An old friend used to tell me often that whatever we are doing, we are always teaching. Every word we speak, every action, every facial expression, every decision we make, and how we approach every moment in our lives, results in a communication to others – as well as to ourselves – that reveals something about what we really think and believe; and such communication is the essence of tea ching. The most important opportunities we get to teach, however, are in our own homes, with each other and with our children.
The significance of the difference made by our teaching depends on both what we are teaching and whether we are teaching on purpose or accidentally.
Of all the things that we can teach, those things that we believe most deeply, that matter most in determining the course and character of our lives, are the most important. This is reflected in the modern endeavour to train professional teachers to give primary attention to teaching such non-cognitive skills as empathy, optimism and emotional intelligence (see, for example, here), which contribute to the happiness, satisfaction and personal success of students; but this is by no means a new idea. In Proverbs, for example, the writer is most anxious that his son learns wisdom, more than knowledge. In chapter 4, verse 7, he says, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding," and in chapter 1, verse 7, had warned, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."
For Christians, this begins with the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But as important as it is to get the right subject matter, also important is teaching in the right style. A deliberate and purposeful approach to teaching is critical, and this begins with a consciously developed personal example.
Teachers of professional teachers recognize that "in order to cultivate [particular] skills and attributes in students, teachers must possess them as well." (cf. "Training Educators to teach what matters".) Also for anyone who wishes to convey principles of importance - particularly those of religious and moral significance - this element cannot be ignored. This isn't about faking it, though; example, to be effective, must be real. As Doctrine and Covenants 42:14 warns, if you are not worthy yourself to receive God's Spirit, "ye shall not teach."
We should actively and consciously endeavour that every lesson others will learn from seeing our examples will be a positive one, particularly when it comes to principles of faith and the effort to effect real goodness in our lives.
In addition to teaching by example are the more obvious, formal teaching opportunities we are given from time to time. In our homes, these include structured opportunities, such as what in the Church we call "Family Home Evenings," and perhaps family scripture reading times each morning or evening, as we have been encouraged by our Church leaders to do. I cannot overstate the importance and the possible benefits that come – even if our children are not listening or even capable yet of listening – from having such regular, structured opportunities for gospel discussions within our families in which we share our own experiences and testimonies relating to the principles of the gospel.
These things will have far more impact on our families when heard sincerely expressed within the walls of our own homes than from the pulpits of the Church.
But teaching in the home also includes the more or less unstructured and even spontaneous opportunities we have to share our testimonies and to talk with one another about gospel principles and doctrine. Even what we say to someone else within earshot of our children may impact their understanding of the gospel, as they hear us share with someone else the things that we know or believe. To make those teaching opportunities more effective – so that they supplement our examples in lasting positive ways – we need to understand more than just the doctrines or principles we hope to communicate; we need to have a better awareness of what it is that needs to be going on inside of the person we want to teach, what sort of education they are going to receive.
There was a reason for waiting till now to introduce the word, "education". I mentioned earlier that the essence of teaching is the delivery or communication of ideas. This is true about teaching; but everything has a flip-side, and
the flip-side of teaching is education.
Understanding and applying knowledge of this flip-side factor is crucial to making the impact of our teaching most effective and enduring.
The word, education, comes from the Latin word, educare, which implies not merely giving or acquiring knowledge, but the drawing out of someone his or her inner character.
To the extent that teaching is about delivery, education is about discovery.
Or, in other words, teaching is about putting in; education is about drawing out.
As someone is taught, he or she acquires knowledge of facts; but as someone is educated, he or she becomes a changed and better person. Our goal, in every teaching opportunity we have, should be not merely to teach – which is really “all about me” – but to educate, which is really all about the other person.
This means that in our teaching – and this applies whether we are teaching at home, in the church, or in any other setting – we need to be concerned less about the delivery of information and more about the discovery process going on inside of the person we are teaching.
Because we know that every one of us is a child of God, this idea should have for us a profound and important meaning. It means that when we seek to educate one another about the gospel – again, whether in the Church or in our homes – what we should intend is to help that person discover his or her own divine nature, to find the well of spirituality that resides within and enables him or her to communicate with God, to receive the gift and gifts His Spirit, and to find the peace and joy that comes from the atonement of Jesus Christ. This is something you can’t do merely by teaching. You can dump all the facts and intelligence in the world on someone, and it will not cause him or her to find God, or to find his or her own divine nature. It might make him or her think about it; it might cause him or her to ponder; but it won’t be the trigger that makes it actually happen.
So what is the trigger? What can you do to make your children, spouse or other loved ones discover the truth about themselves, their lives, their natures, their divine potentials and the keys to their eternal happiness?
The answer is: nothing. There is nothing you or I can do to make it happen. Agency prohibits this. But we can help to make it possible. That is, although we can’t make him drink, we can still lead the horse to the water; and we should do so.
In teaching the gospel – in seeking to educate anybody about God’s truths – in our homes or elsewhere, all we can do, and what we should always strive to do, is to give them opportunities to have truly educational experiences. We can do this in various ways, but we can’t begin to know what those ways are until we understand what it is that triggers an educational experience in so far as the gospel is concerned.
A clue to this is found in the words of the prophet Nephi who declared that it is the Holy Ghost which would carry his word into the hearts of his hearers (2 Nephi 33:1). Jesus also taught us that it is the Holy Ghost that would bring to our minds the truths we have heard; and we also know that it is the Holy Ghost who is the reveler of truth and is the Comforter who brings to us the transforming power of the atonement and the ability to truly change and grow into our divine potential. (cf. John 14:26 and 16:13-15.)
Therefore, in order to help someone become educated, our role is to help them have an experience with the Holy Ghost.
