floating him back to the shore
These all make for a good laugh now, and I know my experience is (hopefully) an anomaly, but I was not very enthused to get out of bed at 5:45 for this type of sideshow.
My daughter attends a boarding school, and the local ward has bent over backward to make seminary possible for her. They send a teacher all the way to her school for just two students, the teacher gives all sorts of creative assignments for make-up work (like come to my house and eat breakfast and it will count for a week of make up work), she is flexible on exam days. I am so grateful for their willing attitudes!
But my real complaint about seminary is this: i think seminary should be an extra thing that kids can do if it is beneficial to them. But somehow it has become a requirement to prove your worthiness/faithfulness/righteousness, and of course to get into BYU. I have told my daughter repeatedly that I could care less if she does seminary. (She doesn’t even want to go to BYU anyway.) The main reason she does it is so she doesn’t let down the other LDS student at the school, and to keep the Bishop and YW leaders off her back. She honestly sleeps through seminary most mornings. I’m think it would be better if she skipped seminary and focused on a short devotional with her LDS roommate each day.
I probably unfairly represented my daughter in the above comment. She claims to actually like seminary–most of the time. Although she doesn’t like getting up early after studying until past midnight most nights. It’s probably just me with the bad attitude. I hate seeing her so tired, and I feel like seminary is just one too many things. 🙂
It is an interesting question – are the bad attitudes about seminary more prevalent among the youth or their parents? Parents and kids are impacted by it in different ways and probably perceive the benefits and drawbacks quite differently.
hawkgrrrl: “are the bad attitudes about seminary more prevalent among the youth or their parents”
Speaking for myself, my “bad” attitude results from my own experience, looking back at what occurred, and recognising now, how we were manipulated, lied to etc., to get us to do what the leaders wanted. From here, it seems their concern wasn’t for me, or for the student per se, so much as it was wanting to be able to represent numbers/percentages of students participating in *early morning* seminary. And all justified because their statistics told them this, that and the other about early morning students as compared to other kinds of students, or those who did no seminary at all. These kind of statistics seemed to take no account that students struggling to cope with both seminary and school would likely drop seminary, that students from families not supporting seminary were more likely to drop seminary etc. The year I spent as an Institute teacher introduced me to the whole pushing statistics thing. I pretty much lost all respect for CES.
handlewithcare: “I have noticed the tendency for seminary to become a selective club for the most powerful families in the ward.”
I’ve certainly seen that too. A few years ago I was teaching youth Sunday School. This kids of the then Bishop and then member of the Stake Presidency all attended early morning seminary and they were very much the in-group. Another boy in the class who didn’t take early morning seminary was very much on the outside of the group, and was the only one interested in learning anything in Sunday School. Anyway, the boys all went on to go on a mission. But I really felt for the boy on the outside.
In my family, it is more me (the parent). Even after my son has averaged about 4 hours of sleep per night, he still never asks if he can skip seminary. I have to tell him that he can’t drive with that little sleep.
As mentioned above, I see CES (or our stake at least) being really hard-nosed about things like 1 minute late tardy penalties (usually ignored by seminary teachers and they use a more of a 5 minute rule). It does seem to be more of a numbers game and keeping the kids in line at all cost – even if it means physically/medically depriving the kids. That whole mentality of the kids MUST do seminary, MUST go on a mission or they are failures bothers me. I bought into it hook line and sinker and that only made my faith crisis all the more like a 2×4 to the face. But as I get older I am seeing, “at what cost to those that can’t fully play the game?” I am still “in” for sure and don’t ever see myself leaving the church, but I do see myself speaking up more and saying that in my opinion, the emperor has no clothes on her shoulder (gasp – how immodest – don’t get me started on that!)
Interested in this thread very much, it is very relevant. We have an EXCELLENT seminary teacher, called, who teaches about 18 youth in his home. If he could just have the calling of seminary teacher for the next 10 years so all my kids chould have him it would be great. But especially good for the way my 2 oldest kids think. It is early morning seminary. My HS kids are both very serious students, take a lot of advanced classes and are often finally in bed after midnight. But they truly value seminary, and they get frustrated that they are the only ones who answer questions sometimes. Church history this year, this teacher is (from UT) NOT afraid of hard topics.
But I frequently have to point out to my kids that it is OK to do “enough” in seminary, it is OK to miss classes, and that sleep is sometimes the most important thing they can do. So far I have had my freshman feel “sick” and I sent her to bed and she slept for 3 hours and then was fine and I took her to school. Lack of sleep affecting health is real, and it is one of my biggest concerns about my children currently taking seminary.
I took seminary for 3 years, LOVED it, but we were able to do p/t seminary (MWF or THF with alternating Fridays) for my first 2 years. That was PERFECT. Just enough. I could drive my jr. year, so that made going to seminary a little bit easier. I went to college a year early, and jumped right into Institute. Also loved it.
I did early morning seminary as a kid. Where I lived it was the only option. My husband had the option of release time but opted for before school so he could take some electives he wanted to take in high school.
All three of our teenagers did early morning as well. Where we lived it was the only option.
I’ve personally learned five things from those 8 years of early morning seminary with my children and their peers:
1. If the kid feels forced to go, he’ll hate it. His sense of choice is key. If you feel obligated to get him there, you’ll hate it too. Agency, agency, agency.
2.If you are LDS you do not have to graduate from seminary to be admitted to BYU. You don’t even have to have attended it.
3. Some teachers are good, some are annoying, and a few are excellent. Hang in there with the good. Teach your kids how to deal creatively and honestly with the annoying ones and support them in that (and teach what you believe if you disagree, but do so with charity). Celebrate the excellent ones and learn from them.
