Time for a new paradigm for early morning seminary??
Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 8:57 pm
We live in the metro area of a large city in the U.S. and it seems like the sacrifices made by students and families to attend early morning seminary are several times those made by families who live near release-time seminary or those who's seminary buildings are within walking distance of their high schools. It's becoming almost unworkable when you take into account that the average commute here is 1.5 to 2 hrs. and the traffic is one of the worst in the U.S. They don't allow any home study in our area since early morning is available to us. Here are some examples of the difficulties:
One home's father is gone by 4:50 am which leaves the mother the choice of leaving all her other younger under-aged children alone (crossing her fingers that nothing happens) to take her child to seminary or to wake the entire household up and take them with her. She has no way of getting
her seminary student from seminary to school unless it's held at a home near a bus stop because she has kids to get off to middle school and to elementary school. It's not an option for older seminary students to give rides, and most other moms in the area have the same problem so they aren't ride options. One has a husband who travels and is gone for days at a time. Others have husbands in the military who are deployed. Another few homes homeschool and unnecessarily have to get their kids up very early for seminary and have the same difficulties as mentioned above.
Other homes have children who are involved in sports with early before-school practices or after-school practices who get home late at night only to just get started on homework. Many have suffered emotionally, mentally, and physically because of lack of sleep. They have ended up quitting seminary before the year is over from exhaustion.
With the technology available to us in these modern times, isn't there any way to have some sort of independent-study seminary with a Sunday or weeknight face-to-face meeting with other students? Or some sort of daily online experience since most teens are constantly online anyway? You could have lessons and tracking online. Thanks for letting me share our difficulties. It just seems like there must be a better way.
One home's father is gone by 4:50 am which leaves the mother the choice of leaving all her other younger under-aged children alone (crossing her fingers that nothing happens) to take her child to seminary or to wake the entire household up and take them with her. She has no way of getting
her seminary student from seminary to school unless it's held at a home near a bus stop because she has kids to get off to middle school and to elementary school. It's not an option for older seminary students to give rides, and most other moms in the area have the same problem so they aren't ride options. One has a husband who travels and is gone for days at a time. Others have husbands in the military who are deployed. Another few homes homeschool and unnecessarily have to get their kids up very early for seminary and have the same difficulties as mentioned above.
Other homes have children who are involved in sports with early before-school practices or after-school practices who get home late at night only to just get started on homework. Many have suffered emotionally, mentally, and physically because of lack of sleep. They have ended up quitting seminary before the year is over from exhaustion.
With the technology available to us in these modern times, isn't there any way to have some sort of independent-study seminary with a Sunday or weeknight face-to-face meeting with other students? Or some sort of daily online experience since most teens are constantly online anyway? You could have lessons and tracking online. Thanks for letting me share our difficulties. It just seems like there must be a better way.