Games in the Seminary
Classroom: Friend or Foe?
By C.S. Bezas
Games in the seminary classroom.
Are they worth it? Speak to any good seminary teachers
and they’ll tell you it’s a fine line we walk when we
introduce a game during class. Especially when it’s pitting
one team against another (whether for scripture mastery
or not). This article will explore when games are appropriate,
what kind of games work best for spiritual environments,
and how best to avoid conflict when playing games in seminary,
with several unique suggestions.
When Are Games Appropriate?
Our first and most important
charge as seminary teachers is to remember the following
statement by President Hinckley to CES employees and volunteers:
You have
no idea of the consequences of your service. As the years
pass and your youthful students pursue their various endeavors,
marry, and rear families, recollections of what they learned
in seminary and institute will guide their decisions and
prompt their activities.1
It is paramount, as we make
each educational choice for our students, that we keep
President Hinckley’s admonishment in mind. Just as each
ingredient within a cake contributes to the cake’s rise
and its eventual taste, each activity in the classroom
should bring the spirit and lead students to Christ, whether
through a game or not. Perhaps this perspective sets a
high standard, but who wants to waste class time when
time is such a precious commodity? Do we really want to
choose a game simply as a time-filler? Such choice would
be rather like adding nails to cake batter.
In any other setting, nails
might contribute greatly. They construct buildings, after
all! They hold picture frames together. Tiny nails even
contribute to the most exquisite of musical instruments.
Nails may be essential to building construction of many
kinds, but nails obviously are harmful to cake construction.
Games in a seminary classroom
may or may not fall into the same harmful category; it
all would depend on their purpose and approach. In other
words, game playing might be an essential ingredient to
drive home a spiritual point, or a game could be
the unhappy ingredient that actually drives the spirit
away. Again, it is all in how games are purposed and handled.
Elder Eyring has said, “Too
many of our students become spiritual casualties….”2
It is imperative as we choose activities for our students
that we choose spirit-driven ones. So when are
games appropriate?
Here’s a thought. How many
hearts have been wounded because of flung words or hasty
accusations during competitive moments in seminary? How
often has the spirit been grieved, all because of a “fun”
game chosen to end the week?
As seminary teachers we have
been counseled to teach to such a level that our students
not only clearly understand the truths of the gospel,
but to such a level that they cannot misunderstand
those truths. Thus, I’m sure you’re with me in seeking
moments to enliven our students, to bring sparkle to their
eyes, and to drench them in the delight of spirit-filled
moments. This may or may not include game-playing.
It can be a tough assignment
to meet the needs of our teens. They are the Lord’s finest,
but they are grappling with some of the toughest challenges
the “world” has ever thrown at a generation. Seminary
need not be always a heart-tugging, sobering experience;
so often we also want it to be a heart-lifting experience.
And games can be just the ticket to that joy.
When we’ve approached our
essential gospel teaching with a variety of angles and
we want to increase the iridescent shimmer of gospel living,
playing a game may be just the thing to bring a sparkle
of joy to our students’ eyes. The trick is to balance
the “fun” of game playing with the more serious responsibility
we have of discharging gospel stewardship.
I remember being a newly
graduated high school senior, sitting in one of my first
Relief Society meetings, feeling completely out of sync.
The sister teaching at the front of the room seemed more
ancient a lady than I had ever met and I was in awe of
her discipleship, her strength, both which resonated of
purposeful spirit. In a poignant moment, she looked at
the class straight-eyed and said, “Some day I will be
held accountable, before the very Christ, for every minute
of my thirty minutes spent in front of you now.”
She reigned supreme during
that moment, her spirit fused with the spirit in the room
and somehow I knew that she knew of the sanctity of her
calling. I can do no less for my seminary students. So
do I play games in the classroom? You bet I do. For I
find they can bring a different level of application into
the hearts of my students — but only when well chosen,
well constructed, and carefully executed.
Which Games Work Best?
It doesn’t take very long
as a new seminary teacher before stumbling into a veritable
landmine (aka “game”), where your classroom erupts into
moments of bickering over “this point earned” or “that
answer gained.” And perhaps in a normal educational setting,
this might be tolerable.
But in a spiritual environment,
where we want each student to leave class feeling spiritually
strong and closer to the Lord, these kinds of moments
are less than desirable. So what is a teacher to do, when
we would like to use a game to make a point or to bring
fun, but do not want it devolving into ugly moments?
Dictionary.com defines “game”
as a form of amusement, entertainment, a pastime, or a
“competitive activity or sport” with players contending.
Call me funny, but “contending” is not exactly what I
want in my classroom, when I’ve been charged with the
following by Elder Henry B. Eyring:
We must
keep the goals we have always had: enrollment, regular
attendance, graduation, knowledge of the scriptures, the
experience of feeling the Holy Ghost confirm truth. In
addition, we must aim for the mission field and the temple.
