Aloha Brother and Sisters.
I. Vision and Mission
It is wonderful to be with you today. I love BYU-Hawaii, and I love you. I also love to study the topic I chose to speak on today, which is learning.
One reason I love this topic is that I believe that we are born to learn and that our Father in Heaven is a master architect who designs pathways and strategies for our growth and development. His concern for our learning obviously is not limited to university life. Instead He desires us to learn in all aspects of our daily lives as He prepares us to serve others and become like Him.
His concern for your learning has been communicated by latter-day prophets who make it explicitly clear that by virtue of your admission to this university you are called not just to serve but to serve as leaders now and in the future. One of our primary tasks is help you learn principles and practices of leadership. Thus our university serves as a leadership training center for you in much the same way the Missionary Training Center prepares missionaries to share the gospel. The faculty and staff are your trainers and teachers. Our task is to prepare you to fulfill the vision Elder Holland expressed to the graduating class of BYU-Hawaii just last month. President Wheelwright mentioned this a few weeks ago, but it is worth repeating now. Elder Holland said,
"'A ship is very safe in the harbor, but that is not what ships are made for.' So Seasiders that you are, set sail....The Lord said to the first generation of the elders in this Church, "Ye are not sent forth to be taught, but to teach the children of men the things which I have put into your hands...Don't you dare just go blend into the amoral, telestial, hard-scrabble world of today. Don't go to your first job or first neighborhood board or first staff meeting and act like everybody else. Be strong. Be true. Teach---rather than being taught. And thus the light of the gospel:the lighthouse of Laie --- will shine in all the world."
This counsel from an apostle of the Lord to lead, to be active not passive, and to not just blend in applies as much to our classes and academic studies in the here and now as it does to the there and then. Developing the capacity to step forward and step out, has a great deal to do with how we choose to approach learning at BYU-Hawaii. Our time here provides an opportunity to develop and practice the skills Elder Holland referred to.
A central question for our discussion today is: "How does Elder Holland's counsel to be leaders translate into how we should individually and collectively approach our education on this campus?" For example, what does the vision of being active not passive suggest for how we prepare for and engage in our classes? What can we do to approach our classes and studies more like the leaders we are striving to be and the world is so hungry for?
II Faith, Spirit, and Consecration
I will begin our consideration of these questions with a story from a few years ago that has significantly influenced me. It is a story that identifies the uniqueness of this campus and how we can be even more of a light on a hill. As I tell the story and review the counsel of prophets, I ask each of us to ponder what we can do to meet the challenge given to us by Church Board of Education to improve our learning.
This story has to do with the role of faith, spirit, and consecration in learning. It is a story about Chris Bresee (whom some of you may remember as a student here) and his experience learning Japanese. Chris said,
"After a month in the class, it was plain to me that I was the worst student in the class. Nothing seemed to stick to my mind and when it finally did I was so far behind the rest of the class I almost felt like withdrawing and taking the bad mark on my record."
The difficulty of learning Japanese surprised Chris because he had been so successful in learning Icelandic on his mission. He went on to explain:
"I was sitting in the library one day and I felt like I should pray. I spoke to the Lord and asked Him to help me learn this language. Then a thought came to me to pray that I could use it in His work one day. I prayed and said something to the effect. "Thou helped me learn Icelandic to bless others in Iceland, if thou would help me learn Japanese I will use it for whatever purposes thou would have me in thy service." After I prayed I felt I should begin my studies by studying the Book of Mormon in Japanese and study it in the same format I did in Icelandic. I don't think I have ever noticed a change as quick as what the Lord did for me preparing me for some future service. I remember words, characters, and pronunciation faster than I did relying on my ability...It seems all of my studies could be benefited by this course of intent. To prepare to be of use."
This story suggests, as stated in the BYU-Hawaii framework of learning, that "Learning occurs best when it is motivated by faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, and centered on serving God." Our Heavenly Father is anxious to bless us in our academic studies. As we turn our minds and hearts to him, He will use our classes to instruct and prepare us for service now and in the future. He will do this in even a greater abundance when we consecrate our work and learning to the building of his kingdom. This is not something we should do haphazardly. Like Chris we should offer a consecration prayer of real intent. We can then experience the power of the Spirit guiding and deepening our understanding far beyond our natural abilities. This is the kind of learning the world yearns for and that is increasingly in limited supply in higher education.
