"You are under mandate to pursue -- not just while you are here, but throughout your lives -- educational excellence. That is true for you as individual members of the Church and for this university as a community." (emphasis added)
Mandate seems like pretty strong language to me, and according to Elder Eyring it applies not just to students but to all members of the church. The emphasis that the church puts on education is one of my (if not my) favorite thing about church. I love that we have scriptures that emphasize the importance of knowledge and intelligence as well as modern prophets that tell us how important it is to learn.
Eyring goes on to list several things that can help people be better learners, like hard work, humility, and the ability to overcome resistance. I'm taking this freshmen level course during my fifth year here at BYU. I know I'm not the only non-freshman to take this class, and from what I've seen I think it is easy for most upperclassmen to feel a little aloof it a class like this. I'm sure if I came to this class with the attitude that it was somehow beneath me, I could experience it as such and not learn much from it. However, I think I'd be better off recognizing that I have plenty to learn about how to write, and hopefully I wont think of this class as as a course I "have" to take but as one I "get" to take. We'll see...
I didn't realize that Elder Eyring uses the world "mandate" when he tells us it's our obligation to pursue educational education throughout our lives. This puts strong importance on continuing to learn throughout life, something I'll have to work on even after I graduate.
ReplyDeletei think it's awesome that you've decided to approach the class with a good attitude and just learn what you can from it. i kind of felt the same way when i first came to class, and then i realized that we have a lot of interesting and unique people in our class that i can learn from. non-freshmen in writing 150 for the win :)
ReplyDeleteI know this post is a bit old now. I agree with what you said about attitude. I think that plays a big part in what we take from a class. If we have the attitude that a class won't teach us anything, we won't learn anything and we will be wasting our education. Every class has something they can teach you, you just have to be willing to try.
ReplyDeletebeing a good student is good, but it is also important to be a good person, always strive to being better can be hard but it is good for us
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