4. Yes, early morning seminary makes your kids and you very tired. Work out with your kids what you and they need to do about that without resentment. Just do what you need to do without worrying about percentage attendance or exams or anything else. (R’s comment above describes a version of that). Seminary is a tool you can choose to use or not. And how you feel inspired to utilize it is your inspiration. If you feel obligated to do something you resent you will be unhappy. You are not obligated. Just use the resource as you see best.
In fine, there is no one perfect, best for everyone, way of doing seminary. Few stakes have the resources or sufficient personnel to offer all of the possible options. However, any one of the options, as long as the teacher is not a jerk, is better than no seminary. Your child does not have to attend. You don’t have to worry about seminary being key to their admission to BYU. You are, as a parent however, responsible for your child’s religious education. Whether you do that at home independently on your own, utilize seminary, or do a creative mixture of the two is up to you and your child.
Oh, and if you are in the miserable 2% where there is bullying going on, opt out and replace it with something you create at home. (Doing so will not be a key element to the chance of admission to a church school–who knows, it may even be good fodder for a college admission essay.)
I did four years of early morning seminary which began at the hellish 5:55am.
I worked in high school, often getting home about 10pm when I worked retail. So then I would start my homework at 10, then stumble out of bed about 5:30am and hope that day the teacher would have a movie so I could lay my head down and sleep.
I would frequently sleep until past noon on the weekend and often sleep in class. I managed to get good grades but it was much tougher with being so tired.
The sleep deprivation caused larger issues though. The lack of sleep aggravated my behavior. I was surly, rude, acted out and got in trouble. While I realize much of that was my own teenage rebelliousness, the lack of sleep contributed. Sleep deprivation causes depression, anxiety and aggravates mental conditions. It’s something we should consider in this discussion.
I have a toddler and have already decided I will not force him to go. It was a negative and harmful experience for me.
Tomorrow night – National Geographic is showing a special in the US relating to this topic.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/11/28/5348206/sleepless-documentary-is-a-real.html
I have no clue if this is still active, but I am posting a comment anyway. I just decided that my son will not go to Seminary and I am feeling guilty. We have early morning Seminary that starts at 6am. My son is NOT a morning person, but it is serious. He has a hard time falling asleep and a hard time staying asleep. I wake him now about an hour before school so he can get up and awake. I just can’t see waking him at 5am when he has enough problems with sleep. I am not sure how he is going to do with school starting at 7:15am next year, but that is not a choice I have. I really think this is best, but I am hearing that he needs to sacrifice and blah, blah, blah.
There is absolutely no reason that the church can’t provide more flexible options for seminary. The real purpose of seminary should be to encourage the student to develop their own relationship with the scriptures. This can be done in numerous ways and at flexible times. The church should make online and home-study options available to all students who choose them, and let the students complete their assignments at times that work for them and their families. I took four years of home study and feel that the curriculum I had was much more effective in learning how to read and use the scriptures than the current system of subject-based lessons and faith-promoting rumors.
I really wish the Church would allow students more options for online and personal seminary study. Released time seminary simply does not work for a lot of academic all star students, because, for a college transcript, it is the worst of all worlds. Unless said all-star student is planning on attending BYU (a good school but a far cry from the best out there) , released time seminary puts them at a SEVERE disadvantage with non-lds kids.
First, you have to show “released time” on your transcripts. This, in turn, always invites the question during top school interviews, “What was the released time for?” Let’s be frank, not everyone in academic admissions sees formal LDS religious training as being “positive” – most do not. On the off-chance the LDS student gets a college interviewer who is positive about their formal religious training, it still makes for an uncomfortable interview because the student often becomes flustered about being asked something deeply personal — like politics or personal relationships. It almost never ends well.
Second, released time seminary gives NO credit toward graduation — not even a pass/fail. This causes a NUMBER of problems for top academic students. The first and most obvious problem is that most top school admissions offices want to see rigor in a student’s academic schedule. “Released time” for ” personal religious training and scripture study” really doesn’t cut it for most admissions officers and interviewers — even the non-biased ones.
Third, because no credit is given, taking released time seminary drastically reduces the number of total credits in the ever -important “graded-credits pool.” This means that, unless you kid is a 4.0 student (and I mean literally a 4.0 in every single class), that one single “B” grade in AP chemistry negatively affects the total overall GPA by 15% more. In other words, for a top student, non-“A” grades are 15% more destructive to the overall GPA and, thus, create a much bigger hurdle for admissions to top schools. This alone has kept many LDS academic all-stars out of attending a top national university for college.
Fourth, I agree with the above poster that any seminary with formal instruction can be a real hit or miss for the kids. You may take a course from a fantastic teacher that truly changes the course of your life. However, more likely, you will learn a lazy man’s approach to studying the scriptures. In the end, my main problem with seminary with formal instruction is that it is far too “group” and “entertainment” oriented. I can understand attending seminary for a social life because, let’s be honest, that is its best benefit. But, too often there is far too little expectation and accountability that the teachers have from the students. Other than attendance or reading charts, what are seminary “grades” based on? Pretty much nothing which is why it can encourage a lazy approach to personal religious study.
In conclusion, I understand and appreciate the purpose of formal seminary instruction (i.e., released time and early morning). For most who don’t care about grades, top school admissions, and over GPA so much, the downsides of formal religious training isn’t really much of an issue. .The social aspect alone is at least worth a consideration.
However, the Church really needs to provide an online/home study option students who don’t want to attend seminary early in the morning or as part of released time. It is just simply not ideal.