I thought of God Incarnate, with whom I had spoken. I thought of all my doubts that any of it had been real, of all my suspicious that I was the mere pawn of spirits in some elaborate game. We do have myths. We have a goodness. However, now is not the time for all those things. You need not believe all I have seen. What I do have to give you is a vision. I think a vision is stronger than an illusion. And the vision is that we can exist as powerful beings without hurting anyone who is good and kind. We do possess the World, the World we wanted when we were crazed kids, daydreaming on our long restless walks over Rocklin Trails. Human intelligence is a biological mystery. Humans’ power-hungry brains use up around a quarter of their body’s oxygen supply, and being smart is more of a mixed blessing than many imagine. The increased intelligence of Homo sapiens was originally a result of gene mutations. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through one’s diligence and obedience than another, one will have so much the advantage in the World to come,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 130.19. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

Most of the readers are involved in an important phase of work, gaining academic and proficiency skills for future employment and creativity. Schooling is work. Schooling is often our first significant work experience. There are few dissenters from this viewpoint. In addition to its often being just plain drudgery, like the carrying of buckets of water from a well and the digging of a ditch, it qualifies as work in the sense that love is made visible. This definition is possible only if you accept our concepts dealing with love as being a relationship of mutual regard, involving the giving and taking of aspects of selfhood, without any consequent loss of individual integrity or identity. In our opinion, school qualifies as love made visible under certain ideal conditions. Schooling is not only preparation for work; it is work. It is important to work hard in school because it is the one thing that can overcome poverty. The student who marked bravely off to kindergarten on that first big day of one’s school career may not recall it later, but it took a great deal of courage, determination, self-confidence (and often a push from parents) to take that first step. The child who stays with it, who is nurtured and nourished by it, who finds fulfillment of the developing aspects of one’s selfhood, and who in turn puts much back into the schooling is a small but far from insignificant, percentage of the total. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

Some people grew up knowing nothing but abandonment, starvation, and poverty. They do not receive much formal schooling, but they still know the value of education and its power to change lives, and one thing that is clear to many people is how education can help escape poverty. Many children are discovering their schooling to be more a place to stretch and grow than a place of drudgery as it was in years past. And improvements are still being made in the educational system in order to encourage this kind of attitude in all children. The opportunity to get an education is very important and whatever happens, one must never give up the school because it is the only thing that will improve the quality of life. For many people school represents an identity of community shared by members of an educational institution. It is a place were people are given facts, given a chance to exercise those facts through workbook or given examination, and promoted on to challenge a larger, more complex body of facts. The process may be called schooling or anything you wish; but it is not education. Education comes from a Latin word, educare, meaning to draw out. Your draw little out of a person by cramming something in. It is God’s plan for the youth to integrate his truth into their lives. “Seek not for riches, but for wisdom,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 6.7. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

Far too many students schooling consist of a program of assimilating or acquiring stated and strongly reinforced viewpoints. The proper term of this, of course, is indoctrination. Very little of the individual’s self-expression comes to the surface when one is bombarded with the single viewpoint of a particular instructor or text or orientation. Some people defend parochial instruction on the grounds that conflicting or confusing viewpoints are not presented and the child has a simpler time assimilating the facts. This is emphasizing hygiene or maintenance factors at the expense of motivator factors. Schooling, if it is going to be effective in exposing individuals to the various kinds of information available, has to take into account many more needs than simply the basic biological ones, through it must not forget them. As living beings we do need food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and other satisfactions of our physical needs, and consequently we need to acquire the necessary skills and insights to seek gainful employment. However, as human beings we also need to seek the motivator factors, to find ways of stimulating our growth and selfhood. “Glory of God is intelligence, or light and truth,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 93.36. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