But students need more during the time they are our
students. That is when they make the daily choices
that will bless or mar their lives. That is when the pressures
of temptation and spiritual confusion are increasing.3
[emphasis added]
So do I take seriously what
I do in the classroom, including the kind of games I play?
Absolutely. I want my students to feel charged in my classroom
with the beauty of the spirit of the Lord. If playing
a game will bring that for them, we play! And oh, how
we play!
How to Avoid Conflict
when Playing Games.
Perhaps your seminary class
is perfect in this category. That is wonderful! But if
not, here are a few thoughts.
Reverse engineering is ideal
in determining what will bring sparkle and fun, but not
contention, for as we learned from scripture mastery this
past year, “…the devil…stirreth up the hearts of men to
contend with anger….”4
Here are four suggestions
to help reverse-engineer the overall CES goal of “building
spirituality” to eventually arriving at classroom “fun”
1. At the
beginning of the semester, have the students pick a class
goal, whether it’s a pizza party at the end of the semester
or a field trip or some other fun idea that gets the kids
excited. Let them pick.
Set
a high point total for the kids to strive for. Then throughout
the semester, for each class activity or game, establish
the possible points to be earned that day. As each game
is played by the class as a unified, singular team, they
earn points toward their group goal, rather than compete
against each other.
2.
Some teachers have great success by playing the class
against the teacher. Whether it’s called “Stump the Teacher”
(I’ve heard some seminary teachers use “Stump the Chump”
or some other funny name), the kids love to see if they
can work together to best their teacher in gospel knowledge.
The
one danger in this approach is that we are not saved in
the kingdom of God by knowledge alone. I have heard it
said that the Lord does not measure the size of our knowledge,
but instead puts a tape measure around our heart. So again,
while playing gospel games, remember our goal during classroom
time is to bring the Spirit, in addition to knowledge.
3.
If you do use teams, it might be recommended to use very
defined rules and a class agreement of “no bickering.”
In fact, my kids are very familiar with my yellow feather
duster. At the moment I feel the spirit is becoming strained
in class (because of negativity or harshness), out comes
my big fluffy, yellow feather duster; we sing all three
verses to Hymn #294 (Love At Home) as we follow that bouncing
yellow feather ball.
It took less than a month for the kids to learn to be
gentle with one another! As their gentility evolved, so,
too, did a new camaraderie amongst the students. By the
end of the year, the students actually were looking out
for each other. Isn’t this what we want in our classrooms?
Zion-hearted students? For them to know that there is
strength and support within the walls of Zion, and that
they are essential ingredients to Zion, contributing by
supporting each other, rather than participating in needless
(and somewhat) world-like competitions and “contendings”?
Call me controversial in this. All I know is what I have
seen as I have worked to reduce the competitive nature
of game-playing in my seminary classroom. What has resulted
would soften the most hardened of hearts. The students
truly do rise to what is held out for them in the form
of higher expectations and kinder treatment of each other.
4. Another
approach to utilizing teams for seminary games is to continually
change the team members, mixing up the students consistently
throughout the year. By switching the team members during
the game rounds or on different days, cliques can be avoided
and strengths can be learned by working with different
individuals. When I have varied the teams, especially
within the same day simply for different rounds, I have
seen surprising results of team workmanship and any potential
animosity seems to dissipate.
Summary
The gospel brings joy. It
really does. I have to imagine that our Father in Heaven
has a sparkle in his eye and an optimism that knows no
end. How else is he able to view the wickedness pouring
itself out onto this boiling, roiling world and not lose
hope in us? When any of us might faint in the full knowledge
of the sin that surrounds us, He is able still to be full
of trust that we will bring His plan of happiness to full
fruition in our lives and in the lives of his seminary
youth. His Son stands as a beacon of light, ever ready
to guide us through these dark days.
We, as the Lord’s emissaries,
have the responsibility to reflect that bright light onto
the gospel path for our students and to inspire them to
pick up their personalized torches of truth, fashioned
by Him who knows them best. It is our very presence and
our personal living of gospel joy that makes reflecting
the Lord’s light possible.
So once again we ask, “Games
in the seminary classroom — are they friend or foe?” The
response comes: while there are seminary games of limitless
number, the answer to the question seems to depend completely
on the games’ purposes and our application of them. For
after all, time is short. Let’s use it well.
To close, here again are
President Hinckley’s words quoted previously:
You have
no idea of the consequences of your service. As the years
pass and your youthful students pursue their various endeavors,
marry, and rear families, recollections of what they learned
in seminary and institute will guide their decisions and
prompt their activities.
Let us go faithfully forward
in that service, with valor in our hearts and a smile
of joy on our face. Game playing is an absolute must-of-an-ingredient
for a joyful seminary classroom when we remember appropriate
timing and appropriate games that strengthen, rather than
weaken. So here’s to many fun-and-fruitful-happy-game-playing
days!
____
1 CES Handout:
“A Current Teaching Emphasis for the Church Educational
System,” Paul V. Johnson, 1.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 2.
4 3 Nephi 11:29
