From the book “Excellence” (multiple authors), Under the title “Excellence in Education: Henry B. Eyring writes:
Letters from students come to my desk every week, testifying to the value of education. most of those students are struggling for opportunity. They ask for help. A few ask the ask another question: “How can I get the most from the educational opportunities I have?” They see that excellence in education will depend more upon what they do than what someone else does for them. If you asked me that question, here is how I would respond.
I’ve learned as a student and teacher to recognize three main enemies of learning. They are attitudes in the student: self-doubt, indifference, and pride. If you doubt your capacity to learn, you are right to doubt. If you don’t care whether you learn, you won’t. And if you want to learn without correction from someone else, you’ve chosen the harder way. But if you believe you can learn, if learning rivets your attention, and if you take counsel easily, then you can learn. And you can take for yourself excellence in education
In the April conference of 1844,, the Prophet Joseph Smith said: “It is the first principle of the gospel to know for certainty of the Character of God, and to know that we converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus himself did; and I shall show it from the Bible.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pages 345-46.)
That counsel, taken fully, could transform your ability to achieve educational excellence. To know God as the Prophet advised, will produce attitudes that lead to educational accomplishment. Learning will come only with effort, but you will have the power to give your best effort. Others, without knowledge of God may seem to learn well. But whatever their apparent achievements, they could have done far more. Here is why.
Of all the blocks of learning, self-doubt seems to me to be most common. As a teacher I have learned what first appears to be indifference is often fear of failure. Learning means trying something new. No matter how hard teachers or parents may try to give students success, to learn means trial and error. And errors can always raise the question in us : “Do you have the ability to learn this?” How might the Prophet’s counsel turn those moments of failure from disappointment to a decision to try again?
I know of no better medicine for self-doubt than a testimony that you are a child of God. A child can reasonably expect to become like its father. The more you strain to understand his creations, the greater confidence you can take from being his heir. Elder Mark E. Peterson said it clearly: “Again, the question comes back to what is the objective of education, and the answer must always be that education is to help us properly meet life. And what is the objective of life? . . . . We are out so lay up our plans that we may eventually become like God:” (Talk at Brigham Young University, February 23, 1958.)
A young man appeared in my doorway when I was president of Ricks College. He had arrived a few days before the other students lacking money for either a room or tuition. He stopped by to say hello and asked if I knew how he could earn some money. He was trying college not because his family expected it of him, but because since he joined the Church his desire to learn had grown. And with it grew an understanding that he was a son of God. He found work splitting wood. He found college work hard. He took longer to learn than others. He could reasonably have quit. But he didn’t, in part because he believed Elder Peterson’s instruction literally—eventually he could become like God. If he could learn any truth eventually, then one failure just told him it would take a little longer, not that he could not learn. That gave him persistence and patience. When he tried and couldn’t understand, he tried again. In that, he was closer to genius than he would have dreamed.
Just as self-doubt is an enemy of learning, so is disinterest. Excellence in anything, but especially in learning takes tenacity and discipline. Learning almost never yields to fits and starts of effort. It takes sustained attention. My father taught me that lesson by example and quiet questions. A week after teaching me how to do a physics problem, he found that I had forgotten the method. He was surprised and asked, “But when you walk down the street, or are in the shower, or are whenever you choose what you can think about, don’t you think about physics?” He urged me to choose work where the answer to that question would be “Yes”. He taught me this truth: excellence in education takes absorption complete enough to shut out interruption, diversions, and even clocks.
How can the Prophet Joseph’s advice to know God help you find the power of concentration? When you know, love and, emulate God, you become hungry for learning. Returned missionaries from all over the world write to me. Invariably they say. “As I served God, I came to know Him. I learned that I have covenanted to serve Him forever. And now I want to know more in preparation for my next service.” They don’t quote the 88th section of the Doctrine & Covenants, but they understand it:
“That you may be be instructed more perfectly . . . of things are both in heaven and in earth, and under the earth; things which ave been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things with are abroad; the wars and perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—. . . that ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling where unto I have called you, and the mission, which I have commissioned you.” ~Doctrine and Covenants 88: 78-80. (continued. . . .)
~~Elder Henry B. Eyring ( is a Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Excellence in Education (Deseret Book, 1984) p.19-22
