Stake Conference

So, I love stake conference, but it is much harder to pay attention when you have an active 2 year old. One thing that really stood out to me though was that my stake president said, that when you are an example, you are not only an example to those people who are not members, but you are also an example to those who are faithful and as active members as you. That really rang true to me and I reflected in my life how many good members of the church really have taught me how to be a good wife and a mother just by being examples to me!!

Creating Thinkers

‘Thinking means shuffling, relating, selecting the contents of one’s mind so as to assimilate novelty, digest it and create order.’ (Jacques Barzun pg. 47)

It is important to be a thinker and passing on that legacy to our children is just as important. Public education seems to pull more and more away from creating thinkers because many careers do not require thinking. The job of public schools is to create workers by teaching students how to work hard at anything (Robert Maynard Hutchins pg. 55); then, those students who are successful at school will be successful in their careers. In my own experience as a student and as a teacher, I have seen many teachers base their students’ grades upon the busy work they give in class. Busy work doesn’t require the students to think for their class work, homework, and tests, but causes them to work in order to get a good grade. Society accepts this and has changed many of its standards to say if you work hard than you are a good employee; I can think of very few jobs that require thinking skills. Often, only the very top people in a business know how to think and any person who wants to make it that far will learn how to think on the way or when they are thrown into the job.

To make matters worse, many teachers in public education have not been taught how to think. I taught in a public school for two years. During that time I had mentors who knew how to think and passed that skill on to me. However, many teachers do not have that opportunity and they end up never learning to think. Universities do not include thinking in the curriculum of the classes they teach and Praxis tests (the current test that all teachers of K-12 must pass to become licensed teachers) do not establish whether a prospective teacher will be able to think. So a lot of teachers teach the way they have been taught using what I like to call the regurgitation method – learning facts and giving them back.

A few students have learned how to think before entering public education or in the process of attending public education. When teachers who do not know how to think encounter these students they are scared and do not know what to do; after all, their lesson manuals don’t tell them how to teach a student who already knows what is being taught. Thus “the more limited mind will try to compress and head off the richer,” (Jacques Barzun pg. 46) simply because they can’t teach what they don’t know. A quick example: many fourth grade teachers do not know how to do algebra, but if they have a student who is ready for algebra they simply cannot teach it to him. No wonder so many intelligent students flounder in a public school environment. “For most people, thinking is dreary uphill work.” (Jacques Barzun pg. 47) As I wrote this paper, I had an epiphany: “I don’t like to write papers because it requires me to think. It requires me to use my brain to create something new, develop opinions, and write about them.” Thinking does require a lot of piecing together and producing coherent ideas. Furthermore, a thinker must tune himself to the deep and unknown inside and to God as well. Public schools are forcing God (or any higher power) out creating another difficulty with producing thinkers. Without acknowledging and allowing God’s influence and power in our lives we lose a real beacon to our knowledge. God is the Creator of all things, so if we want to understand them, then we must seek for His inspiration and guidance.

The last problem with teaching thinkers is that it takes time to develop thinking skills. If I want to develop thinking skills then I must study all sorts of ideas. I must study nature, literature, great thinkers, history, math and the list could go on and on. I must associate myself with thinkers and learn from them. It takes practice and work to develop thinking skills. Once I become a thinker then I can pass that legacy on to my children and other children whom I associate with. But I must be careful how I do it. Thinking skills have to be developed and it is best that they are developed at the hands of thinkers. I have known many people in my life that did not just give me the answers, but made me search my heart for what I thought was best. They encouraged me, they asked me questions that helped me to develop my thinking skills, but they never gave me the answers. Teaching should include this philosophy of making people work for their answers and come to conclusions with the support and help of their mentors. A thinking education must include classics, because classics are books that require thinking to understand. Books inspire greatness. (Ralph Waldo Emerson par. 15) It also must include math – math that necessitates logical reasoning and proof. As a math major, I can definitely see the difference between math that is taught in schools and pure thinking math. Math is so much more than just solving problems; it is learning to think logically and rationally.

Finally, a thinker must be called to action. It is not good enough for a person to know how to think without using it. Thus, it is important to give a child opportunity to practice using their thinking skills in a controlled environment. “Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary…a great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson par. 28) In order to build a society of character and morality we must first return to teaching thinking skills, and then we need to call those thinking skills to action. Public schools do not create thinkers. If I want my children to know how to think then I must first learn how to think myself and then pass that skill onto my children. It is important to know that it will take time and it must include God, classics, math, and a call to action. However, the sacrifice that is necessary for the building of thinkers will be worth it and it will create a stronger nation. Works Cited Jacques Barzun. Teacher in America. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The American Scholar. Nature: Addresses and Lectures.1849. http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (6/8/2010). Robert Maynard Hutchins. The Higher Learning in America. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2009.