Personal Progress makeover

Posting thrice in one day...what is it, the day after Christmas or something? :)

I just got my January New Era in the mail, and there are new things afoot in Personal Progress. The YW homepage has an overview but the details (and pictures) are in the January 2010 New Era, 32-35.

Here's the scoop:

revised Personal Progress, in feminized pink, with some updating and more emphasis on preparation for temple covenants.

new class symbols: Beehive, Mia Maid rose, and Laurel wreath (Reese nailed that one months ago).

new medallions, which incorporate all those symbols, plus a "ruby" gem (Proverbs 31:10, the virtuous woman being far above rubies). In silvertone or goldtone.

after completing Personal Progress, you can earn an "honor bee" charm that slides along the same chain, by reading the Book of Mormon again & doing more service like helping another YW with her Personal Progress.

you earn a gold sticker for each value project/experience. As you complete each value, you earn a jeweled ribbon scripture marker; they slide into a keeper which inserts into the spine of your scriptures.

new theme poster (again, now with more pink).

wards should wait to get their new materials before planning New Beginnings.

I'm okay with the pink, and I think I can get the hang of all the new sparkly doodads, but my only complaint is with the description of the leadership opportunities the program provides: "doing this will help you learn the leadership skills for your future roles as a wife, mother, and homemaker" (34). End of sentence.

I'm still waiting/hoping/wishing for some recognition of feminine roles that are intrinsic to one's self as (say) a daughter of God, woman of faith, or Christian disciple. This list excludes single women (which all of our YW will be at some point after leaving the program and some will be throughout their lives), as well as the idea of a career or higher education, and ignores women's increasingly important role as leaders in the community and world - none of which, I note, depend on marriage, childbearing capacity, or domestic duties. Why must we always define women in relation to someone else? /rant. *sigh*

A Post-Christmas Christmas Lesson

Dec 20th was a snow-out here in New England, so the Christmas program and all the lessons got postponed to the next week. There was going to be a combined lesson with all three classes last week on the 20th (so I didn't prepare a Christmas lesson), but that leader is out of town this week, so now I am doing a class lesson about Christmas, but 2 days after the day itself. So I got one of those middle-of-night inspiration moments; and I thought I'd share my lesson with you - a Christmas gift from me to you.

Opener: The usual question after Christmas is "What did YOU get for Christmas?"
Using President Monson's 1995 article, "Christmas Gifts, Christmas Blessings" I am going to ask instead, What did you GIVE for Christmas?

Discussion: Gifts of the Magi

Who were the Magi, often called the Three Kings?
It's appropriate to talk about them after Christmas since it took them a while to get there, they weren't there at the night in Bethlehem when he was born (your nativity set notwithstanding). In other Christian traditions, the day that the Magi arrived is celebrated on January 6, as Twelfth Night or Epiphany.

Discuss cool double meaning for that word, by the way. Random House Dictionary definition = 1) a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi; Twelfth-day. 2) an appearance or manifestation, esp. of a deity. 3) a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. The root word for Magi is the same as magic/magical, also.

There are some really interesting foods and traditions throughout Christianity for Epiphany, like leaving hay or grass for the camels, cabalgatas, sternsingers, tirer les Rois (crowning the King), rosca de reyes, and New Orleans King Cakes.

So who were they? Well, we don't know, really. We sometimes call them "the Three Kings," but we don't know if there were really three, or whether they rode camels, or of they were indeed kings (or astrologers, or scholars, or wealthy Arabian merchants) or where they were from (three different continents, Persia, China). See helpful entry in WebBible Encyclopedia, and an LDS perspective on the magi (scroll down to question #2).

The magi arrived probably up to a year after Jesus was born, based on their study of the new star that had appeared. They inquired about him in Herod's court, which aroused Herod's suspicion. They visited Mary and Joseph in their house, and brought gifts. They warned them about Herod's plot, and then departed home by another way, and Joseph and Mary took Jesus into Egypt for safety (a trip funded, perhaps, by the expensive gifts). Scripture: Matthew Ch 2.

Discuss the meaning of their gifts:
Gold = valuable/ kingship
Frankincense = perfume/ priestship (it's burned on the temple altar, to make a sweet-smelling white smoke, ascending to heaven like the people's prayers, see Ps 141:2, Luke 1:10) - a symbol of the Divine name
Myrrh = (only found in Yemen, btw) an annointing/embalming oil (it was used on Jesus's body, donated by Nicodemus, see John 19:39) - Esther was purified with it for 6 months (Esther 2:12). Mixed with wine, it was administered to people being crucified to dull the pain, see Matt 15:23, sometimes rendered as "gall," perhaps related to laudenum/opium and other psychotropic plants of the Middle Eastern world...eg in Gen 37:25, which is a different word also rendered as myrrh.

Discussion: Being Wise (Wo)men

What made them wise? Paying attention to signs and promptings. Giving priceless gifts that recognized and acknowledged Christ. Expending all to search him out and come unto him. And, being warned by the Spirit, going home by another way. All of those can be likened to us.

In our family, we mark Christmas Eve with a pilgrimage to Bethlehem. We have a rambling New England farm property with woods, fields, and a barn. When our kids were little, we decided to use that to our advantage on Christmas Eve. We turned upturned flashlights into "torches" with yellow tissue paper, dressed in bathrobes and head coverings, and brought three gifts of gold coins, a perfume bottle, and a sprig of rosemary (closest thing I can find to myrrh). Our path around the property is lit by luminarias or candles in jars. One year in deep snow, my husband built snow sheep so we'd feel more like shepherds. Another year, a snow angel with gorgeous fluttering tissue paper wings. Our barn has a lighted star on it or in it, and inside is a manger or basket with a swaddled baby doll for Jesus. When the kids were small, the gift-giving usually ended in a tussle over who was first. Over the years it's become a very sweet tradition for us. We sing an appropriate carol at various stops along the way, as we see the star, or find the gifts, or watch over flocks by night. And afterward, we have a simple shepherd's meal for dinner, by candlelight: roast lamb, flatbread, olive oil, hummus, goat cheese, dried fruit, honey, olives, pomegranate.

