What is the role of students in gospel learning? We asked Brad Howell, a released-time seminary teacher, to show us how he helps his students at the beginning of the year discover their role. Brother Howell and I also had a chance to talk after the class about the role of students. Do you remember this diagram? Do you remember seeing this before? We've talked about the role of the Holy Ghost. We've talked about the role of the teacher. Today, for a few minutes, we want to talk about the role of the student. Tell me a little bit about what a teacher can do to really help the students take responsibility for their own learning. Well, I try to do something at the beginning of the year. I actually have a lesson where I take the students into the scriptures and help them understand their responsibility, their role, the role of the student in gospel learning. How many of you play a musical instrument? Would you raise your hand? Not many of you. Kathleen, I'm going to pick on you. How many years have you played the piano? Several. Probably about five or six. All right, a virtuoso. Yeah. Good. How many hours a week do you practice? I don't know. A few. A few? Several hours. Several hours a week? Yeah. How many of those hours does your teacher practice for you? I don't think she teaches--or plays any of them for me, actually. You pay her good money, though, don't you? Yeah. And yet you have to do all the practice? Yeah. What I try to do is to select something that's common in their own experience, something that they know about, to teach this other principle. Now let me ask you this: How does that apply as we begin the seminary year? How does that apply to our seminary class? Jennifer? If we don't come to seminary every single day, we're not going to be getting everything we could be getting out of it. You have to be here. Excellent answer. Please. The teacher can put in hours and hours of work to try to make the lesson good and have the student be there, but if the students aren't prepared and if they're not going to have the Spirit to be with them, then it's not going to-- Excellent. Ironically, a new teacher, I think, wants to teach so desperately that they forget that if there's not student participation, if the students aren't involved, and if the students don't understand that they have a responsibility for learning, they'll be much less effective than they might be. I want to have you look at a scriptural example of a teacher and his students. Would you turn to 1 Nephi 15? You understand the story very well. Laman and Lemuel are having a little bit of a difficult time with their father's visions and whatnot. Scan through versus 6 through 11, would you? And tell me what singular phrase jumps out at you. I thought it was interesting when you had the students scanning the verses in Nephi that you asked them to pick out a verse that jumped out at them personally as opposed to having them look at a specific scripture. Why did you do that? Sometimes I'll ask myself, "What do I want my students to discover?" rather than, "What am I going to teach them?" Ron, what have you identified? Well, the one that jumped out at me was, "Have you inquired of the Lord?"--that question. Why did you pick that? Because, well for me personally, I have to inquire of the Lord about most most decisions I make in my life. Excellent. Would you look at verse 11? And I want you to identify three things that Nephi says that the Lord tells us is important in terms of our role and responsibility. Take your pencil or pen, and would you just identify those three things in verse 11? What do you see? Joshua? Don't harden your hearts. Excellent.

All right, don't harden. What's the second one you see in verse 11? Nancy? Ask in faith. Excellent. And the third one, who's got that? Please, Krista? Believe that ye shall receive. OK, we'll stick that one on there. We'll make a fourth one because that is an important part of it, Krista--believing that ye shall receive. Please, Jenny. Keep the commandments. Keep the commandments. Excellent. I'll just put "keep commandments." Now this is what we need to discuss. What do these four things have to do with our seminary class? Kim. We should come to seminary wanting to learn and not be grumpy because-- That's the payoff. That's when it's fun, is when you see the lights--you know, the wheels are turning. The lights have come on, and they're feeling like, "I understand." Don't harden your hearts. What does that have to do with your role in this class? Krista. If you harden your hearts, you're not going to be learning anything. You're not going to want to learn anything in class. That's really the big difference between a Nephi and a Sam and a Laman and Lemuel, isn't it? The hardness of our hearts. Great answer. How about number two, ask in faith? What difference does it make in your role in this class if you ask in faith? Jenny? If we take the things that we learn and we ask in faith, then we'll have a better understanding of them, and we'll be able to have a testimony of them and know that they're true. Great answer. We ask in faith. That's how we learn in religious education, isn't it? In the class, you can ask. At home, you can ask. Thank you. How about the last part, keep the commandments? That's kind of different than the others. What does keep the commandments diligently have to do with your role? Kathleen? If we keep the commandments then we can have the Spirit to be with us always. Yeah. The Spirit is the teacher. Does it make a difference how you're living, how I'm living, to have the Spirit? It really does. Excellent. Good comments. Can you see how this advice from the Lord that Nephi is relating to us can help us, help you understand what needs to happen here in our seminary classroom so that both you and I can be taught by the Holy Ghost in our class?