Like teaching math, only different...

They say that if you don’t attend family home evening in a singles ward you will be called to be a family home evening group leader, that if you complain about ward activities you’ll be called to the activities committee, that if you don’t do your visiting teaching you will be asked to be a visiting teaching supervisor. This isn’t entirely true, of course, and when you do get called to organize or supervise that activity you never before participated in, it’s not necessarily because you didn’t participate. But we have all heard plenty of stories.

This spring I was asked to co-teach a summer Institute class. I was very excited about this opportunity when our Institute director approached me, but I also thought it was kind of funny because I am nothing like an avid Institute supporter. Don’t get me wrong. I think the Institute program is a very good program. I think it has worthy purposes—spiritual uplift, social interaction, ward unity, etc., etc. But ever since I finished my last BYU religion course and thus entered the class of people who are supposed to attend Institute, I have struggled. At seven or seven-thirty in the evening, after a long day of school or work, an hour and a half in a hard chair is quite unappealing, especially when the lesson isn’t particularly engaging. I lose focus, I get frustrated, and by the end I am too tired and frustrated to socialize, and so though I really do try, the physical discomfort, lack of spiritual uplift, and lack of social connection eventually drives me away.

There have been three times in my five years of Institute attempts that I have been a regular attendee, and I hate to say that not one of those was for what one might consider the right reasons. The first, which lasted most of a semester, was for (yes, I’ll admit it) a certain boy who was one of a small handful of members of my BYU ward who attended our stake Institute class. Later in the semester, however, he stopped going (though I didn’t stop hoping he’d return), and then it turned out he didn’t have any interest in me anyway, and then I couldn’t stop going to Institute because I didn’t want it to look like I was only attending because of him (which, of course, I was). The second, which lasted an entire school year, was because I liked the CES missionary couple who taught one of the classes when I lived in Virginia, and wanted to support them. And the third was last semester because I felt guilty for not attending Institute much my first semester here in Michigan, and because there was a new, shorter, midday Institute class, and because (most importantly) they served lunch there.

This summer, of course, I have also been a regular attendee, but that’s because now I’m teaching it. I have to say that being a teacher is a lot more fun than being a student, whether I’m teaching mathematics or Teachings of the Living Prophets (our summer Institute curriculum). And one of the reasons I love teaching is that I know what it’s like to be a student, and it’s a challenge to figure out how to make being a student more enjoyable and more worthwhile. I like to think that maybe I’m particularly qualified to teach Institute because I have spent so much time not getting anything out of Institute lessons. I know why I don’t, and therefore I ought to be able to figure out how to change things. When I teach a lesson, I want to teach a lesson that even I would enjoy. Not that I’m a perfect teacher, of course. It’s sometimes very hard to maintain a student perspective when you’re standing up in front of the classroom. It’s hard to realize that this topic you’re so excited about may not be as exciting to your students because they haven’t spent time with it the way you have.

So one of the things I do as a teacher is to try to get the students to spend time with the subject. When I am a student, I enjoy class if either, a) the lecturer is a very, very good lecturer, or b) I am actively involved in some sort of meaningful activity. I am not a very, very good lecturer (I have my moments, but I’ve accepted the fact that this will never be my strong point), and so that means I need to focus on getting my students to participate. This is easy in a math class because all you have to do is step away from the board and give the students problems they can do and learn from themselves, rather than expecting them to just watch you do it on the board. It’s just coming up with the problems that’s a challenge.

Really, though, it’s much the same in an Institute (or Sunday School or Relief Society) lesson. You can stand up there and talk and expect the students to absorb your testimony vicariously, or you can provide the questions that will get the students talking and figuring things out and learning from each other. It’s just coming up with those questions that’s a challenge (and it’s a lot easier to come up with good, thought-provoking questions for something like “having the Spirit more abundantly in our lives” than for something like, say, “succession in the presidency of the church”). Still, that’s what I’ve loved about teaching Institute. Preparing the lessons, studying, and coming up with questions has been an amazing experience, but the best part is when the entire class has something to say. Every time I come out of a lesson I have taught thinking, “Wow, that was a great lesson,” I am always aware that it was not me who made it a great lesson.

The verdict is still out on whether or not this particular experience will change my attitude towards Institute. Enthusiasm can die when the calling does—FHE group leaders may stop attending FHE when they change wards and get a new calling, Enrichment counselors may be somewhat relieved that they don’t have to worry about attending Enrichment anymore once they have been released, and so on. It happens all the time. But it occurred to me while writing this that when we are called to do something that we haven’t actively done before, it’s not necessarily a change in activity that the Lord is looking for. For example, when I served as an FHE group leader last year (one of my favorite and most meaningful callings, believe it or not), I did not learn how important it was to attend family home evening in singles wards. Rather, I learned about organization and preparation, about working closely with another person towards a goal, about delegation, about building community and, most importantly, about what it really means to love other people.

The same goes with Institute. My opinion on the Institute program has not changed (although I may be more likely to attend for the sake of supporting the teacher, now that I have actually been the teacher). I still think it’s a good program, and I still think that it would be a struggle for me to attend and really get much out of it during the school year. But being a teacher has been an experience that I really think I needed right now. I can say with complete honestly that my testimony of the Lord’s work has grown in very specific ways. I’ve learned a lot about teaching and learning in the gospel. And just a few times, I have seen one of the students in the classroom just glowing in a way you never quite see in a mathematics class. There is nothing this summer that has made me happier than seeing that.