This tradition really brings the meaning of Christmas home to us. There's something truly wondrous about tramping around in the dark with candle torches, seeing the star from far away, and falling on our knees by the manger with the curious animals coming in to the barn to see what's going on. It also gives us a chance each year to think about what we're bringing Jesus, what gifts we're offering him, what's of great value to us, what gifts (only) we can give. This year: tangibles = gifts to the anonymous ward "Angel Tree," a blood donation, an evening at a nursing home with some of our favorite older folks, treats and sweetness, the present of presence in the homes of friends, some gifts that had us digging deep into pockets. And intangibles = time, attention, obedience, love, forgiveness - that we can offer Christ.

Recount the O. Henry story, "Gift of the Magi" (it's too long to read, but I have a children's book version I will share part of). You know the story: Della sells her hair to buy the watch chain her husband Jim would treasure, while Jim sells the watch to buy beautiful combs for Della's incomparable tresses. Each gives the one thing most precious for the other, with reckless total love. O. Henry concludes:

"The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi."

Ask what, as a wise woman, you can give to the Christ child? Provide little paper boxes (bejeweled with sequins, maybe) to place their ideas in as a take-home.

Photo from here.

the forgotten fifty: Lesson 1-50 "To the Young Women Adviser: Organizing Lessons from General Conference Addresses"

And so, ladies, we've come to the end of another YW manual - by this time next year, we will have gone through the entire YW cycle of all three manuals.

You might never even get to the back of your manual, and since "Lesson" 50 isn't a lesson really, unless your ward does what used to be called "inservice meetings" to train its YW teachers (mine doesn't), you might just ignore it altogether. So consider this a virtual inservice meeting, with Dos and Don'ts for making a lesson out of a talk. This is a skill that increasingly we seem to ask our members to have - the Prophet RS Manual lessons aren't written like lessons so they need to be turned into them, the Teachings for Our Time are talks that have to be turned into lessons, and often a Sacrament meeting talk assignment will be to base a talk on a General Conference talk. And putting all material since 1970 on lds.org makes this ridiculously easy for people with internet access to just mindlessly regurgitate/recycle talks. Like any skill, it's perhaps not obvious how to do this. (For a good post on Dos and Don'ts for a Sac Mtg talk, much of which is also applicable to lessons, see Aaron B's golden oldie from 2005). Your thoughts are welcome. Here are mine...

Don't give the talk. Someone else already did that. If you want us to hear the whole thing in a class, then play the video from a GC session and then comment/add thoughts, but don't just read the original to your audience. Yawn.

Don't be shackled to the talk's original structure or order (or length). Feel free to change it up, organize it differently, use your own personalized examples or stories.

Do distill ONE main principle or idea out of the talk. Distilling = "purify: remove impurities from, increase the concentration of, and separate through the process of distillation" (boiling, then condensing the steam back into water) - i.e. boil it down, condense into one pure doctrinal idea or nugget.

Don't make dumb/patronizing puns out of gospel subjects in an effort to be "relevant" or entertaining. I've ranted about this before, partly because it's rampant in YW classrooms (why is that, anyway?!). There's creative adaptation, and then there's dumbing down. And there is a difference.

Do think like an educator. We talk about this ad nauseum in our college's Center for Teaching and Learning, always asking, What is the "student learning outcome?" In other words, what do you want your girls to be able to do or know at the end of your lesson? What's the takeaway? Lesson 50: "For example, do you want to help class members understand a principle, increase in faith, develop an attitude, or be motivated to change their behavior?" Those are very different outcomes, each asking for a different approach or teaching technique. You couldn't do all of those effectively in one lesson.

Do read all the scriptures associated with the talk, not just the talk's pithy stories. Your own insights and promptings for your specific audience will come as you re-trace the speaker's path through the scriptures.

Do bear your own testimony, not just read the talk-giver's. The Spirit teaches through testimony and your youth need YOURS. That's the greatest gift, along with your unjudgemental love, that you can ever give them.

Lesson 1-49 "Delegating Responsibility to Others"

This may be one of those lessons that is secretly aimed at the YW leaders, many of whom are highly focused, get-it-done types who may have trouble sharing the workload, and who get consequently overstressed and burned out, or who have an overly developed sense of the way something "needs" to get done, and have a hard time bringing others into that vision, so they just end up doing it all themselves. Yeah, we all know the type.

It's kind of a shame, actually, that such an important skill gets buried in the lessons so late, and so near Christmas, that in most wards it won't get taught. Then again, it's such a skills-based lesson that it's maybe just as well; it's the sort of thing that could just as easily be covered in a BYC, or in a youth leadership training meeting, or in a short conversation when setting apart a new class presidency, or in a little "handbook for youth leaders" that you give with the decorated binders to the class presidency. It doesn't really seem like enough of a spiritual topic to base a Sunday lesson on.

But still, this lesson really could be a wonderful look at case studies of spiritual leadership. Think Jesus selecting and then delegating to his disciples, and not stepping in when they mess things up, but letting them learn and improve on their own. Think Jesus's parable of the talents. Think Brother Brigham, dividing the pioneers into companies of 100 and companies of 50 and so on down, because he couldn't possibly move a people to Utah all by himself. Think God the Father, letting some key individuals share in the work of creation with the instruction after each "day" to "return and report." Think of how delegation worked in the organization of Relief Society (first paragraph). See also N. Eldon Tanner's essay on "Leading as the Savior Led" for more on Christ's leadership style and how He delegated.

