Sharing Ourselves Builds a Relationship That Furthers Influence From Kathy K. Clayton’s book ‘Teaching to Build Faith and Faithfulness”.
Anyone who expects a student or child to share information about himself had better be prepared to offer the same. That same seminary teacher completes a questionnaire of her own at the time the students are filling out theirs. She also invites the class to ask her any additional questions they like. The same principle of reciprocity applies to other classrooms and in homes. Parents access an influential teaching method when they share lessons with their children they have learned through personal experience. My father used to say, his tongue firmly in his cheek, “Even the worst of us can serve as a bad example.” His comment was playful, but the concept is true. Even bad experiences, when shared with discretion, can be impactful deterrents for future generations of learners.
One wise father saw his teenage son’s poor report card and made an occasion to take him out for a hamburger. The young man was neglecting his studies and doing poorly at school. Eager to broaden the young man’s perspective, the dad shared his own experience as a teenager. He humbly told his son about his own casual attitude toward school and his early choices to allow everything else to take precedence over his studies. As a result of those immature decisions, when the dad applied to law school after graduation from college, he was not accepted. His poor academic record had closed doors to him and minimized his options for obtaining the education he needed to pursue a career. Without having resorted to a stern personal lecture, the wise dad shared his own difficult learning experience for the benefit of his son. This lesson was taught in a tender, personal, non-accusatory way using himself as an example of what not to do.
Don’t Assume They Know
We must be constant and deliberate in our fortification of our students’ and children’s understanding of who they are spiritually. In her book titled Writing to Change the World, Mary Pipher speaks to writers, but the counsel is valid for teachers and parents as well: “We do best when we assume that our readers [or students or children] are good natured and energetic, as well as busy, anxious, and confused. We can also safely assume that readers [or students or children] are likely to be fully aware of our favorite issues. As news commentator Eric Sevareid said, ‘Never underestimate the reader’s [or student’s or child’s] intelligence or overestimate his information level.’ We have things to teach readers [or students or children], but we must be careful doing it. They will resent us if we make them feel manipulated or stupid.”9
Every year, seminary teachers are encouraged to begin with a review of the plan of salvation. That instruction should reinforce the heavenly notion of students’ nature and their essential part in the great celestial plan. Assuming that students already know all about that is foolish. Their celestial sense of self is constantly bombarded, so instruction to the contrary must be constant too. ~ Kathy K. Clayton, (“Teaching to Build Faith and Faithfulness” Salt Lake City, Deseret Book 2012), 32-33 (continued. . . )
