I remember when I was in seminary, it was kind of like going to Sunday school during the week each day for an hour and you could simply chill and work on other school work or flirt with the opposite sex and tune out. Only one test at the end of the year, and reading scriptures was optional...basically if you were in SLC it was a break from school to go chill with your friends from church.

Now they have to make it ACADEMIC and SERIOUS like a real class that REALLY matters by forcing the kids to study for comprehensive exams and REQUIRED scripture reading to pass. No more just sitting there and listening or not while trying to stay awake. Now participation in class is required and if the kids don't meet certain requirements they can FAIL.

The reason I know this is that I HELPED my son retake a test he had failed on the D & C yesterday. And he has to report to the teacher each day on where he is on reading. They are holding them ACCOUNTABLE g@d d@mm!t!!

Do they have people sitting up at the church office building whose job it is TO MAKE church membership even MORE of a burden on the members?

I know
Let's make them clean the bathrooms!
Let's make gospel learning miserable! Let's administer comprehensive tests.
Let's get rid of the Road Shows
Let's correlate everything

Strengthening the Members my @$$. More like the Weakening the Church Committee.

Just curious, assuming this is Utah, how do the state education authorities as well as local school officials deal with this?

Being from outside the Morridor, the churches respect youngsters too much to let too much of their 168 hours a week be dedicated to this stuff. We have lots of Catholic schools; even they doggone well know their limits.

I say this due to my curiousity of seeing these vast buildings located next to bona fide high schools, wondering what they're all about, since they do not seem like legitimate churches (meetinghouses). I think it was Herriman where I saw these teens trudge from the high school to this building during the midday hours.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 06:28PM by agnesbroomhead.

Look at the bright side of things -- the more your child studies the D&C, the more likely they are to conclude that Joseph Smith made the whole thing up.

Reportedly, the new requirements came about due to the requirement of some countries to only admit trained ministers on visas. So it is all about the mission. :/

First, not all the kids in class (by any means) plan to go on missions.

Even those who do are by no means "trained ministers." Could you possibly compare them to trained and ORDAINED ministers, who have studied for YEARS, learned Hebrew and Greek so they can read the Biblical documents in those languages, studied Biblical history so they understand the circumstances that the various parts of the bible were written under, stuff like that? I don't think so.

Step One needs to be making seminary "optional" and not "mandatory." If seminary is considered a requirement for graduation from high school, in a public high school, then somebody is WAY out of line.

I agree with you, but reportedly that is the church's rationale.

It amazes me how LDS Inc makes the worst operating and marketing decisions EVERY single time.

LDS Inc is virtually guaranteeing themselves that the next generation will not only leave the organization, but will also carry a lot of anger towards it, as well as creating resentment towards parents demanding the kids participate in this indoctrination.

No. It's the MISSION FIELD! I lived in SLC growing up. I now live in another State. But they are trying to make REQUIREMENTS

Tell your child that failing school is not good. It goes onto
his permanent record.

Tell your child that failing Seminary doesn't matter one way or
the other. It's not on any official permant record. It's like
not getting a certain merit badge in Boy Scouts.

Point out that Seminary is extra-curricular and that he should
not take either study time or emotional energy away from things
that matter (go on your permanent record) for Seminary.

You might want to mention that if he wants to drop Seminary,
that you will support him 100%.

Ok, I just found out the cult fooled me YET AGAIN!!! I grew up in the late 70s/early 80s in the Midwest. At the time we had the home-study seminary instead of early morning. We were never told it could be anything other than academic and serious. We read all the scriptures cover to cover, did all the stupid assignments, attended Super Saturday once a month at the stake center, practiced and practiced for the scripture chases. And NOW I find out all the Mormon kids in Utah just viewed it as a school-sanctioned social hour?????

To me this is another example of how the church has different standards and expectations for the intermountain west than it does for the rest of the world.

Thanks for pointing out EVEN MORE time I wasted due to the cult.

I viewed it as social hour anyways.. 8)

How is this gonna work where the Seminary teachers are just local members serving in the calling, with no credentials? Seems like another cluster**** is brewing, which will be quickly and quietly backpedaled from when its noticed.

I remember years ago that the church just submitted the aaronic priesthood ordination certificates the missionaries got when they were priests. I guess the thinking was that this might satisfy the local governments in latin american (i.e. Roman Catholic) countries that the missionaries were "priests" like they were used to in the catholic church. Perhaps some of these places have become wise to Salt Lake's ways?!

REALLY EARLY morning seminary. Never mind that I didn't know sheep-dip from Shinola about Mormonism. They said I could "teach by the spirit."

Gimme a break. You can't teach what you don't know.

Even though they told me I wasn't allowed to refuse such a calling, I did.

I was a newly-divorced mother, employed full-time (8:00 to 4:30 Monday through Friday), struggling with health issues. I am not and never have been a morning person. Just getting to work by 8:00 was torture. And they wanted me to teach a class at five-flipping-thirty every morning?

I prayed about it. Really. And I got a resounding affirmation every time: DON'T DO IT!

It was probably just my inner self, screaming at me, but I went with that, and have never regretted it.

Here in Utah, they had requirements. I had my son take seminary (I wasn't a nonbeliever yet) because I thought it would give him a break from regular classes. My daughter hated seminary, too. My son quit going and the seminary kept calling us. They thought we would be upset. We had him released from seminary. I think my ex went and signed a paper.

The R.S. president at the time came VT to me sometimes. She had her daughter released from seminary, too. She said when she went over to talk to the principal about her daughter, he thought that the RSP was a problem because she wore jeans to talk to him. She said he was really rude to her.