The prophets of this church have continually advised young adults to apply this principle of consecration. President Eyring stated:
"If we [continue to] seek learning to serve God and His children better, it is a blessing of great worth. If we begin to seek learning to exalt ourselves alone, it leads to selfishness and pride, which will take us away from eternal life....the Master is clear about the process. By prayer, fasting, and hard work, with a motive to serve Him, we can expect His grace to attend us. I can assure you from my own experience, that does not mean we will always be on the high end of the grading curve. It means that we will learn more rapidly and grow in skill beyond what we could do only with our unaided natural abilities...." (President Henry B. Eyring, "Education for Real Life, Ensign, October 2002, p. 14).
President Eyrings' comments invite us to ask ourselves why we study and take classes on this campus? What are our motives? Elder Dallin H. Oaks, speaking on why faculty teach at BYU, suggested that our reasons for work and study may include the desire to obtain riches and honor, to find good companionship, to avoid fear of punishment, or to fulfill duty and express loyalty. Elder Oaks explained that while some of these reasons seem better than others, none offer the highest or noblest reasons for our studies. Elder Oaks suggests that the motivation of charity, the pure love of Christ, is the more excellent way taught by the Savior.
"[The] principle--that our service should be for the love of God and the love of fellowmen rather than for personal advantage or any other lesser motive--is admittedly a high standard. The Savior must have seen it so, since he joined his commandment for selfless and complete love directly with the ideal of perfection. Immediately after commanding that our covenant service include loving our enemies, he gave this great commandment: "˜Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect'" (Matthew 5:48). (Dallin H. Oaks, "Why Do We Serve at BYU?" Address delivered at BYU Annual University Conference, August 23, 1998.)
Our chartered course is to build a city of God that incorporates the highest principles of the gospel in all of our activities including our approach to classes. Chris discovered the increased capacity that comes through prayerful consecration and its close cousin, charity. I add my testimony to his and the prophets that as we bend our knees in prayer and fasting and consecrate our studies to God and the building up of His kingdom, He will bless us individually and collectively with a greater abundance of His spirit and help us to lift our learning to even greater heights.
III After All We Can Do
You will recall President Eyring's counsel that I referenced earlier in which he spoke of prayer, fasting, and hard work. I wish to speak for a moment about the "hard work" part of President Eyring's counsel.
First, a question. If we truly consecrate our studies to God and the building of His kingdom and if we become motivated by the pure love of Christ, how does it influence our attitude about classes and how hard we work on them? God is always anxious to help us, but can do so much more when we put in a full measure of effort. Joseph Smith taught that faith is a principle of action. It is not passive. To learn by faith means that we become active not passive Elder Bednar explains:
"Learning by faith cannot be transferred from an instructor to a student through a lecture, a demonstration, or an experiential exercise; rather, a student must exercise faith and act in order to obtain the knowledge for himself or herself....As learners, you and I are to act and be doers of the word and not simply hearers who are only acted upon. Are you and I agents who act and seek learning by faith, or are we waiting to be taught and acted upon? We are all to be anxiously engaged in asking, seeking, and knocking." (Elder David A. Bednar, "Seek Learning by Faith," Ensign, Sept. 2007, pp.60-68. Address to CES Religious Educators, February 3, 2006).
In a recent devotional President Wheelwright taught:
"Many who have gained a personal conviction of the power of learning by faith in spiritual matters, have yet to gain a similar conviction that the same process works equally well for secular learning....When we desire to learn, there is no better way to do so than by following this same pattern of learning by faith." (Steven C. Wheelwright, "Education: The Lord's Standard", BYU-Hawaii Devotional, September 29, 2009.)
