Kate L. Kirkham said at a BYU Women’s Conference, ‘On Being Teachable’ said:
. . . .”The BYU Women’s Conference is also a time to meet together to fast and to pray and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of our souls. But some of us may experience too many meetings—are we not meeting and talking together all the time? There is in many scriptures, a particular spirit of meeting one with another. That spirit is a mutual caretaking, a spiritual reciprocity—even as the Apostle Paul entreated: a kindness, a desire to be tenderhearted one to another. (Ephesians 4:32)
But what readies us to learn of the welfare of other souls? What readies us to be taught? And why, when we as a people are engaged in teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, should we also be concerned with being teachable?
Several years ago, a theme of the Relief Society was “Learn then teach.” Sometimes, however, we think about learning only when we are in a classroom. We associate being teachable with being in attendance. In campus setting we further link learning to a required curriculum, specific prerequisites, sequenced electives, and defined areas of study. We develop beliefs about who can and should be teaching us. So as Students, it is fairly easy to adopt the attitude, “Well, I’m here. The rest is up to you.”
As a teacher, I share with you who have faced a classroom the challenges of looking at faces, watching body postures, listening to questions, and trying to determine each person’s “readiness to learn.” There is a responsibility and a requirement to be ready to teach, but today I want to focus on that powerful part of the interaction we influence as learners.
What are we like as learners? Over the years I’ve watched and had students describe to me (usually after grades were in) their roles as learners. Some take the posture, “Go ahead; get my attention, if you can,” or “I already know about this subject—it’s required,” or ” I need to know exactly what I’m supposed to learn here,” or “You’ve got my attention, but I don’t understand you.” There are also those who come inquiring, ready to ask the “dumb question,” ready to contribute to the learning of others.
My point is: Are we willing and able to look at what we are like as learners? Are we paying attention on how we ready ourselves to learn—our style, assumptions, expectations, attitudes, and so forth? Are we aware how much we really influence, if not control, how teachable each of us really is?
Now, if the place of learning is not the traditional classroom but a congregation or an interdenominational community, and the curriculum is not math or English but the gospel of Jesus Christ — the character of our being one with another heretofore, here, and hereafter — then what would describe us as learners? Who may instruct us? What does it mean to be teachable?
This concept is difficult for me to explain. I have experienced it in myself and in others with more certainty than I can articulate in a description. Because of our individuality the expression varies. And though I list these common characteristics separately, they form a whole. They seem to be a sense of one’s incompleteness — a gnawing awareness of a desired, divine, and future state; a contrite spirit; a humble heart; a knowledge of one’s worth; a reverence for the worth of others; the trusting readiness often most apparent in little children; a belief in one’s abilities and one’s capacity to grow and to contribute; and an acknowledgment of our interdependency as sons and daughters of our heavenly parents. Perhaps, fundamentally, being teachable means that we daily open ourselves to the consistency of God’s love for us. We accept that we are loved and make real in our complex earthly lives the cornerstone commandments to love our God and our neighbor as ourselves. We can acknowledge that no matter who we are, encoded into each of us are two things: this common language of learning that is love, and most common bond of purpose—we came to learn and to “speak one with another concerning the welfare of our souls” — in fact to progress eternally.
Our capacity to be taught is infinite—whatever our current circumstances, whatever the conditions of our physical abilities, and whatever status we may hold in the eyes of others. It is easy to move away from such compelling awareness of our potential. We can allow and assist others to get in the way of our being teachable. We can find for a variety of reasons—fear, doubt, convenience, comfort—ways to deny our capacity for learning, to lose faith in ourselves, to lose faith in the love of those around us, or to lose faith in God’s love for us. By not believing in our capacity to learn (even from our mistakes), by not believing in our capacity to influence others for good, we deny the power of God in us.
I hope I have conveyed to you my belief in our capacity and responsibility to remain ever the learning children of our heavenly parents and my belief as well that his condition of being teachable is fundamentally linked to God’s love for us and ours for Him and for one another. I hope that it is also evident that learning and being instructed refer not only to the traditional definition of getting an education but to the continuing education presented to us in our circumstances as women, whether wives, mothers sisters, daughters, granddaughters, or aunts and to the changing kaleidoscope of opportunities that each of us has to think, to comprehend, to contribute and to create. ~ Kate L. Kirkham, “On Being Teachable” “Women of Wisdom and Knowledge” (Deseret Book, 1990) p.107-09.
Kate Kirkham, an associate professor of organizational behavior at Brigham Young University received her doctor of philosophy from Union Graduate School, Union of Experimenting Colleges and Universities, in 1977. She wrote numerous and educational materials for programs on institutional racism and discrimination and was a consultant to government, educational, volunteer, and business organizations. She also served on general Church committees and as a stake Relief Society President.
