essay 2- memory draft

November 6, 2006- Engl 110- Memory Draft for essay #2

Greenriver Community College and LDS Seminary each have their ups and downs. Seminary is very early in the morning, and the students don't get to pick their classes (in most cases) or class times. Greenriver is much more flexible- allowing for picking different classes with different teachers at various times. Seminary teaches about the gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, aka, the "Mormon Church". It has four years of study (for four years of highschol) which rotate every year- what is being studied rotates, I mean. For my friend Kaitlyn, her freshman year she studied the Old Testament, then the New Testament her sophomore year (my freshman year), the Book of Mormon her junor yea, and now the Doctrine andCovenants this, her senior year. That's the "real" order of things in my opinion, but it really doesn't matter what order it all comes in, as long as one gets all four years of instruction.
Every year in seminarywe start out with what is knownin the Church as The Plan of Salvation. We talk about the pre-mortal life, the veil, life on earth, death, and life after death and living throughout the eternities. For Greenriver classes, there is no such overarching theme that stretches over each course. The only things that are reliably shared in each and every class at Greenriver would be syllabus'!
In seminary, I hear many things which I have been taught growing up. Every now and then there will be a fact that I have never ever heard of before, but usually I reminded of preivious lessons- "oh yes! I remember learning that…" and then what I learned before was expounded upon.
At Greenriver, much of what I learn is brand new. Knowledge I have never encountered before, and in each online class, different methods of handling the classroom. Whereas in seminary all of the classes and different teachers are organized mostly the same. At Greenriver, teachers have much more say in the control of the structure of their class. Not that I have anything against the teaching methods of seminary, I am just noting a difference. And that is all.
Greenriver is much more diverse than seminary. Yes, seminary has students of many interests and backgrounds, but we all have the uniting factor that we are LDS. Since moving to Kent, WA- all of my close friends have been LDS. It's interesting how back in Snohomish most of my friends were not LDS, but here, the vast majority of them are. I love that, I really do. I also like how there is seem to be a good number of running start students at Greenriver- students my age. That is comforting- to know that I am not the only "youngin'" in a class of mine.
My first day of seminary, I had only been in Kent for about 2 and half months. I didn't know anything about anybody, and so I just showed up to the class that some lady in the church foyer told me to go to. So, I showed up there. For two days. And finally I realized, that I happened to be the only freshman in that class! Whoops! What happened? Well, I ended up finding the appropriate class (which drove me crazy with soo much noise going on and chit-chat) and that felt a bit more comfortable, I worried less about falling asleep. I think part of that was the talkative and obnoxious freshman boys, and the other part was the teacher- Brother Sellers- who had been in the military and knew how to handle obnoxious young men. Most of the time. There are some things that they don't, no- can't- teach in the military- getting a posse of 14-15 year old boys to be quiet is one of them! Oh, how I detested those young men for talking that year! And detested I truly did- how dare they talk and ruin the lesson for me?
Now, I occasionally lean over to Marianne in Seminary and chat with her. Or pass notes about whatever comes to mind… It's pretty dang humorous.
Another thing about seminary and greenriver that differs, is the atmosphere. I've only set foot on the actulay Greenriver schoola couple of times, but my impression that it is … a lot more loose than greenriver. That makes sense, however. We don't swear at seminary, Part of it is because of all of the people that expect each other not to swear, and the other part is that we're in the church, and that's how we show respect . And the last part of it is that we think it's plain and silly to swear.
I remember the first week of last year's seminary class. Brother Dysart (who was a new teacher, I'm completely sure) got frustrated with some young men who were chatting in the back of the room. So, what does he do? Lifts up his arm, and makes a pass at the man in the middle of this chat group. It hits Derek Titus. Poor Derek.. Actually, that's an exaggeration. It just about hit Derek Titus. Brother Dysart didn't start out as a very skilled teacher, either.
That's another difference between Greenriver and seminary. Greenriver has teachers that know how to teach (at least one would hope they do at least!) and are pretty much experts in their fields. Seminary can have inexperienced leaders. It was pretty obvious that Brother Dysart didn't know what he was doing sometimes. I find it extremely extraordinaly interesting, as well as occasionally boring. But, I got to see him improve over the year. Some students decided to go to other classroom, because they thought that it was boring in Brother Dysart's class. They felt that they didn't learn anything. I learned that people can grow. And it was fascinating to watchy as Brother Dysart's style of teach grew to a comprehensible type.
The type f people at Greenriver and at Seminary vary as well. Seminary's students are mostly all Mormon, which means that they all have the same standards that each is encouraged to uphold. We have expectations of conduct from another, which involve (at times) being obnoixus, and other tiems are when it is time to be quiet and just listen to the calm, soothing music. What an interesting comparision these two make!