The principle of doing our part is true for all of us whether it is in spiritual or secular contexts. Perhaps a simple story from the Compton family will help illustrate this point. When our most amazing, wonderful, and talented daughter, Marissa (I was required to use these adjective in order to tell this story) was 11 or 12, she came to me one evening and asked if she could have her ears pierced. The thought occurred to me that it would be unwise to answer her. Marissa was entering a period of adolescence, and it was important for her to grow more thoughtful about the influence that her peers and culture had on her. Having already traveled down that path some years previously, her mother and I knew the kind of growth and development that would be beneficial in Marissa's life at this time. As her anxious parent/teacher, I could have leapt forward with a detailed answer. Instead, I invited Marissa to try and answer her own question by giving it some additional thought. I challenged her to compose a thesis and prepare to defend it. A week or two later she retuned with her this that concluded that it was okay to have her ears pierced because of the human need for artistic expression and cultural experimentation. I remember commenting that her perspective positioned the body as a an artist's canvas and piercing ears was a way to paint. We had a lively discussion that extended to the appropriate number of ear piercings, tattooing, and other subjects. This process formed an invitation for Marissa to think through her question more thoroughly instead of relying on her father for answers to questions that she had not yet fully formed in her mind and heart. Think of what Marissa would have lost if I had simply answered her question and told her what to do. We would have missed the opportunity to have a rich conversation that was instrumental to our relationship and to her growth and development. There is wisdom for all learners and teachers in the counsel that Heavenly Father gave to one of his choice sons, Oliver Cowdrey, when he was struggling with a problem. The Lord said to Oliver in the Doctrine and Covenants Section 9:7-8,
"Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore you shall feel that it is right."
Working things out in our minds prepares us to engage with others, including our fellow students and teachers, at a much higher level than we otherwise would be. In our pursuit of meaningful and transformative learning, we should be careful to be true to the law of the harvest, which requires long days and nights of rigorous study and active engagement.
Just as reaping the blessings of a harvest requires great effort, so does learning. There is no short cutting the law of the harvest either in learning or in farming. If we desire to reap the harvest, we must be willing to pay the price. There is nothing easy about it. In a BYU-Provo devotional, Elder Oaks, then President of that campus, offered the following counsel which I quote at length:
"...Do not be one of that smaller but painfully visible group of students who are still struggling up the far slopes of "fools' hill," chasing butterflies, giggling on the fringes, and pursuing the frivolous things of life while the sands of their study time at the University fall through the hourglass at their inexorable rate. These will finally leave--perhaps with a degree, hopefully with some kind of a job, but almost certainly without the education and learning that is the purpose of our mission here.
There are few things that give me more pain than to see young men and women who do not realize their potential, who do not "get their act together" and discipline themselves into the work necessary to acquire the skills and learning characteristic of a good education.
Those who are not willing to seek learning should voluntarily withdraw from the University and allow their place to be taken by some of the thousands who are clamoring for admission. It is wrong to do otherwise."
These are loving but pointed words to each of us. As he spoke on the immense tithing dollars that support the church campuses, Elder Oaks asked, "Are [we] doing our share? Are [we] investing a commensurate amount of time and effort to seek learning?" (BYU Devotional, September 1979).
IV The Power of Questions
One of the most important aspects of working things out for ourselves has to do with the importance of questions. For many years I have found that I learn as much by coming up with the questions about a subject as I do in discovering answers. The process of figuring out the right questions and how they relate to other things I know takes considerable study and thought. It has been critical for me to internalize my teachers questions as well as to come up with my own. Forming questions creates fertile ground where learning occurs. Without them, learning is muted.
Elder Holland and Sister Beck, the General Relief Society President, referred to the importance of questions in a world-wide leadership training session. Sister Beck explained an idea that can benefit all of us as learners and teachers. She said:
"...I think this seems to be what we are saying: the more questions we can get from the learners about something, the more they are engaged in the learning....And the thought that came to my mind was that when Joseph Smith read a verse of scripture in James, it created questions in his mind, and he said, "˜How am I going to know? And will I ever know? And if I don't figure this out, I'll never know.' And he was in a learner mode. But that to me is a challenge as a teacher:not so much the questions I am asking but what is happening that is helping other people to ask questions so the Holy Ghost can teach them."
Perhaps the reason the Lord did not respond right away to the boy Joseph's confusion on the subject of religion was because Joseph would grow and learn much by studying. He may have discovered a greater depth within the issues, his questions might have became clearer, and his desire to learn more poignant. Surely the thought, energy, and heavy lifting of searching out the different religions and studying the scriptures was an essential part of Joseph's preparation to be taught by our Heavenly Father and the Savior. Struggling with a question and becoming thirsty for its answer is almost always a precursor to real learning. Without the question, we may be left skating across the surface of understanding and wisdom when presented with an answer.
