Today I have the day off, and for once after many moons, enjoyed being able to read my scriptures in the morning, rather than rolling out of bed just in time to rush to school. I'm teaching nursery in my ward and also Gospel Doctrine, so I'm glad for the extra push I've needed to study lessons when I otherwise wouldn't have made time. A couple weeks ago I taught all the "little books" of the Book of Mormon, wherein lies my favorite scripture story about Enos. However, I felt impressed to cut all the cool insights from his book out of my lesson and focus on how the Book of Mormon is organized as a journal of the prophets. It was a reminder of how blessed we are to have the scriptures because people unlike myself journal as they should. Thank goodness we can count on the scriptures as the most accurate, comprehensive, and applicable journal for all Heavenly Father's children.
This morning I re-read the first chapter of Mosiah that gave me similar pause. Verse 4 says, "For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates." Sounds basic, right? We need the scriptures to teach our children.
This verse to me, however, was an "ah-ha" moment. With the event of the after-school class and boyfriend this semester, combined with getting lazier as the school year goes on, my planning of school lessons is almost non-existent. I am often asking myself, "What am I supposed to teach?" It doesn't seem to matter than I can follow the curriculum, let alone my scope and sequence or state core standards. That all gets too complicated for me. I'm simply just making things up as I see fit. In some ways this can be good for flexibility. In other ways I feel unprepared, not only as a teacher, but as a future parent. There are so many good books and information and ideas out there. I don't want to waste my students' and children's time. How do I get it all in, or rather, what do I choose to get in? How am I supposed to know what to do and what to leave out?
I realized that just as my mind is eased when I have an outline of mere lesson topics for school, the scriptures can be my learning/teaching outline for home! They have the necessary knowledge and a guide for what concepts to teach my children. Hallelujah! You mean I don't have to come up with a new curriculum for my future children to be the best mom ever? You mean everything I need to teach them is right there? Seems a little extreme, as secular knowledge is of course good, too. However, this quote by my favorite prophet, President McKay says: "Gaining knowledge is one thing, and applying it, quite another. Wisdom is the right application of knowledge, and true education-the education for which the Church stands-is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and God-like character" (April 1968 Conference, emphasis added). Seems like, in line with what President Packer taught, that I'll be okay if I stick to the doctrine that helps builds God-like character. Why look harder than I need to when the Lord has laid it out in his Word?
