Comments about ‘Duce's Wild: My first Sunday with the new 'Come, Follow Me' curriculum’

Sunday School journals? Is it just a notebook?

Interesting - I hope that you write more on this topic because I love to learn how it is going. I teach in Primary, and am interested though in how this is played out in the classes.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Facebook is intrinsically evil, but it is a fad and a choice. I really tire of people presuming that everyone will choose it. If the author had written that she was basing her class organization around the wearing of Nike shoes or Jordache jeans (old examples since I have no idea what is currently "in fashion") I think everyone would have been outraged. Yet she thinks nothing of assuming that her class will be "on Facebook." Facebook is an exclusive, private, commercial enterprise. It isn't like a normal website and any and all have free access to. Access requires that one agree and share information. In other words, it comes at a price. For church members to assume others will be choosing (or worse, coercing others) to patronize a specific exclusive, private, commercial enterprise is quite simply WRONG.
It is an assumption, or more correctl a presumption, that people to often make. Just like talking on a mobile phone in a cinema, or using a cell phone while driving, it is a modern social inovation that needs to stop.

GeoMan, while I agree that class members shouldn't be coerced into using Facebook, I think you are mistaken in considering that commercial enterprise to be unlike, and worse than, "a normal website".

Websites that are exclusive enough to require a login, and certain requirements to guard against exploitation, particularly of minors, are much better than those which allow free access to all.

Other than those safe-guarding features, I find nothing in Facebook that is particularly exclusive, nor do I know what you mean by saying that "access requires that one agree and share information."

True, a teacher should not presume so much as to think that every class member has access to a computer or uses a cellphone--but I would presume the teacher would find out about the members' normal uses of any of these things, including Facebook, before asking anything of them like this.

I agree with Fern. As long as the teacher asked the students what forum they agree to use, and they were unianimous with Facebook, it is acceptable. Any forum, anything, can be used for good or evil. FB is not inherently evil. I've seen much good there.

Thanks Stacie Duce for sharing your experience! I love your ideas and how it's working out-it just sounds great. I teach Primary and hope to get a few ideas, because some of the children are growing up fast and I think having them participate with their own experiences and assignments will compliment the lessons.