There's a parallel lesson in the AP manual, which is a good one, emphasizing the connection between stewardship and delegation. And there are a couple of good Church articles worth mentioning: one by Rebecca and Roger Merrill called "Giving Life to Leadership," one from the Ensign/Liahona on how to (and how NOT to) delegate, and one from the New Era in 1998, which tells about a useful acronym that the Dallas TX stake developed for its youth leaders: FUN, which stands for Focus Upon Needs. In other words, people are more important than programs.

In our ward, this lesson probably will fall off the calendar. But if I were going to teach it, I might combine it with a related skill, one that all Mormons should know how to do (and many are abysmally bad at), which is How to Run a Meeting. I find in my weekday job, now that I'm among the ranks of the full-time faculty, that I am expected to be involved in various college committees and I realize that one gets absolutely zero training on how to do this. Yet everyone can recognize when it's done wrong or poorly. It's a skill we can learn by doing at church, and one which is really transferable to and valued in certain secular settings - PTA, local government, volunteer organizations, academics, business, interfaith work... etc... If there's someone who knows how to write an agenda, conduct a meeting, take useful minutes, lead discussion, inspire consensus, end on time - that someone will use those skills her entire life.

For church meetings (of all kinds), the same rules apply as in all of gospel teaching (because all gatherings of Saints, even in 2s and 3s, are opportunities for spiritual teaching), namely:

thoughtful questions
scriptures
clear explanation of doctrine (or purpose)
testimony of doctrine
prayer

Every meeting should have a clear, prayerfully defined purpose. Contrary to appearances, we do not meet just for the sake of meeting. Begin with prayer. Briefly review where we've been, take stock of where we are, and set a goal for where we want to go or what needs to get done. Solicit, and then listen to, the opinions of others. Stay on topic. Don't let anyone derail the meeting's purpose and focus; steer it relentlessly back to the topic at hand (taking note, if needed, of other things that come up - promise to get back to them, and then keep your promise by putting them on the agenda or on the next meeting's agenda). Acknowledge but don't dwell on complaints or problems. Keep track of the passage of time. End with prayer. And make sure that when people leave the room, everyone knows the following three things:

what s/he is supposed to do next,
that the gospel is true,
and when the next meeting is.

What suggestions do you have about delegating, learning how to become a leader, or how to run a meeting?

Christmas lesson helps

Every year I try to plan a Christmas lesson, and every year I fail. This seems to be one lesson that the Spirit just wants me out of the way for.

So I've started just gathering a bunch of materials, saying prayers all day Saturday and Sunday morning, and then taking a deep breath and seeing what happens.

I do try to avoid an historical approach to the Christmas story, I figure that's probably been handled between Sacrament and Sunday School. For YW I come prepared to testify of the Atonement and Christ's mission on earth.

Here's some of what I'll be using tomorrow, but maybe not. Who knows. I might spend the whole time crying and just telling my girls how much I love Jesus.

President Uchtdorf's talk from this years Christmas devotional.

President Monson's talk from the Christmas Devotional with one of his signature stories. This made me start thinking of a list of gifts we could give others in the name of the Savior. A listening ear, a nonjudgmental heart, a shoulder to cry on, a feeling of safety, a knowledge of love.

The lyrics to Where Can I Turn For Peace. My favorite hymn. It speaks so strongly to me of my relationship with the Savior.

Elder Bruce C. Hafen has written my absolute favorite book on the Atonement. Here's an article he wrote for the Ensign that contains loads of goodness.

My second favorite book on the Atonement was written by Stephen Robinson. Here's a transcript of a speech he gave sharing lots of great stuff.

A rip your heart out story from President Faust. The message of Christ is more powerful than the atomic bomb.

The Exponent's lesson ideas from the Relief Society manual. I especially like the story about Mother Teresa, and the discussion of the condescension of Christ.

Tearjerking story about genuine service to teenage convicts. Found thanks to Times and Seasons.

Here's a whole bunch more Christmas stuff.

I don't know how I didn't know about this, but take a look! Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Good luck everyone. I pray we all have the Spirit with us tomorrow to share the most important message the world will ever know.

Stepping Stones for 1-48

I taught lesson 1-48 today and (as usual) I got inspired by reese's suggestions in her writeup for this lesson. I started thinking about how different people get bogged down at different parts of the goal "cycle." Some people have a hard time beginning, or having the courage to start on an ambitious goal. Others (like me) lose focus somewhere in the middle and need to remind themselves to stay focused and persist/endure in working on a goal. Others may have trouble finishing - they get close to finishing but never actually wrap it up. Others may have challenges with reflecting on and reporting at the end of a goal, or celebrating their accomplishment and using it as a stepping stone to plan for the next one.


So I decided to give my girls their own "stepping stones" to keep in some visible place to help get over whatever is the "sticky" part of the cycle for themselves. I bought decorative smooth black rocks in the silk flower aisle and some silver Sharpies, and I wrote inspirational words on them. In class, the girls chose one and if there wasn't one that fit what they needed to tell themselves they wrote their own, like "Finish" or "Done" or "Persevere" or whatever. Mine (based on the Mary/Martha story) is to help me keep focus on what is both necessary and essential in the moment - so mine says "one needful thing." In this busy season of my life and of the year, this is what I need to tell myself the most.

Lesson 1-48 "Short-Range Goals as Stepping Stones"

I think this lesson would seriously benefit from some personalization. The stories are all perfectly nice, but this is one principle I think it would be really great for the girls to see up close. So few of the behaviors we try to encourage lead directly to what we want (they bring their own benefits, but no amount of reading my scriptures alone is going to get me the career/relationships/talents I want) I think it would be awesome to be able to testify of this idea through my own experiences and experiences of other leaders they know. I think I'll be grilling everyone around me.