Of course, we don’t command the Holy Ghost. We can’t schedule Him in for a particular time and tell Him what He ought to do to educate our children. What we can do, however, is ask for Him to be present, and we can create an atmosphere in which His Presence can be felt.
Creating an atmosphere for a spiritual educational experience in our homes might include simple subtleties such helping to keep the home neat, organized, free of distractions, and maintaining a sense of calm and peace. It can also be accomplished through more direct methods, such as singing hymns or watching uplifting videos. We can share experiences, relate stories or read scriptures that encourage the person to open his or her mind and heart.
A person’s heart and mind are most readily open when there is trust – so perhaps our key “tool” would be making obvious the genuine trustworthiness of our own character, and extending ourselves in real and substantial friendship to others.
But let’s not be fooled – any of these efforts can fail, and a multitude of other environments and activities might succeed. It is my belief that the real key is this: it is your acknowledgement and understanding that the real teacher is the Holy Spirit, that only He has the power, ability and authority to reach into the hearts and minds of men and show them who they truly are; and so what we must really do, first and foremost, is to seek His help, His guidance, His instruction, His intervention, so that what we do is what He wants us to do so that He might be able to help educate the person we desire to teach.
Even after all this, however, we must be prepared to accept that our message might not get through: that the truths we cherish and desire out of real love to share with someone else, even in our own homes, and notwithstanding the inspiration and presence of the Holy Spirit, might still be rejected. This is a terrible truth; but it is a truth we must accept.
It is a truth we must accept and we must also be aware that it can happen to anybody. Even those most faithful seeming amongst us might fall prey to the risk of rejecting righteous truths. And the reason for this is both unsettling and inspirational – it is because we all believe some things which are not true.
“Unsettling” might be the first response to this fact.
None of us knows everything, and each of us at times in our lives fills in the gaps in our knowledge or understanding with some false item of doctrine, some false fact of science or history, or some other incorrect idea about things. And any one of these errors can at any time have an impact on our ability to understand and accept certain principles of the gospel.
I encountered one example of this during a discussion with my son, who had become confused about the fact that spiritual feelings, like the burning in the bosom and other sensations we describe as manifesting the testimony of the Spirit to us, are sometimes felt outside of Church meetings and even by people who are not members of the Church. How, he asked, can those things be anything other than just regular emotions, since anyone can feel them in regard to anything? His question was sincere, but he had missed out on a basic fact – that the Spirit does speak to all people and it testifies of all truth. Truth exists everywhere, and good people, doing or experiencing or witnessing good things, in any context anywhere in the world, will feel, through the medium of the Light of Christ at least, the testifying, confirming, enriching and uplifting influence of the Holy Ghost. This blessing is not reserved solely for members of the Church or solely for Church experiences, but it will always only testify of what is good and true.
Well, each of us makes mistakes. That part of life is unsettling. The key to living well is overcoming them. That part can be inspirational.
When we humbly acknowledge our tendency to believe in some things which are not true, then our lifelong goal and effort can be to continually open and re-open our minds and hearts to the influence of God’s Spirit in the hope of eradicating false ideas and developing a love for and growing comprehension of truth. Jesus taught us that his path involves a pattern of both practicing and studying the gospel, including when he said, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God,” (John 7:17).
The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of learning by doing, of education by experience; thus we learn by study and also by faith.
But back to the topic of rejection: When this happens, when a loved one fails to understand and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the simple correction of a false idea doesn’t resolve the problem, does this mean we have failed? No. We cannot be blamed for sincere efforts undertaken out of love, and we cannot be responsible for our loved one’s refusal to accept them. But let me add this – this does not mean we shouldn’t care.
There are those, even within the Church, who will tell you that because you aren’t responsible you also needn’t “feel bad”. I do not believe this. Doesn’t Enoch tell us that even the heavens weep for the suffering man inflicts upon himself because he has exercised his agency to reject God? (cf. Moses 7:28-37.) If God, perfect as He is, weeps over us, surely it is no discredit to our characters if we weep for one another, particularly the members of our own families.
And as Enoch saw and contemplated these things, the scripture says, “[he] knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook,” (Moses 7:41). What beautiful language to inform us that deep and passionate love for others sometimes hurts, and that especially the loss of our loved ones to miseries they could escape if they were only willing to learn, is worthy of our deepest sorrow.
Then let us also remember that Enoch next saw the salvation of man as he witnessed the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, even Jesus Christ, and, the scripture says, “his soul rejoiced,” (Moses 7:47). We too can rejoice in the fact that even when our loved ones reject the teachings of the gospel at a certain stage in their lives, and even though this might bring misery to them that they could otherwise have avoided, all is not lost. The atonement has claim upon them if they are willing to receive it; and the Spirit will not cease too quickly to strive and follow after them.
When this is the stage we have reached in the teaching of the gospel to our family, what is left to us is our own faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his enabling grace, relying upon which we should continue to invoke the very last teaching tool that we have, which is to do as Alma the Elder did for his significantly wayward son: that is, to pray. Pray and trust that God in his wisdom will find and implement the way to reach that wandering child, worried spouse, doubting friend, discouraged neighbour, cousin, aunt, uncle or parent, and then our role becomes simply to wait and see the fulfillment of God’s grace, with arms kept open and hearts stretched wide as eternity to express our own undying love for them and to receive them back again. (cf. Mosiah 27:14.)
It is my belief that as we seek to follow the influence of the Holy Spirit to help educate our family members,. rather than merely to teach them, and as we strive to create an atmosphere in which gospel learning can thrive in our homes, including setting examples for one another of genuine faith in God and in His Son, Jesus Christ, the opportunities for each member of our households to understand and accept the gospel and its blessings increase. Collectively, there will be greater peace, satisfaction and a feeling of hope that each one will enjoy the presence of God in their lives and the rewards of His gospel eternally.