Bednar

Elder Bednar began his Conference address by telling us of an incident in which he was driving on a road that "appeared to be quite safe" although "an electronic sign displayed a timely warning: Standing Water Ahead. I understood this because my parents retired to a small town in the Arizona desert where there were similar signs. Their neighbor lost her life by not obeying one of them.

Elder Bednar said we are also "blessed by spiritual early warning signals as a source of protection and direction in our lives."

The first several times I listened to this address I thought it strange that he would use "warning signs" to introduce a talk that was really about how we should be teaching our children. Then I printed the talk and read it carefully, and I soon saw that he was actually saying that by teaching through "three holy habits" we will come to know our children's hearts and needs, and we will know how to guide them. He is challenging us to take several giant steps forward. Once I understood this, I put a copy of the talk in my scriptures where it seemed to belong.

Elder Bednar gave us three examples of early spiritual warning signs given to parents for the protection of their children: Noah, who was told to build a houseboat to save his family from the flood; Lehi, who was warned to flee Jerusalem and take his family on a long camping trip; and Joseph, who was told by an angel to take Mary and young Jesus and flee to Egypt for a while.

I don't know what Elder Bednar intended, but I did notice that these three fathers all fled. No one watching applauded them for their heroic act, and many thought they were deranged, including, at least in Lehi's family, some of their own children. Nevertheless, these fathers left! They didn't stay around to send their children to be "missionaries" in a Satanic stronghold (which is not to deny that someone else might have been told to stay but to recognize that there are plenty of precedents for leaving).

Elder Bednar told us to consider the warning given in the Word of Wisdom about the "evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days" and to watch "with all perseverance." Maybe he really wanted to reach out and shake us 'till we got the message!

But . . . if we leave, where do we go? Do we build a boat? Pack our tents? Noooo. We gather spiritually -- and sometimes physically -- in our stakes. In the April 1994 General Conference, President Boyd K. Packer, speaking of stakes, said:

As we continue on our course, these things will follow as night the day:

The distance between the Church and a world set on a course which we cannot follow will steadily increase.

Some will fall away into apostasy, break their covenants, and replace the plan of redemption with their own rules.

Across the world, those who now come by the tens of thousands will inevitably come as a flood to where the family is safe. Here they will worship the Father in the name of Christ, by the gift of the Holy Ghost, and know that the gospel is the great plan of happiness, of redemption, of which I bear witness in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

In a radio interview of Dallin H. Oaks and his wife, Kristen, Sherry Dew spoke of the speech on religious freedom which Elder Oaks had given at BYU-Idaho in 2009. He had said, "The tide of public opinion in favor of religion is receding." Sister Dew asked, "Do you think the tide can be reversed?" Elder Oaks answered, "I'm not sure the tide can be reversed, but I'm sure that, like a rock in the middle of the stream, we can create a little quiet water behind the rock in which we can do our work."

For me, that quiet water represents our stakes. "Our work" includes the teaching of our children in our homes. We go out into the rapids to do our missionary work. This reminds me of Roger William's beautiful analogy of the church being like a garden. We wrote about that some years ago. Read it here.

The First Holy Habit
Elder Bednar tells us three ways in which we can effectively teach our children and watch for early warning signs at the same time. The first "component," which he later refers to as a habit, is "Reading and Talking about the Book of Mormon." He tells us that this holy book has a spiritual ability to help us "get nearer to God," "resist temptation," and "produce feelings of love within our families."

There is another reason why the Book of Mormon is so miraculous. Some years ago Elder Grant Von Harrison, a reading specialist from BYU, wrote a manual that was used by missionaries all over the world to teach people to read. Brother Von Harrison found by computer analysis that the Book of Mormon is a superb student reader due to the phonetic patterns of the words. Read about this amazing "tender mercy" from our loving Father here.

Elder Bednar wants us to learn to talk to our children as we read with them. He says that "discussions about the doctrines and principles in the Book of Mormon provide opportunities for parents to observe their children, to listen to them, to learn from them, and to teach them" and that "such conversations can help parents to discern what their children are learning, thinking, and feeling about the truths contained in this sacred volume of scripture, as well as the difficulties they may be facing."

Learning to talk less and listen more are basic in-home teaching and child-rescuing skills, but they are not easily mastered. Homeschoolers have the fortunate opportunity to practice all day long!

The Second Holy Habit
The second of what Elder Bednar calls the "Three Holy Habits" is to bear testimony spontaneously. Elder Bednar had already instructed us in a previous conference to bear testimony in our families, but I suppose we all brought the formality of church testimony meetings into our homes. This is exactly the same transition parents need to make from classroom school to home school. Many parents begin homeschooling by bringing a public school culture into their homes, with rigid schedules and textbook curriculums. After a while the children begin to resent the classroom atmosphere and the lack of choices, so the parents either give up and return them to school (where the social life compensates for the blandness of the education) or they move to a more informal approach with somewhat structured time but more freedom of choice within the structure.

Elder Bednar says,

In fact, the less regimented such testimony sharing is, the greater the likelihood for edification and lasting impact. . . . "A child's expression about a lesson learned in family scripture study or a candid statement of concern about a gospel principle or practice can be most illuminating and help parents better understand a child's specific question or needs. Such discussions -- especially when parents are as eager to listen intently as they are to talk -- can foster a supportive and secure environment in the home and encourage ongoing communication about difficult topics.(emphasis ours)

And the listening more and talking less challenge is part of this habit too!

