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Simple and Clear

March 2, 2016

I sat in on a missionary discussion the other night. It was with a woman and her son who both had recently joined the church. They were being taught a follow up lesson on the Plan of Salvation. I was with two really good missionaries. They teach well and they teach well together, almost seamless in their transitions from one teaching to the other. After the lesson we three talked about it and they both agreed that it wasn’t their strongest teaching effort. I offered, as I always do, to give them some feedback and they readily accepted, as they always do.

The feedback was this: they taught the Plan of Salvation in an unnecessarily complicated way. They taught it in the standard way that we all seem to use, with circles and lines representing different spheres of existence and transitions to and from those spheres. But it took over 30 minutes to get all of that on paper. And the reason it took so long is that there were dozens of digressions.

The Plan is vast and it touches at the very heart of what we believe. It helps us understand where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. As we begin to talk about it and teach its truths, we are easily distracted by another example, another appendage to it, another story we’ve heard about one of the facets of the plan, by any number of things that keep us from communicating simply and clearly what that Plan of Salvation really is.  We, the teachers, are not bothered by the digressions because we understand the basics, but those trying to learn them get confused by what is really important and what is less so. And when the lesson is over they are not really sure which points are critical. If we can’t teach the Plan in a straightforward way, we lose people who can’t hack their way through the dense forest of facts we have built for them in order to see the truth at the center.

The lesson of the feedback was this: the best teaching is clear and simple. It is always clear and simple. The circle and line drawing can be put on paper in 10 minutes. It can be clearly explained in not much more time than that. If we teach it in that manner and the Spirit is present, the student/learner will have questions. She will begin to ask questions about the parts and pieces she is interested in and that she doesn’t understand. We can then address those. It will be a much more useful learning experience.

I’m not short-changing the beauty of the plan in suggesting that we can teach it very well in a much shorter time. What I am saying is that this particular subject is so filled with details that we could talk about it for hours, explaining more and filling in more with scriptural backing. That is not only unnecessary but confusing to a beginning learning of these things.

If we lay it out simply and clearly it will be easier understood and will create in the learner an increased desire to understand more.

One of the marks of an effective teacher is this: can he teach simply and clearly.

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Elisha Multiplies the Widow’s Oil

March 1, 2016

2 Kings 4
Elisha multiplies the widow’s oil.

“When you do your part, the Lord adds His power to your efforts”
-President Henry B Eyring-

These bottles of water provided an effective visual for this lesson.
The small bottle represents the  amount of oil the widow had when she met Elisha.
She was almost out of oil with no hope of having more.
She was in great debt and it appeared the only solution to pay her debts was to have her sons become enslaved to her creditors to work off the debt.
Elisha told her to borrow many vessels from her neighbors and bring them to her house.
She obeyed the Prophet Elisha, even though it did not seem to be a solution to her great debt.
I had multiple cups/vessels on the table and tried to fill them using the small water bottle.
Only 2 were filled. Then I brought out the large water bottle and every vessel was filled.

 Elisha performed a miracle and multiplied the widow’s oil so every vessel could be filled and her sons could go sell the oil. They made enough money to pay the debts and be able to live comfortably without having to leave their mother.

We are all this widow, in need of the Lord’s blessings and miracles in our lives. He is ready to pour down blessings and bring miracles to our lives as we exercise faith and obedience.

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Help Them Understand

February 10, 2016

I have mentioned before in this blog that the style and quality of teaching is not really important if no learning is taking place. The whole purpose of teaching is so that people can learn. If that is not happening then we need to readjust our teaching so that the outcome is achieved.


Yesterday I went on a teaching appointment with 2 of our elders. We went to the home of a woman who is committed to being baptized in a week and a half. She was a delight and is so full of faith and hope that I was more edified when I left her home than when I entered. During the course of the lesson, which was on commandments, she asked a question about tithing. One of the elders opened to Malachi 3 and read to her verses 8-10, which as you know is the classic biblical reference on the subject. She listened as he read and when he finished she said “I don’t understand a word of it.” It wasn’t said in a mean way, just a factual way.


He then handed her the book and invited her to read the passage, thinking that her own voice might help in understanding. She did read and when she finished one of the elders immediately said “So what do you think it means?” She hesitated, then stumbled a bit in her explanation. Eventually, with the help of these excellent missionaries she came to understand the passage.


As we drove away the Elders asked me how I thought the lesson went. I told them that I would give them a tip about scripture reading. “You could go to any strong, well-established ward and read that same passage and there would be many adults and youth who would tell you that they don’t understand it. Scripture language is in some sense a foreign language until we pay the price in time and effort to understand the language. Not everyone has yet paid the price, even people with strong testimonies. So my tip is this: don’t assume that people automatically understand the scriptures, just because they were read aloud.” I shared with them the reference in D&C 68:25, the one that says that parents in Zion need to teach their children the basics of the gospel. But the sweet spot in that verse for me is the line that says “…and teach them not to understand…” It is not just the teaching that is key – it is teaching to understand. That takes more time and more effort.


When I teach, my first question after reading a passage of scripture would not be “So what do you think that means?” because my steady assumption is that they didn’t fully understand what was read. That is not a comment on a person’s intelligence. It is rather a feeling I have about what it takes to learn to understand things of the Spirit. And if they truly didn’t understand then we put them on the spot and they mumble something and hang their head and learning stops. We don’t want to embarrass people. 

