CHARITY COVERETH A MULTITUDE OF [TEACHING] SINS

CHARITY SHALL COVER A MULTITUDE OF [TEACHING] SINS

 (1 Peter 4:8)

The baby was wailing. My wife and I were both playing possum, hoping the other would get up and take care of things.

“Honey, please?”

Four children under five, all day and much of the night – my wife had had it.

I dutifully arose, fixed a bottle, changed a diaper, fed the precious little one and rocked him back to sleep. As I was climbing back in, there arose a howl from the girls’ room. It was the three year old. The bed was wet and she was bellowing in chagrin and embarrassment. I took care of it.

And the alarm still went off at 3:30 a.m! One of the myriad duties of a Seminary and Institute coordinator is to visit the seminary classes under his watch. The one I had scheduled was 1½ hours away and began at the unearthly hour of 5:30, due to before-school marching band.

I had just the previous summer been trained on how to train the volunteer teachers. I had begun the process in our monthly in-service meetings. But this teacher – she must not have heard a thing. I had not up to that point been witness to teaching so diametrically opposed to the standard set by the Salt Lake City experts.

All I could think of during the drive home was how in the world could one help a teacher like her, thus saving her poor students from imploding due to boredom.

A few days later the phone rang. It was one of those Salt Lake City experts. “Bro. Boyce, you’ve got a teacher down there in Oklahoma City.”

She’s so bad her reputation has reached Salt Lake? I thought. “Yeah, I visited her last week. She’s somethin’ else, all right. What can I do?”

“You can go right back down and visit her again, that’s what you can do. Then let us in on her secret. Percentage-wise she’s got the highest enrollment of any early-morning seminary class in the Church, and over the last three years she has the highest completion rate.”

“What? She’s a walking cure for insomnia!”

“Were they asleep when you visited?”

“How should I know? I was out like a light five minutes into her drone! But come to think of it, no one was late, and they all seemed happy when they left.”

“She must be doing something right, because her results don’t lie – consistent excellence over years. Go find out, ok, and let us know –we need to get the word out to the rest of our teachers.”

I went back with new eyes and a prayer in my heart. I noticed that she greeted each of her students by name as they arrived, and asked about something she knew was going on in their lives. During class, as they were doing a worksheet (I believe the politically correct term is “learning aid” these days), she took the time to speak briefly to each one. As they were leaving she wished them well, one by one. I suddenly knew what to report to the experts.