Can we put testimonies and gospel discussions into our family culture and into our conversations? And can we also do so with our homeschooling? Education is not so much about getting to the end of the chapter or completing assignments as it is about building faith and character and educating the heart and hands. It's less about what facts we've mastered and more about what we've become.

Early warning signs are just the beginning of what we can watch for; we will also learn to see growth and talents and many other things as we listen and learn from our children.

The Third Holy Habit
The third habit is "Inviting Children to Act." This habit is also foundational to our homeschooling. Elder Bednar said,

Giving a man a fish feeds him for one meal. Teaching a man to fish feeds him for a lifetime. As parents and gospel instructors, you and I are not in the business of distributing fish; rather, our work is to help our children learn "to fish" and to become spiritually steadfast.

What a great phrase: Spiritually Steadfast. I can see my photographer daughter taking a picture of a nicely dressed child, standing tall on a rock, scriptures in hand, with "Spiritually Steadfast" written above. (If homeschoolers are going to take "school pictures" they ought to have purpose.)

Elder Bednar continues,

This vital objective is best accomplished as we encourage our children to act in accordance with correct principles-as we help them to learn by doing. . . Such learning requires spiritual, mental, and physical exertion and not just passive reception. . . .

Imagine, for example, a family home evening in which children are invited and expected to come prepared to ask questions about what they are reading and learning in the Book of Mormon-or about an issue that recently was emphasized in a gospel discussion or spontaneous testimony in the home. And imagine further that the children ask questions the parents are not prepared adequately to answer. Some parents might be apprehensive about such an unstructured approach to home evening. But the best family home evenings are not necessarily the product of prepared, purchased, or downloaded packets of outlines and visual aids. What a glorious opportunity for family members to search the scriptures together and to be tutored by the Holy Ghost.

There are several parts to these lines. First, the kind of learning we are being taught takes active involvement. We don't just sit and listen; we work hard, spiritually, mentally, and physically. Remember when Elder Bednar told us how he had cut pages of scripture apart (photocopies, we hope and sorted them into piles?

Second, children are "invited and expected to come prepared to ask questions." This presupposes that our children are engaged in independent study and that they are willing to accept the invitation. For some families, this will be a stretch and will require much bended knee time, but don't give up. And remember to walk beside. No finger-wagging!

Third, it seems clear that Elder Bednar would have us learn to welcome questions, even when -- or especially when -- we can't answer them. We should cherish the questions. They can keep our families mentally and spiritually alert and open to new information. They can keep us bonded in searching and questioning activities for years to come. We need to upgrade our thinking and our conversations and our family culture.

Fourth, I don't know exactly what he means when he speaks of "prepared, purchased, or downloaded packets of outlines and visual aids," but my guess - and it's only a guess - is that these things, when they are accurate, may be helpful for understanding or remembering or as foundations for questions and discussions -- but they are not the lesson. We want to use them to feed our growth, not to chain us in dependency. And we don't want to use the works of others to excuse us from our own responsibility to study. Elder Bednar is a master of using visuals, even when he has to use word pictures. Remember the pickles, the family night antics, and the brush strokes of the wheat field?

Fifth, when Elder Bednar says, "the best family home evenings are not necessarily the product of" the visuals and downloads he seems to be clearly suggesting that the highest learning experiences can happen when it's just our family, the word of God, and the Holy Ghost. The power is in the Holy Ghost - who Elder Scott has taught comes when we ask questions. The thought of what can happen in the intimacy of a family on a quest for knowledge leaves me without words.

So, bringing us back to the practical, Elder Bednar reminds us again: "Are you and I helping our children become agents who act and seek learning by study and by faith, or have we trained our children to wait to be taught and acted upon?"

We should also ask that question about our homeschooling methods.

Many years ago I had occasion to go visiting teaching on a school holiday. The lady I visited had several daughters the same ages as my daughters. When I left my home my daughters were busily engaged in creative activities of their own; at my friend's home her daughters were hanging all over her, waiting to be told what to do as they had been trained in the classroom. Their mother, of course, had no direction to give because there was no "fishing" in her family culture; the school always did that. In frustration she asked, "How can you stand to have your children home every day?"

I have said many times that children who have been told what to do and how to do it all their lives are ill prepared for the self-directed structure of college life where no one wakes them up in the morning, gets them to class, and manages their study time and their money. It's best to let our children practice self-government when they are young and the mistakes are less costly. I will still say that, but Elder Bednar has added new layers to this principle.

I have also pointed out that college classes (not to be confused with the college lifestyle) are usually tightly structured. Graduates leave school with few habits of self-directed learning and little desire to pick up an unassigned book simply for the sheer joy of learning. That's why what Elder Bednar is teaching is so difficult for adults, including homeschoolers, to implement - we have to develop our own new habits first and we have to break with tradition.

I've known homeschoolers to be terrified that they might neglect to give their child some important fish (fact) or that if their child hasn't digested a particular fish (subject) by a certain age his life will be ruined. That's why our children must become fishermen and why this talk will remain in my scriptures ("this" meaning Elder Bednar's talk, in his own words, not my ramblings).

There is more, but I think I should stop here and say again, this talk is God's word to us through an apostle. It teaches family leadership at a new level. It is our guide to the best possible methods of teaching our children known to us so far. It gives us the best hope that our children will be equipped to stay faithful on their own. It is our ticket to exciting adventures on the road to Zion.

We've brought our children home; let's spend our precious time with them on the high road, "with all perseverance."