The supplementary materials bring up the point that the personal progress program is a model of this system. One project or experience at a time, these girls are becoming women of faith. The talks included are a couple of talks by Elder Wirthlin. This one shares some funny football stories, and this one encourages taking the journey to become someone great.

I think this lesson is especially timely for my Laurels. They are all staring down college and adulthood and at times it completely overwhelms them. Especially because many of them will be putting themselves through college and the enormity of that task would scare anyone with sense in their head. I can't wait to explain this principle to them and tell them how I put myself through college. I figured that many of your girls would be in the same boat, so here's how I did it.

First, I studied and got good grades to be eligible for a good school
Then, I filled out applications and got accepted somewhere.
With that step done, the next hard part is paying for it. My younger sister got so intimidated by this part that she just didn't go to school at all. It's a big thing to overcome.

My best advice is to remember that they don't charge you for all four years at once. Don't think about how you're going to pay for EVERYTHING. Just focus on one semester at a time.

My first two years were at a community college which was way way cheaper, and also a way better learning environment for your general education classes. I pity the poor BYU students who take biology in a class of 900. My class had 20. Of course, this way being more beneficial depends on your major, so I don't think it's the best way for every case. But it sure was cheaper.

With the help of a high school counselor I looked into government programs and scholarships and paid for the first two years of tuition that way.

I worked as many jobs as I could over the summers and saved money.

When I was nearly done with an AA degree, I started applying for transfers and I got accepted to BYU.

I registered for classes and found housing

I wasn't eligible for government programs anymore, so I applied for federal student loans and used those to pay for the remaining two years. Going into debt was totally scary for me, it influenced what I allowed myself to study. I was convinced that I needed to walk out of college and into a career or else those loans would force me into the poor house. That's just not so. At least if all we're talking about is for an undergraduate degree. (The law school loans we're paying off are a little bit different.)

In America at least, after you graduate you have an entire year before loan payments start, and you can ask for more time if you need it. A few months ago I got a letter from the bank telling me that they were waiving the last $1500 as a reward for my continued payment, and my loan was paid off. I so wish I could go back and tell 18 year old me about this day. I spent so much time being scared, I wish I could tell myself that it's not that awful and that I would do it.

It really was just one step at a time, but every day people get too scared by the big picture that they don't take that first step. I'm so grateful I was just too stubborn to stop.

I think as we encourage these girls to try for big things, we need to add a little footnote, even just one sentence before they leave the room, explaining that hard work and good choices cannot guarantee everything we want in life and we shouldn't feel like it's our personal failing if life hands us adversity we couldn't plan on. Everyone seems to understand that on an intellectual level, but when things really hit the fan, I'd lay money down that each one of us thinks, at least on some level, that we could turn things around by being stricter with our worship. Admit it. On your hardest day ever, the thought at least crossed your mind that this never would have happened if you read your scriptures more. So let's address that with our girls.

Earlier this year I came across an old blog post encouraging readers to pick one word they wanted to govern their year. Her word was 'nurture' and she tried to keep that word in mind as she made choices about her family, her work, how to spend her time. I've been mulling it over ever since I read that, and I've decided my 2010 word of the year will be BEGIN.

I'm going to get it put on a necklace, I'm going to make something to hang near my computer. I just love how loaded with potential that word is. Maybe I'll make a little something for my girls too.

Lesson 1-47 "Encouraging the Development of Talents"

It's the Christmas season and okay, so this blog is run by two busy moms... both of whom get legitimately overwhelmed now and then, and whose wards are on totally different lesson schedules by this point in the year (don't worry, we'll all be in sync again when we start the new manual in a few weeks!). So, it's Jeans for lesson 47, since I happened to teach it today and Reese is stuck a couple of lessons back in her ward.

Unlike Lesson 2-44, which is a straightforward lesson about developing one's talents, this lesson is more about how it can be tricky to identify talents, and why it's important to encourage them in your families, among your friends, etc. How to be a "talent-enabler," basically. One of the teachers in my ward handed out little chiffon gift bags of coins to her girls, using the parable of the talents. The MM's loved this. For my Laurels, I decided to avoid the whole guilt trip that comes with the various scriptures on talents ("If you bury them, they will be TAKEN FROM YOU!" Doom! Gloom! Etc), and just focused instead on a couple of key points:

--there are lots of ways to be talented. Talent is not just "artistic"; people can be talented in many different ways. I was going to bring in some ideas from Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, but then I didn't end up using it (good background for me, though).

--people (including ourselves) need uncritical encouragement in trying new things, discovering talents, and need room to make mistakes, learn, and improve. While you might think that your talents are the things you are "naturally" good at, that's not necessarily true. Creative work is work. But don't be too hard on yourself in the beginning; don't get discouraged, and be supportive of the talents-in-progress of people in your family. Talents are gifts, but they're kits... the kind that come "some assembly required."

--I used a lot of quotes from an article/interview with LDS author Jack Weyland from a 1990 New Era, which humorously covers a lot of these points. The way I did the lesson was to write some open-ended questions on little slips of paper. I rolled them up quilling-style and tucked them into the multiple drawers of a pretty jewelry box. Each Laurel had a chance to pull one out, think it over, and offer an answer for the discussion. We had a really wide-ranging discussion just talking over these questions!

My questions:

Complete this sentence: “Creative people…”

Complete this sentence: “For me, creativity is….”

What talent do I see in one of my parents? What can I do to help develop it?

What talent do I see in one of my brothers or sisters? What can I do to help develop it?

What is a talent I am developing? What encouragement or support might I need for it?

Complete this sentence: “I am passionate about…”

What personal progress goal has helped you develop a talent?

Complete this sentence: “A talented person in the scriptures was…”

What talents might go unrecognized or unvalued?

