An interesting story

At stake meeting, a member of the stake presidency told the following story.

My sister was traveling from LA to SLC when she fell into conversation with a woman from Rexburg who said she had been helping her sister with the delivery of her ninth child. It seemed clear the woman was LDS. Soon her story unfolded. I'll call her Ann. When Ann was a teenager her family moved to Beaverton Oregon. They were active in the church, in fact her best friend's mom was her Laurel adviser.

When Ann found herself pregnant out of wedlock, her family disowned her. Her mother gave her a list of homeless shelter's and kicked her out of the home. Shortly after, the family moved to Texas and did not keep in contact with her. Ann was indeed homeless, and remained so during the pregnancy. She begged for food in Portland and lived under a bridge. After the baby was born, she realized she needed a better life plan. She learned of a program that would pay for her to become a kindergarten teacher, even providing daycare for her baby.

Things started to improve for Ann. She went to school and got an apartment. At this time, the father of the child was released from prison (on a DUI charge, which evidently was representative of his lifestyle). He sought out Ann and asked for her assistance. After moving into the apartment, they didn't have enough to survive and eviction was threatened.

One evening they were arguing. The fight turned loud and ugly. In the heat of the argument, there was a knock at the door. The man at the door said simply, "I am your home teacher. What do you need and how can I help?"

They told him that they had no money, and the boyfriend needed a job. The home teacher asked what kind of work he did. He said he had done some construction. The home teacher said he had a concrete business and needed a worker. Could he start tomorrow?

Well, the boyfriend worked for the home teacher for several years. He joined the church and eventually married Ann. Ann says she has no idea how her home teacher found her as she had no contact with the church or her family for several years.

The stake presidency member concluded with, "We are often told to magnify our callings, but we usually interpret that to mean 'make larger'. Instead of making our callings larger, let's try to cause them to increase in intensity."

I loved the home teacher angle, but I couldn't get over why anyone would give their daughter a list of homeless shelters and then leave town. That is totally unbelievable. So you people who live in Rexburg and Beaverton, do you think this really happened?

Graduation Dinner

I was in charge of the graduation dinner again this year. It wasn't given to me until LATE, but it turned out fun. We had awards such as "Loch Ness Award - for least likely to be found" or "Koolaid Gang award - for best group work" or the "Jeff Gordon Award - for the one most likely to be found running to class".

Then we played Family Feud - students against faculty. We collected responses with Survey Monkey.

Perfect Company

Trisha and crew are "homeless" and are drifting between our home and Ben/Michelle's new home in Farmington. They moved out of their home a week ago, and are waiting "patiently" for their new home to be vacated.





They are the perfect company.

They make sure the mice are well behaved.

The know how to relax.

They help with Sunday Dinner.

They greet you as you get home for work.

They are easily entertained.

They have been so much fun to have!

What is fun about teaching...

I used to wonder if teaching would become boring as you explained the same thing over and over and over, year after year. Would you get tired of the sound of your own voice?

Today reminded me of those ponderings. In my multi-agent systems course, we were talking about mechanisms which incentivize participants to be honest. It is a fairly complicated concept with lots of cases, rules, and the math to back it up. We talked about ideas, insights, and counter-examples for much longer than you could have guessed. It was a great volley of ideas as they wondered about other solutions, challenged the rules, and compared the ideas to other topics. It was fun.

I think what is missing from some of our teachers in the church is the ability to REALLY understand and value the comments made (and the comments not made). Questions and answers are often intended to keep the audience awake by having them parrot back definitions and terminology rather than stimulating thinking or wanting real input.

If I’m explaining something difficult to my CS students, I can’t just tell them how to do something, I have to be able to understand their misconceptions and deficiencies and adjust my presentation accordingly. I can’t help them to understand until I really see it from their standpoint. I continually find myself saying, “That is a great thought. I hadn’t considered that before.” And I MEAN it. For me, that is the fun of teaching – to consider things you hadn’t thought of before. In addition, the fun of teaching is to see people understand for the first time as you explain it in a way specifically tailored to their way of thinking.

In the gospel, the concepts are simpler, so (often) we think we can just present the material and there will be no disagreement. Thus, we make the mistake of thinking there is a single point of view. We give lessons that assume everyone in the audience is happily married (in the temple) with children, rather than consider another vantage point.

I admit that mental gymnastics are required of the teacher in being able to hear something you weren’t expecting, understand the motivation, appreciate the viewpoint, react so as not to offend, and incorporate the idea into the presentation without losing the main point of the lesson.

Judge Not

We had a very strange Relief Society lesson yesterday. It was on Charity, which wouldn't have made it odd, but some of the comments were odd. I don't want to be critical, but just trust me, there were some mighty odd comments.

