Education Week

Last week, Coral and I attended Education Week at BYU. I have never before been interested in attending. I am generally bugged by members of the Church who make careers out of recycling principles of the Gospel for sale to other members and by religion teachers whose primary teaching style seems to be entertainment and popularity. While a student at Ricks and BYU, I dubbed such teachers 'Game Show Hosts' and avoided their classes.

I think my issue is this: I was taught the Gospel primarily by my parents. My mother taught us at home and in Seminary in a very straight forward and straight out of the scriptures manner. My father taught primarily by example- his model of personal conduct and church service are unrivaled in my experience. Anything that seems different from the way I learned the Gospel at home, seems suspicious to me. And yet, I am living and rearing my children in a place where the Church is a cultural force as well as my own personal and family religion.

Coral has been attending Ed Week since we moved here as an alternative to EFY- there are many offerings at Ed Week for youth 14-17 and she chooses from the adult offerings as well. She has participated before with friends, but ended up this year without a companion. India is not old enough yet and wanted to earn money babysitting Leith. She is saving for an IPod. So, I, primarily to meet their needs, agreed to accompany Coral to Education Week.

As I waded through the class schedule, I immediately ruled out such offerings as "Be All the Woman You Can Be", "Ideas for SUPER-busy Moms", "Never a Dull Moment", and "Making Your Home Fun"(Kevin said, "Why start now?")

I did make a few mistakes. One parenting class I tried turned out to have a teacher -read: author of popular parenting books- who was doing an aging, Mormon, white-guy version of Bill Cosby's classic parenting routine, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!" His topic was anger issues in the home(not that we have any), but he basically yelled at us for an hour, eliciting huge laughs from the audience. Ugh!

Coral and I both went to a class on the importance of music in the home for young children. It was basically a lounge act comprised of Primary songs. The teacher actually leaned into the mic, at one point, and said, "Sing with me, now", and broke into "Give Said the Little Stream" with a very elaborate piano accompaniment. We bailed.

Coral had her own dramas sitting next to seat hogs and being disappointed in some classes, but enjoyed a number of music classes by people like Michael Ballam and Jenny Oaks Baker and a great class on the writings of C.S. Lewis.

I settle into a satisfying schedule of three main teachers throughout the week. I attended as many sessions as I could of Richard Holzapfel teaching on the writings of Luke, Dallin D Oaks teaching on the History of the English Language, and David E. Bokovoy teaching on Ancient Temple Worship. I actually learned a lot. And, I didn't mind too much when they were entertaining. Bro. Bokovoy referred us to an article that he wrote, but made sure we knew where to find it for free on the Internet. He said, "I'm not in this for the money, I'm in it for the glory!"

I'm not sure I can give a whole hearted endorsement to the whole experience, but I did attend some great classes. A friend asked me if I would go again and I think I might.