Complete this sentence: “Time just flies by and I feel happy and fulfilled when I am …”

Complete this sentence: “A person who inspires me is…”

Lesson 1-46 "The Purpose and Value of Education"

So as you know, I am a college professor. This makes me, perhaps, well qualified to pontificate on this topic. It also makes me blindingly aware why I think it's so hard to teach a lesson like this, and rather hesitant to get on a soapbox about it. This lesson is tougher than it looks (but, to be fair, it's better than last year's). Why, you ask?

Because of the marriage/education false dichotomy, requiring YW leaders to tread on eggshells no matter what? Yes.

Because (see previous lesson) there is also a vocational training/higher education false dichotomy? Yes.

Because we might be creating a mixed message by teaching this, just months after teaching this? Yes.

Because, let's be honest, not all YW leaders value education themselves because not all have had the opportunity or the interest in finishing a higher education degree? Yes.

Because it's hard to be a smart girl in our culture? Yes.

But it's even harder to be one who never gets pigeonholed as "smart" at all? Yes.

Because some fields are still dominated by men and it's hard for women to break into them? Yes. (Yet there are glimmers of hope, especially in initiatives for girls in STEM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Math). I just had to highlight a few of them, like Girlstart, the National Girls Collaborative project, and state initiatives like those in Kentucky. I also notice, kudos to PBS for developing a new show, SciGirls and you can see a 17-minute pilot of it here).

Because it's hard to reconcile our LDS platitudes that "women should get an education" with our practices and really walk the walk about educating women? Yes.

Because higher ed is broken? Yes.

Because church schools don't necessarily fix what's broken about it? Yes (and more about that in a future post).

And, not least, because the "modern-day counsel" quotes in this lesson are from 1968 and 1977? Yes!

Now, because this lesson recycles the Howard W. Hunter quote also used in the Manual 3 lesson, I said it before and I will say it again. Here's me, last year, reflecting on the following quotation:

"President Howard W. Hunter is quoted in 1975: 'There are impelling reasons for our sisters to plan toward employment. … We want them to obtain all the education and vocational training possible before marriage. If they become widowed or divorced and need to work, we want them to have dignified and rewarding employment. If a sister does not marry, she has every right to engage in a profession that allows her to magnify her talents and gifts.'

I know that not everyone will agree, but I would just say boldly that the modifying clause at the beginning of that last sentence should be dropped at this point in time. And I mean no disrepect to President Hunter or any other church leader. But I believe we should update our language not just because of current financial uncertainty, but as an unequivocal recognition of the inherent value of all women. Each person of both genders should reach her/his own fullest potential and contribute to the greater good according to her/his abilities, talents, circumstances, and desires. 'A sister has every right to engage in a profession that allows her to magnify her talents and gifts' PERIOD. Regardless of her marital status or whether she is a mother."

So you will make of this lesson what feels right and natural for you to do - given who you are and who your girls are. Of course I feel very strongly that girls should be encouraged to pursue whatever education they can, even up into graduate and professional degrees if their inclinations and opportunities allow (and not just "before marriage"). I also believe (despite daily evidence in my classrooms to the contrary, which I try to deny and ignore) that education can be transformative.

But I also feel that education is WAY broader than college diplomas, and that some of our brightest women in the past were largely self-taught (think Helen Keller, Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jane Goodall, just to name a few). The hunger for knowledge needn't be connected to finishing high school, going to college, or getting some kind of advanced degree. That hunger -- which I think ALL girls and women should have as a personal passion -- can be filled with a library card, an internet connection, and a set of scriptures, if you know the tools to unlock each of those lifelong learning resources. I almost feel like devoting the class session to talking about those tools. So few of my college students come equipped with the skills to do anything beyond Google and Wikipedia, and so few write elegantly (speaking from a humanities perspective here - I'm sure my colleagues over in math and science would add to the wishlist of things that any educated person should be able to do).

To me, the purpose and value of an education is to snap the mind out of its media-induced coma and to awaken the insatiable beast of curiosity, never to let it sleep again but to grow more ferocious the older we get. The truly educated person is not content to be fed the answers but to search them out for herself. The truly educated among us are living in a state of perpetual wonder. No tuition required.

Lesson 1-45 "The Value of Work"

I hope we know the family circumstances of every girl in our classes, because there are parts of this lesson that could be a serious hardship to a poverty-stricken family. We should be careful about insulting welfare systems if there are girls around us who's family use them, since there are way too many variables and nuances to properly address in 40 minutes.

Other than that, I only have one additional problem with this lesson. But it's a biggy. During the chalkboard exercise listing the temporal, social, and spiritual benefits of work, the lesson lists prestige as a spiritual blessing. PRESTIGE AS A SPIRITUAL BLESSING?? What in the what now? What happened to God being no respecter of persons? Oh my goodness that troubles me. If we ever needed proof of members often conflating temporal success with spiritual success, I think we just found it. Oy vey.

Sure, prestige is a blessing that can come from hard work. Put it in the temporal category. Put it in the social category. You'll get no complaint from me. But the SPIRITUAL category! Prestige increases your spirituality?? I can't even find words to make the case for why I find that so troublesome, it just seems so outrageous to me. If anything, prestige would make it harder to be spiritual because it would be so much harder to be humble. I think this makes me so crazy because I see it so often in the church, the people with social power, the people with money, are so often deferred to on the ward and stake level. Deferred to in a way that can bring problems of pride or cliquishness, undermining sustained authority, being unChristian to those from humbler circumstances. Anyway, enough. It's one word Reese, let it go.

The rest of the lesson is just great. Seriously. It includes all the points I'd wish to make myself. How when you can't do it, you appreciate work, how noble work in all it's forms is, the affect of your attitude on the work you do. Great stuff.