VI Teach to Learn
Before coming to our conclusion, I will mention one other principle that greatly enlarges our learning. It is a principle we already know well but we may not have connected it to our classroom studies. A few years ago it struck me that the Savior designed his church so that his saints were in a constant mode of teaching. Why does he do that? We home teach and visit teach, teach Sunday school classes, priesthood classes, teach in-service lessons, teach at family home evening, teach as we give Sacrament talks, teach in bishopric and ward counsel meetings, and the list goes on and on. How many times have we given a lesson or talk and felt gratitude because of how much we learned in preparing to teach? Our Heavenly Father is supremely interested in our growth and learning and so he keeps us teaching. Why? Because when we move into the mind and heart of a teacher we simultaneously move into the mind and heart of a learner. To teach is to learn. Consider this council from President Monson:
"In academic preparation, I have found it a good practice to read a text with the idea that I will be asked to explain that which the author wrote and its application to the subject it covered. Also, I have tried to be attentive in any lecture in the classroom and to pretend that I would be called upon to present the same lecture to others. While this practice is very hard work, it certainly helps during test week!" ("Three Gates Only You Can Open," New Era, Aug. 2008, p. 5).
When I studied for my Ph.D., I was required to take nine credits in upper-level statistics. If there was anything that was going to wash me out of the program, I thought it would be those classes. I worked hard to understand the ideas and concepts. Our professor was determined that we actually understand the math, not just be able to do it. I would walk out of class and feel like I understood the concepts. However, later that evening I just couldn't put it back together. I was frustrated and feared not getting the necessary grades. Then one day as I left my statistics class I noticed an empty classroom across the hall and walked in. I set my books and notes down at the front of the room and began to teach what I had just learned to an imaginary and empty classroom. I would become quite pentecostal about it and even stand on a chair in my statistical sermoning. I would field imaginary questions from my students requiring me to explain how things related to each other and why this had to be done before that and so on. Every once in a while someone would peek their head in the door and I suppose wonder if this doctoral student had just lost it. But it worked for me. The act of teaching solidified my understanding of the concepts and, equally important, revealed to me places where I thought I had understood but actually had not.
I believe the Savior keeps us teaching because he knows that is one of the best ways for us to learn. It is a principle with broad application, including our academic pursuits on this campus.
VII Conclusion
As you reflect on the principles of learning we have discussed today, I challenge you to follow President Monson's council to study with the anticipation that you be able to teach what you have studied. Preparing for class this way will cause you to focus more and deepen your understanding. It will help push you further along in the path of doing for yourself what you can before relying on your teacher for understanding. As President Monson noted, this is hard work. It is, however, the work required by the law of the harvest. As you consistently engage in this process, you will be prepared to more effectively apply what you are learning through conversations in class with your professors and fellow students. It will allow you to test out your understanding. Doing so will also allow you to go to class bearing gifts of insights born from your hard work and unique cultural perspectives. It will allow you to leave each class better for your attendance.
I challenge you to follow the council of Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles who advised students to:
"Share [your] gifts and talents so that [you] can tutor, mentor, be in a study group, or participate in the classroom...I give you a promise...you will find both the giver and the receiver will be better off for their interaction." BYU-Idaho Devotional, February 20, 2007.
As you can see, preparation and engagement are central aspects of all learning, including how you approach your classes. Now is the time to follow Elder Holland's council to leave the safety of the harbor and to sail into deep water, to teach and not just be taught, to not just blend in but to be strong and step forward in your classes bearing your gifts. I simply cannot imagine a better setting to train a new generation of leaders than the highly engaged and international classrooms of BYU-Hawaii. You are the ones that God has brought to this campus for this purpose. I challenge you to approach your classes as leaders, and as you do you may discover that the many of principles of leadership and learning are one in the same thing.
I conclude by joining my prayer with President Marion G. Romney at the dedication of the Aloha Center.
"I hope and pray that every student who comes to this college and this (Aloha) Center will be concerned that he leaves those lives he touches here better than when he found them, that every student storehouse of memories of his time here will be filled with good things rather than any cause for regret, and that the students who come here will do so in order to prepare themselves to serve their fellow men and particularly those of their country or culture." President Marion G. #1 (p. 6)
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.