One of my only real memories from Second Grade is a weird one.
It was Halloween time, and my teacher had asked all of us to write a spooky story.
When the time was up, we got into groups of 4 to read our stories to each other. My group read our stories, including one girl who hadn’t finished hers.
Our teacher then asked us to pick the person who wrote the best spooky story who would then read it out loud to the entire class.
It was SO AWKWARD to have to pick the best! No one wanted to say theirs was the best, everyone was beating around the bush, and finally someone suggested the girl who didn’t finish because her story was the spookiest since there wasn’t an ending.
She didn’t want to share hers, but everyone kind of agreed out of pity, the time was up, and we made this girl share her unfinished story out loud with the rest of the class.
Over 20 years later, I still remember how painful that experience was. We all knew we hadn’t picked the “best” story, and we made someone really uncomfortable at the same time.
Group decisions are rough.
There are emotions, different backgrounds, opinions from everywhere, communication style hurdles…
And yet, the Lord’s church functions almost entirely in councils and presidencies.
Groups. Making decisions together. Counseling together.
It even happened during the creation.
“And thus were their decisions at the time that they counseled among themselves to form the heavens and the earth.” (Abraham 5:3)
I don’t think counseling together is meant to produce the most efficient results, but it is meant to give the most well-rounded ones.
When all viewpoints are considered, when everyone feels safe to share what they actually think, when everyone trusts each other to say what they mean, then councils provide beautiful perspectives.
Maybe counseling together to create the world is where the idea came for placing beauty in the dry deserts, or for the placement of the planets, or for the diversification of species.
Counseling together can be tough.
But if it’s a pattern set from the foundation of the earth, it’s probably a skill worth pursuing.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
4 Responses
Thank you Cali. I enjoy all your snippets, but I’m going to share this one with my CTR7 class because I’m sure they’ll get it.
Thank you! I hope your lesson goes well!
Counselling together got my attention this time. I loved your insight on it. My memories are from a grade six group project to make a poster. We were also supposed to grade each other in our group. At first the three others said that I didn’t do any part of the project and they were going to give me a poor grade. I responded that I had contributed the ideas that they used for the project. That was of value. They changed their perspective and I got a good grade. But if I hadn’t spoken up, it would have gone wrong.
It is so important to speak up when counseling together. Thanks for sharing!