What Do You Do When 1 Person Answers All the Questions?

I went to Sunday school for the 1st time in a long time today. No I’ve not been inactive, I’ve been in primary. This one brother kept answering every single time the teacher would ask a question. He obviously knew his stuff, but hardly allowed anyone else to take part, unless they were willing to wait for the end of his long answer, then try an interject theirs (if he hadn’t already covered it). He didn’t even raise his hand, he’d just start talking as soon as the question was asked, and sometimes simply when the teacher paused to long. I’m sure this brother thought he was helping out, but it was really quite stifling of both class discussion and sharing of the broader wisdom of the entire class.

It was frustrating for me, not because I wanted to comment—I was pretty busy with my 16 month-old boy—but because I wanted to learn from other people in the class, and as someone who’s been a teacher, I knew how hard it is to be the teacher and hate to ask questions, because the same person is going to answer.

For a while now we’ve simply written articles about the life hacks that we’ve discovered, with a few contributed by our readers. Now, I’d like to start more posts that are about you telling us how to “hack” various situations or aspects of Mormon life.

So I want to hear what your ideas are for remedying the situation of brother (or sister) “me, me, me! I will answer all your questions”? Whether advice for the teacher, someone sitting by this person, or whatever, how can we help improve class without completely offending the offender?

[Photo Credit: sean dreilinger]