Seminary is NOTHING like when I went to school. I had one teacher that seemed a little more serious and we worried some about our grades. Not to worry. We all got As.

Yup. Shootin' off their own foot again, be like. Let's double down. Let's make it even more miserable.

Next they will make the kids scrub toilets-at seminaries next to high schools; and require early morning seminary students to arrive even earlier for pre-class toilet labor.

Come, come yet saints, no toilet labor fear...

So if you fail seminary are you ineligible to serve a mission? What a great way to avoid the waste of two precious years in unpaid sales work!!!!

If it doesn't make you ineligible then who the heck cares if he fails????

Is he planning to attend BYU? I dropped my last semester of seminary, that was prior to the BYU seminary requirement.

My brother refused to attend early morning seminary in CA. My father literally forced him to go and sat in his class. This went on for months until my brother won that battle.

I'm on the east coast and I heard about the more rigorous requirements from the seminary teacher right before we left.

Yeah, tests, required reading, strict attendance requirements...it's all such a massive drag. I'm SO glad for the sake of my kids that we're done with all that shite. Oh, and a start time of 5:30 am. Fun. In my stake it is also highly highly discouraged to do home study seminary, in fact, unless you have a valid reason as to why you can't go to early am seminary, you can't do it.

I feel sorry for both the kids and the teachers. I know two seminary teachers and they're exhausted all the time.

Even before I left the church last week (a long time in coming, really), I had been telling my wife it was cruel to make our kids get up at 5:15 to go to seminary. I'm very confident it affects their school work as well. Why doesn't any other church make kids do that? I now would say it's to continue the brainwashing and indoctrination so that they'll go on missions and never leave the church. :|



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 09:05PM by freeatlast2015.

I can tell you it does interfere with their schoolwork. Our oldest went to 3 years of early morning seminary (she had to wake up at 4:45, leave at 5:15), and she was exhausted and cranky the whole time, and her grades suffered. The last year of high school she didn't attend, and she got more sleep and was happier and she got great grades.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 10:23PM by twistedsister.

Early morning seminary really is somewhat abusive. Fortunately I grew up in a remote area and we didn't do it.

Research shows that teens natural sleep patterns are later, and so they need to sleep in more.

http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/teens-and-sleep


•Biological sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during adolescence -- meaning it is natural to not be able to fall asleep before 11:00 pm.

•Teens need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to function best. Most teens do not get enough sleep — one study found that only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights.

I agree that early morning "seminary" is abusive because studies have shown that teenagers need 9-10 hours of sleep in order to function. To be honest, I consider the Mormon idea of seminary to really be 6 days of Sunday School as it's just the same stuff over and over and over again. Those studying to become actual clergy take psychology classes for their roles as counselors, plus they take Latin and Greek to better understand the Bible. To me, that's what real seminary is, academically challenging.

This really has me worried. My son teaches early morning seminary in Texas. If he is now going to be required to prepare tests and babysit these seminary students' reading etc, it is going to impact his job and his health. He is very busy as it is. I am going to talk to him this weekend and I will be quizzing him about what new responsibilities he is going to be saddled with. DAMN CULT



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 10:35PM by gemini.

There were requirements in seminary when I went in high school (in UT). I was a serious student, so I would lie about reporting my scripture reading. I wouldn't put down that I read every night, but enough to get a decent grade (usually A- or B+). I agree, it's not a priority and time should be spent on it after everything else.

How do they deal with special needs children?

When I was fourteen and living in one of the hick hollows we frequented, my father offered to drive me into town before school every morning with one condition. I had to attend seminary sessions. He knew I was getting harassed on the school bus and used that to leverage me into a church function.

Ironically, I got bullied by a large farmboy at seminary. He accosted me in the hall and pulled a knife to cut off my hippie hair.

Is the violent cutting of others long hair a Mormon thing?

Seems like Mitt was accused of the same thing.

You were harassed by hill-billies, because you were new? Hippie hair? Mormon? Sounds like Deliverence territory. Hill-billies and seminary, what a bad combo.

the beatings will continue until morale improves...

Twisted, twisted thinking that MORE is always helpful and even better.

When will they increase seminary to twice a day? Could be their next brilliant move.

Let's hope so. Even always cheerful teens have their breaking point.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 03:40AM by presleynfactsrock.

Early morning seminary outside Utah sparse Mormon Membership in area we live in.

I've not heard of there being any tests. That may not be a good data point as my current seminary kid are not good with anything but A's and so they may just not think it to be anything wording of bringing up.

What my 16 year old said was that the format has shifted recently from going into the scriptures to 'indoctrination' with a superficial treatment of the underlying scriptures. My kids tend to know their scriptures better than their teachers and at times call them on items. I have heard the recounting of exchanges several times each year from my kids and their teachers of situations like this. Teachers would describe how my kids were stubborn and not let something go. Yes, they are intolerant of sloppy thinking - the baine of having a professors kid in a class.

My 16 year-old made the choice to stop going to seminary after hanging in there for about a year as someone who no longer believed the founding principle of the church. He brought it up back them and I asked him, with him knowing he had the choice, to keep attending as part of supporting the family while we were dealing with a family tragedy. He came home numerous times with just appalling stories of how scriptures and words of so called 15 were being twisted well beyound their already bastardized version of particUlar church principles. My 14 year old does not plan to start next year.

Why is this being taken so seriously? It's not like this will keep him from graduating high school. It's Mormon busy-work and sleep deprivation. I would be telling him not to worry about it.