I suffer from a chronic illness that has left me bedridden for years at a time, and I can testify to the truthfulness of that story. Those years changed everything for me. I remember when just taking a shower and defrosting meat for dinner was a totally productive day. Back then I struggled so much with my self-esteem. I had no appreciation for how much my feelings of worth were tied up in the work that I did. Since then I've changed so that my self-worth is more in line with things that are eternal, but there's no denying how good you feel about yourself when you accomplish something well. Like a clean refrigerator. Man, I feel like an amazon when that happens. I think that the feelings of worth we get from work well done is an important part of our progression towards understanding our divine nature.

I also love how the lesson sticks up for the blue collars of the world. My own education was so hard won that I had some serious snobbery for a few years. And then my husband did a year of law school and I worked retail and stressed about every penny while the wives who went to hair school were able to take care of their families. I am a major proponent of life long education for the sake of education, so I still want to push everyone I know on to college, but I have also gained a massive appreciation for a trade.

A book was released this year on this topic, and it's still on my Amazon wishlist, but there's a really fabulous article here that summarizes the basic point. In a nutshell, a really smart college dude goes to work for some really smart political thinktank and finds it to be unfulfilling. So he leaves that job and starts a shop fixing up obscure motorcycles. The book, and the article, expound on the value of work, the virtue of a trade, the nobility of working with your hands, from an erudite philosophical perspective. There's good stuff in there.

Lesson 1-44 "Using Time Wisely"

Yeah, for this lesson you COULD bring in a timer. Start low-tech... an hourglass, say.

Or a mechanical timer, spring-wound, the kind that ticks and dings.

Or a digital timer, the kind that beeps and needs a battery.

And yeah, you COULD do the tired old "put the big things into the jar first and then pour the rice" object lesson.

But let's say, for argument's sake, that you've done all that and are looking for more.*

Let's kick it up a notch, shall we? Productivity tools and ideas have entered the 21st century, and many of our youth will have access to those tools and can make use of those ideas.

A few to get you started, or maybe even find something for yourself:

First of all, the guru du jour of productivity is David Allen, author of Getting Things Done. Here's a quick overview of the system. It involves keeping lists of everything, and frequently revisting them, to free up your brain for other things. It also involves recognizing that you need to think about your tasks on different levels of focus, from the immediate (current actions and projects) to the larger (areas of responsibility, goals) to really big-picture (5-year "visions" and "life goals"). I think this is helpful, because immediate tasks take on both significance and priority as they slot into one's bigger picture(s). Allen also suggests sorting your lists by context: in other words, a list just for things you need to do while at the computer, another for your roles at home, another for school, etc - so that you have a list ready for when you enter that physical or mental space. The advantage of that is not wasting time worrying about things you can't do at the moment, but to have a laser focus on maximizing your at-home time when at home, your schoolwork time when at school, your errand time when out, your worship/calling/spiritual side when at church, etc.

Update: I made a PDF handout that I'll be using with my class tomorrow, for quick brainstorming about tasks and goals (Print in landscape mode).

For some reason, Allen's "GTD" system is very hip right now in the business/computing geek world. As a lurker in a variety of higher education/technology/digital history-type communities, I hear a lot about his system and about the idea, in general, of finding better ways to do things. Sometimes that means a higher tech way to do it, and sometimes a lower-tech one is just as good if not better, but either way, the buzzword is to "work smarter, not harder."

So here's a quick rundown of links of both geeky and low-tech ways to use time more wisely. Set your timer (don't get lost in the links), and check out a few:

First, understand the basics of productivity and efficient time use, with this post from the Ubersite called LifeHacker.

Then, once the magic of The List has sunk in, think about other lists that could help unclutter your brain and organize your ideas, energy and time.

Or try a Zen approach to the GTD system.

Some of the GTD system, which was designed for business, can be very successfully adapted for students (HS, college, and otherwise). For example, "Getting Things Done, Explained for Students," or "Study Hacks" or "Hack College" (although, caution: some of the content on that last site is aimed at the college party scene).

There's a huge, growing market of online tools, many for free, that aim to digitize the GTD system and help you capture, search, manage, and collaborate with others on getting things done. This slideshow profiles some of them.

For example, you can try a computer wallpaper that helps you organize your desktop in ways that help your workflow, or just to give yourself a kick in the pants to stop messing around and get something done.

But, really, all you need is paper and pen. This week I'm trying out the Hipster PDA, essentially just a bundle of index cards held together with a binder clip, which would be an easy to-do in your classes with your young women. Have an index card for each "context" or what Franklin-Covey calls "roles." Mine include: @home, @family, @disciple, @Mom, @scholar, @professor, @self, @YW leader. Each card lists actions and projects pertaining to that role. Young women might sort by the places they are required to be throughout the day, since some of them have less control over their own schedules than we do: @school, @home, @music lesson, @church...

Let me know in the comments how it works out.

Of course, the main thing to emphasize here is that all the gee-whiz tools are only helpful to the extent that they bring us in tune with the Spirit, help point us towards Christ and keep us on the path of the disciple, and help us use the gift of time with gratitude and good stewardship. I love that we get to see glimpses of Christ taking time for renewal, quietness, planning, and that we see him multitasking with focus (teaching, on the way to raise a girl from the dead), and putting the people first because other things had been delegated, thought through, or planned ahead. We learn in the temple that all things were created spiritually before they were created physically; that's planning, goal-setting, and long-term vision. You could adapt Elder Bednar's talk on prayer to this: that prayer is an important part of time management, because morning prayer helps us create the coming day, and evening prayer is an opportunity to reflect on the just-past day and how we used our hours, and to peacefully and lovingly lay the day to rest.

Photo credits: To-Do list from lifehacker and Post-it madness from dead fish.