My first response after reading is to comment on it myself and pose a few simple questions to aid them in understanding. After reading “Will a man rob God…” I might say, “Did you catch how God talks about us robbing Him? Can you see in that third (or fourth) line what He says is robbery in His eyes?” I want to summarize and point them back into the passage so that they grasp the meaning of it for themselves. They will begin to understand. They want to understand, they just need help and we, as teachers of the gospel, are in a prime position to help.


It takes listening and sensitivity and a great desire to see people learn in order to help them get the most they can from a lesson. Think of every student as the Ethiopian described in Acts chapter 8. He was reading the scriptures and wanted to understand. When Phillip approached him, he asked “Understandest thou what thou readest?” The response is a classic: “How can I, except some man should guide me (verses 30-31).” Here was a student who wanted to learn and just needed a little help. We can be that help.

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Don’t Just Talk About It, Really Do It

February 1, 2016

Sunday morning before the church meetings I was met in the hallway by our bishop. He was holding in his hand a printed article five or six pages long. He held it up to me and asked “Did you write this?” It was something I had written a while back about teaching, and I confessed to it. He told me, “I have been studying this for weeks and am going to teach it during the 3rd hour today to the adults and youth of the ward. Now that I know you are the author, you are going to help me.” My wife and I have vowed in the mission field to only be ‘yes’ people: anything we are asked to do, we will agree to do it. So I told the bishop that I would help him but I preferred not to diminish his preparations. He said for me to just come to the front when he started and we would do it together.


I thought that this was a good thing because he has told me that he wants to strengthen the teaching in the ward at all levels. I was a little nervous as this is a Portuguese speaking ward and we’ve only been here a few weeks and I am still knocking the rust off of my language skills after 45 years of inactivity with the language. It’s coming back though and I thought I would have a good shot at being understood for an extended time. There is an additional language challenge in this ward in that 90% of the members come from Cape Verde and they speak Creole, which is a variant of Portuguese. And most of them understand English to some level. It is really a 3 language ward.


The bishop started the class and said a few things, then I did some teaching in Portuguese. When the bishop took it back from me, a sister in the back of the room said “We need this either in Creole or in English,” so we agreed and proceeded with each of us in our native tongue.


Here is where it got tricky. This was a class about teaching and improving your teaching so that students can improve their learning. Our good bishop was so excited to have a resource to help him teach about teaching that he wanted to share the whole thing. So he started simply reading it. I knew that this was a recipe for boredom among the members of the class, so I jumped in each time I thought it appropriate and modeled what he had just read and then, to the extent possible, had them practice a bit. It all turned out well and the bishop thanked me for the help and I thanked him for his desire to improve and share it with the ward.


Here is what was re-emphasized again to me: if you want to teach about teaching, you have to teach well. You can’t just talk about it and hope it will help. Talking just won’t help all that much. The teacher teaching about teaching needs to teach with excellence and that includes explaining, modeling, practicing, and giving feedback. It takes time. It is a process. It is well worth the effort but the effort has to be real and meaty and true. We rarely learn anything simply by listening. 

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We Stagnate Without Feedback

January 11, 2016

            I have not posted anything in this space since last June. When I retired from my teaching career that month I stepped away not only from teaching but also from thinking about it. It was just a natural response to not being directly connected with the teaching/learning process professionally.


            Last week my wife and I began a 2 year mission for our church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – and will be in the Boston area for that time. Since missionary work is real teaching work I now have a new motivation to begin seriously thinking about teaching and learning again. I am going to write about things that come to me as a full time missionary, related to the subject at hand. Here is the first one.


            When we were in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) last week I had forcefully come to mind two very basic thoughts about teaching the gospel. The first was that a teacher can never improve without practice and feedback. It can’t be done. We can watch and listen and observe all we want. We can go into our classrooms and try on our own. Nothing will change until we open ourselves to an observer who loves us and cares for our progress and is willing to be bold enough to tell us what was seen and offer some ways to improve. Lacking that, we will limp along forever in our old habits, perhaps trying very hard but not making any real improvements.


            In the MTC we had to role play at teaching on 3 of the 5 days there. Most people did not want to do it because it is a new thing and becomes painful when we have to discover that we missed the mark, either slightly or by a lot. But we all had to participate – no one was exempt. When the little teaching session was over, there was competent feedback and by the end of the week there was obvious improvement seen among many people. The cycle that leads to this improvement is: instruction, practice, feedback, and correction – repeat as often as necessary until competency rises. If you are a teacher who wants to improve, there is no short cut around this process.


            The second thing driven home again to me is how much the Spirit is involved in gospel teaching. My wife was nervous about the role playing but once she opened her mouth and allowed her reliance on the Spirit to shine through, she was great. One time our instructor was listening to her specifically and when she finished the instructor started to applaud. It was that good, from a woman who didn’t think she could teach very well. On our own, none of us is very good but with the Spirit we can all rise up and be very effective.


            Keep practicing, continue to seek competent feedback, and remember where the power comes from in gospel teaching. Learn to trust the Spirit in the gospel classroom.

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