There were four points to help you develop charity. We divided into groups to discuss separate parts. Our part began with "Don't think you are better than everyone else." I thought it was odd - about as thought provoking as "Don't yell at people". Why would they have to tell us not to think we are better than others? Do people really go around thinking they are better than others? I guess I did that in seventh grade, but I hope I've matured a bit since then. I decided the lesson meant to say, "Don't judge others."

Teaching has taught me a good deal about judging. I've decided that most people are doing the best they can, given their priorities. What seems unreasonable behavior to me would likely be completely sane if I just understood their motivations. Students who sleep through class aren't usually telling me I'm boring. They are only saying, "I work the night shift and am sleep deprived."

I remember something that happened several years ago that gives me insight into judging others. I was in charge of the tutor room which seated a half dozen students. The tutor was to encourage the students to leave the tutor room after they had been there too long, so that others could get help. One day, the tutor on duty came to me saying there was a woman that just wouldn't leave when asked. I marched into the tutor room to explain to the student that she really needed to leave. She looked at me, but then went back to her work, totally ignoring what I was saying. I tried repeatedly to explain she needed to leave, but she just kept working as though I weren't there. It really made me mad. I went back to my office and called security to physically remove her from the room. I had barely gotten off the phone when the student came to my office (across the hall from the tutor room) to ask a question. I thought it was a bit odd she would come to me for help, as surely she knew I was angry with her. As soon as she spoke, I turned a hundred shades of red. I hurriedly said, "Excuse me. I need to make a phone call first." I had to call security and tell them not to come. The woman wasn't ignoring me. She was deaf.

I love this thought from Henry Eyring:
"A professor of mine, Ray Bauer, years ago corrected me when I put the label of "irrational" on someone's behavior. He said: 'Hal, you'll understand people better if you assume that people's behavior is rational, at least from their point of view. Try to see what they see.'

A perfect day...

We just watched "The Ultimate Gift". I'm sure we'd seen it before, as after every scene you'd think, "Yeah. I knew that was going to happen."

It did have one line I really like. Emily, who's dying of leukemia, says, "My dream was a perfect day and I'm just finishing it. My dream is to be with people I love, that love each other and that love me."

I love that thought. What a simple wish for a perfect day.

I remember some time ago talking to a friend about a host of things that were less than perfect. As she offered advice, I said something like, "Yeah, that's what my sister would say." She stopped and said, "You have a sister who offers sympathy and insight! Wow. What a blessing. I wish I had a sister like that."

I've thought about that a lot. We all have lots of wonderful things in our lives that we don't often appreciate as much as we should. Thanks to all of you for being part of my perfect days.

Is he nice or crazy?

Chelle was admitted into the hospital on Monday. We hope she'll be there six weeks - waiting for the twins to be big enough to thrive outside the womb. On her first night there, I called and asked, "Is your husband still there? If so I'll call back." She said, "Oh, he's spending the night." I was SURPRISED! Is he just a nice guy or is he crazy? I have spent enough nights at the hospital, both as a patient and as a loved-one, that I know it is an experience to be avoided at all costs. People are in and out of the room all night - checking, prodding, poking. Morning begins before the rooster ever thought of crowing. The light flashes in your eyes as technicians enter and leave. Monitors get out of whack and start beeping. The recliners could pass for torture chambers - not long enough to get comfortable, collapsing into their upright position as you move. If you have to use the bathroom, the patients bathroom is usually off-limits so you are wandering down the hall to find public facilities. You are sleeping in your street clothes - and there is nothing comfortable about that. A night in the hospital is spelled I-N-S-O-M-N-I-A! With a young child or very sick individual who needs someone to speak for them or who is too frightened to stay alone, I have often spent the night at the hospital, but I've never considered staying when my presence was just a matter of nicety.

Yet Ben stayed - just to keep her company. I'm not sure that he isn't a bit crazy, but it sure is nice to know that my daughter and grandkids have such a loving husband and father.

Girls Night Out

It was girls night out while the fellows went to the Priesthood Session. Girls night out was pretty thinly attended (just Chelle and I), but we had a good time. We went to Rumbi's for dinner, and ran into Judy and Jessica Nielson. I hadn't seen Jessica for a while, so we had a good time visiting. She asked me to tell Lori and Kim she asked about them. We also saw Renee and Dan (from work).

Following dinner, Chelle and I had crafts night. Lisa and Cara motivated us with their burp cloths. We couldn't decide which kind was better (diaper backed rectangles or flannel backed bean shaped), so we made some of each. We bought some cute pink fabric, but also used all kinds of flannel remnants. I'm guessing even twins can't use all the burp cloths we made. We were motivated to finish the quilts that had been embroidered (by Chelle and by Grandma Hurst), so we planned fabric for those as well.

Chelle enters the hospital Monday!