* and anyway, what do you do with all that wasted wet rice?

Things to never teach in YW

Originally posted at The Exponent

Since I've been teaching in YW my entire adult life, with no end in sight, I've been following D'Arcy's work on abstinence with interest. It's something I think about a lot, because I've seen so many consequences of crazy things that some YW leader taught to someone. I think if we leaders really tried to appreciate just how far reaching the effects of our teachings can be, we'd be too paralyzed with fear to actually present a lesson. But the fact remains that we leaders can send our girls on to a great experience with the gospel, or give them hangups that can plague them for years.

The lesson manuals aren't always a great help with this either. Over on Beginnings New we obsess about subtext, and if you read the lessons with that in mind it's often troubling to see the messages that are being sent unintentionally.

After my own trip through the YW's program and subsequent re-learning of certain aspects of the gospel, coupled with the last ten years of service in the program, I've come up with my own little list of things I have to diplomatically correct or root out of any instruction to the young women, whether that comes from the lesson manuals, my own missteps, or the efforts of another well meaning leader who maybe isn't as obsessive as I am. In no particular order:

Chastity lessons that include shame or exclude the Savior:
As D'Arcy has written about, this can be tricky. It's hard to impress upon the girls the importance of respecting themselves and their bodies without slipping into the standard pattern of instruction that includes comparing an unchaste woman to a chewed piece of gum or a dirty broken cookie. These object lessons may be compelling, but are so damaging to someone who has already messed up, not to mention someone who has been victimized. Plus it discounts the effects of the Atonement to create a "new piece of wood."

In the last conference, Elder Cook included an analogy that was probably the best I've heard. A "life-giving" stream that got polluted after not enough protections were taken, restored to purity after corrections were made. If you must use an analogy, use that one. Just make sure to explain that this doesn't apply if someone else broke down your fence.

Lessons about their specialness that set them up for disappointment with a regular life:
This one comes from unpacking my own baggage. But I know I'm not alone. These youth really are an amazing generation. Smarter, more savvy, more experienced, and they're most likely going to go on to be smarter, more savvy, more experienced in their regular old happy normal lives. Too much talk about choice generations makes some people (like my teenage self) expect some kind of a grand life befitting such a choice person.

I just yesterday discovered another wrinkle with this kind of talk. My girls told me about a lesson our Bishop gave them called, "You're not as strong as you think you are," where he talked to them about avoiding opportunities for temptation. Each one of the girls told me that her first reaction was, "Hey! I am too strong! I'm part of a choice generation!" Oh dear.

That happiness is a function of righteousness:
The most recent lesson I reviewed was about making righteous choices and how good it will make you feel. Imagine my dismay when not once in the lesson did it mention the Holy Spirit. It gave several reasons why it feels good to choose the right, but the one it favored in quantity was that we will feel proud of ourselves for making a right choice. Ignoring the circular logic, I also find it troubling that instead of encouraging a relationship with the Divine as a source of happiness despite life circumstances, it encouraged a false sense of pride in our own strength and for being better than the sinners. This encourages the thought that if I (or someone else - extra ammo for judging others) am unhappy it's because I'm not righteous enough. So I get to internalize shame, particularly about mental illness, and get a view of God that punishes me with reasons to be unhappy if I'm not reading my scriptures enough.

An emphasis on Do Not's over an emphasis of good works: It's really easy to stick to the things that are quantifiable. No drugs. Check. No alcohol. Check. Don't let boys touch my boobs. Check. I think this is where the TAMN's of the world get stuck, stalling on this level of progression and never seeming to catch on that to be a true disciple of Christ you should actually be kind. It's not enough to just NOT do stuff. We should be defining ourselves as disciples by what we DO.

A vision of their future that does not include the unpredictability of fate: Statistics say that not every girl I teach will get married. Half of them won't stay married, and in my area at least, nearly all of them will have to work at some point. I'm not fulfilling my stewardship to prepare them for their future if all I do is talk about one option - particularly staying at home to raise many babies. I should certainly teach the ideal, but there are loads of times when I can at least mention that there are other things that can happen.

An all or never view of the gospel: As a teenager I was the overly earnest sort, and I was convinced that one kiss, one drink, one poor choice leads directly to the gutter. In this year's lesson on drug abuse, there was a case history about a 12(!) year old heroin addict and prostitute. I mean come on now. This vision of the world is almost schizophrenic - they go to school with a ton of kids who break the commandments and live to tell about it - and once again it denies the power of the Atonement. Once again it teaches fear about consequences over making choices out of a love of God. And when it suddenly becomes OK to give a kiss and then some, it can be really difficult to let go of that fear and shame.

A condescension towards other faiths: The way to teach teenagers about the One True Church is for them to experience it, and test it for themselves. Not to build it up at the expense of someone else or denigrate any other options. That just makes them intolerant and lousy citizens.

The world is a big fat scary place: President Hinckley used to tell us all the time how we were not alone in the world. That our concerns were not new nor ours alone. Sure there are temptations out there, things we should work against, but every time we say "The World," even if we just mean the people who disagree with us, there are going to be some girls who hear "The World" and think, you know, the world. For me, this fear influenced where I went to college, who I dated, who I made close friends with, and as a result I completely isolated myself from anyone who hadn't been baptized. Utterly ridiculous, I know, but I had been fed a steady diet of horror stories about friends who seemed fine until the day they tried to shove drugs down the throat of the poor unsuspecting Mormon girl. If we're going to be good members, good citizens, good missionaries for that matter, we have to actually be a part of the world. Which is different than "The World."

What do you think? Anything you'd add to the list? Are there still hangups you're trying to shake from some YW leader who didn't really think things through?

Lesson 1-43 "Righteous Living"

I'm having a hard time getting a hold of this lesson. It's a really simple message - Be Good to Feel Good - and it seems like such a fundamental thing that I don't know how I'm going to fill 45 minutes on it.

If I was going to pretend to be the girl sitting in the back of the room with their arms crossed, I think that quote after quote of person after person saying how good it felt to make righteous choices would cause me to roll my eyes and cut through it all with one well placed, "Why?"

Why does making righteous choices make me feel better about myself? The answer the lesson gives is basically "you'll feel proud that you made a right choice, you won't feel guilty, you won't lose feelings of self-worth, and you will feel confidence in the presence of God."

Those are all more or less valid, but the one that the lesson goes back to the most is feeling proud for making the right choice, and that concerns me a little bit. Mosiah 2:21 reminds us that we really can't get to where we want by works alone, and I've seen this kind of thinking turn into some really snotty, "I'm more righteous, therefore better, than you," kind of behavior.

The most important reason why righteous living brings happiness is because of that last one, feeling confidence in the presence of God. I think I'm going to add in a discussion of how living righteously allows the Spirit to dwell with us, and how having the Spirit in our lives can serve as a reminder of the divine nature of our own spirits. It also allows better communication with our Heavenly Father, and I can certainly testify how that brings happiness even in the most dire of circumstances.

I think I'm also going to expand the section about how living righteously is more than just not sinning. This goes back to that snottiness I see so often. Which is more cancerous to our souls in the long run, slipping up with a boyfriend and then going through the repentance process, or staying technically chaste but persecuting those who mess up by shunning and gossiping? It's so easy to take pride in obeying the word of wisdom - or something else equally quantifiable with a big Do Not Touch - and ignore the harder work of living as a disciple of Christ by mourning with those that mourn and spreading kindness and charity.

Also, I have to give a(nother) shout out to this just beautiful story Jeans linked to in the sidebar. I usually replace the stories in the lesson for something personal, but this time I'll be replacing them for this one. It's such a great example of a kid solving a problem by making a righteous choice and reaping the spiritual benefits, not because he gets to feel better than the sinners, but because he felt the influence of the divine in his life. That's all I could hope for for my girls.

Lesson 1-42 "The Courage to Try"

The lesson titles in this unit and the next one just crack me up. They're all important topics, but listing them one after the other it sounds exactly like some kind of teambuilding exercise out of the Franklin Covey playbook. Remember in the early 1990s when Franklins were the one true personal planning system of the Church? No offense to those who used and loved them cough*me*cough, of course, but these next few lesson titles just sound like generic motivational sayings torn right from the corporate-inspirational world of individualistic, me-oriented, "American dream" self-help: The Ability to Succeed, this one - The Courage to Try, Righteous Living, Using Time Wisely, The Value of Work, The Purpose and Value of Education, Encouraging the Development of Talents, Short-Range Goals as Stepping Stones, and Leadership: Delegating to Others. Corner office & glass ceiling, here we come!

Ah well, that aside, it's great to have a lesson on courage. Moral courage, of course, but other kinds as well. I just finished watching with one of my survey classes the HBO Film Iron-Jawed Angels, which depicts the young generation of confrontational women's suffrage activists in the late 1910s: Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and the National Women's Party. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for YW unedited (some racy content), and I was super-annoyed by its "contemporary" soundtrack, but it reminded me that we have a wealth of examples in American history and in the scriptures of true female courage: boldness, resolution, determination, speaking truth to power, and that we consciously ignore those examples at our peril. One great resource for this lesson would be President Monson's talk from this year's YW meeting, "May You Have Courage," which draws heavily on the story of Esther.

That got me looking for artistic depictions of Queen Esther and I stumbled onto a website reproducing paintings of Esther from over the years - many of them from the Renaissance period that show Esther (in gorgeous Renaissance gowns and robes) fainting in Ahasuerus's presence. That's consonant with the times in which they were painted, when women were supposed to be cowed by male authority. LDS artist Minerva Teichert's lovely image of the grave, dignified Queen is such a welcome contrast to the shrinking, collapsing Esthers of the earlier era! I was also intrigued by this abstract painting titled "Esther," by the Jewish artist Yoram Raanan, who comments:

The very name 'Esther' is symbolic for our times. The Bible relates that 'And he [Mordechai] had brought up/ nurtured /reared Hadassah, that is Esther' (Esther 2:7). Why are two names mentioned? Hadassah stems from the Hebrew word 'hadas,' (myrtle). The Midrash relates that Esther was similar to the hadas in that she had a deep olive-green complexion. The leaves of this plant have a very sweet fragrance that can only be released when the leaves are bruised and crushed. Just like the hadas, which is only fragrant when it is bruised and crushed, so too was Esther’s potential brought out to its fullest by the difficult challenges that faced her.

The name Esther is related to the word 'hester,' meaning hidden. For nine years, until Haman's downfall, Esther guarded the secret of her ancestry. This incredible silence is the outstanding virtue that made Esther queen. Esther did not dare reveal anything, for she knew that her silence was necessary for the salvation of her brethren. Esther had perfect self-control. The ability to be queen over herself is what made her queen and savior of her people.

If you look closely at the painting, you will notice that the hope and courage that personified Esther, glows from all parts of her being. Her optimism and confidence, coupled with her deep conviction and faith radiates from her while enlightening the gloom, pessimism and despair that surrounds her.

Isn't that lovely?

If you want to focus on the Esther story, even though it's slightly the wrong season, you could do a mini-Purim during your lesson. Give the girls small noisemakers or shakers for whenever you mention Haman's name as you retell Esther's story, and serve Hamantaschen and give all the girls costume tiaras. I know that would all be a little out of the ordinary for Mormons, but Purim is such a great holiday - and we haven't got one of our own that so joyously celebrates a scriptural woman's courage, beauty, and wisdom - that I think it's completely appropriate.