Schooling needs to include information but also illumination, the means for gaining insight into selfhood and casting a brighter light on latent potentials. Schooling can and mist provide illumination for the pupil and within one. Schooling should emphasize respect for others, regardless of their beliefs, race, or social status. In our diverse society, children need an understanding of other principal religions and other World views. In teaching about the beliefs and traditions of other people, the subject promotes discernment and enables pupils to combat prejudice. Such tolerance is vital in a World that is increasingly fraught with extremism, division, in strong intolerance. Schooling is about intellectual enlightenment, concern with opening minds, not closing them. Far from being self-regarding, segregated institutions that deepen division, schooling encourages openness to others, and emphasizes that the thing we all have in common is our humanity, which is of infinite value. Faith schools also allow children to discuss challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, and what it is to be human, about death, and why people believe in God, and the real difference between right and wrong. “Learn wisdom in the youth,” reports Alma 37.35. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10

It is primarily when people have grappled with these enormous questions about life, they can begin to make sense of what they themselves believe and think. And, if young people are encouraged to recognize their own uniqueness and value, they will flourish both and individuals and as citizens in a pluralistic society and global community. To the three R’s of readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic, which are very important, we could add the R’s of Reality, Realization, Reaching-out, Re-creation, Response, and Readiness to enjoy. Education for living ought to be the name of the game of public instruction. Not only would it then include courses that really prepared people for the World outside of school, it would include methods, situations, and experiences of reality and realization that would enable the child to test oneself out on the World within the relatively protected atmosphere of the school. A good example is in the area of vocational choice Many children are asked in the junior high school to select a career or college major so that they can be programmed into a series of courses appropriate to their vocational choice. Nothing we know o in the development of psychology gives us confidence that children of 12 to 15 are emotionally, mentally, physically, or experientially ready to choose such important things as their life’s work. “Let every person learn their duty,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 107.99. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

It takes a few more years of experience with age-appropriate tasks (like fighting acne, choosing clothes, settling disputes with friends, learning to dance, discovering what type of music you like, and so on) before adolescents gain the kind of confidence in selfhood needed to select a vocation. Our experience in teaching and counseling has shown us that many students are not ready for final vocational selection until well into their college life. Nor is this particularly bad or tragic when it happens. The choice of a life’s work (if it need be for life) demands much more personal experience than the typical 13-year-old had had, particularly in the area of reassessing one’s capabilities. Possibly the person who arrives at graduation from college with a major one’s only been into for a year or two has a better idea who one is and where one is going than the one who has been in a pattern for so long one may have forgotten to assess whether or not one is still interested in one’s original work choice. A job choice needs to be made on the basis of knowing pretty well who you are. A vocation will bring more satisfaction and happiness if it represents an honest reflection of personal identity. “It is impossible for a person to be saved in ignorance,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 131.6. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

May we prepare to worthily receive saving ordinances drop by drop and keep the associated covenants wholeheartedly. In all situations where choices must be made, an individual can select those courses that are easier, reduce stress, are most comfortable, and bring in the best money fastest. These choices fit into the concept of hygiene seeking. However, they are part of the tendencies that produce deficiency-motivation, wherein the individual is prompted or stirred primarily to acquire what one does not have or two be what is not. In contrast are those who make choices that challenge their potential, that give them something to reach or stretch out for. Such choices are not always painless (nor are they always painful), nor do they guarantee salary increments or more comfortable working conditions. They are based more upon the person’s desire to express something about oneself, to check oneself out in a new situation, to seek growth and personal achievement of one’s own goals. This is called motivator seeking, being-motivation, or growth-motivation. Personal worthiness is an essential requirement to enjoy the blessings of the temple of God. Worthy character is best forged from a life of consistent, correct choices centered in the teachings of God. “Ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of God,” reports Mosiah 4.12. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

To be consistent is to be steady, constant, and dependable. What a great description of the principle of worthiness. A person can develop an idealistic and general set of attitudes about oneself that will spill over into many other areas of life, but especially into the two the even Dr. Freud recognized as most sensitive in terms of self-expression: love and work. He defined mental health roughly as being able to demonstrate a harmonious balance among ego, id, and superego through activities of loving and working. We believe this is an important insight. In no other areas are we called upon to be more, to be more authentic, to give more, and to show more output and benefit. The school years if the longest period of time some people will ever spend on the same job. In our culture we assume that maturing process take until about 21 years of age. We set up laws in mist states to keep children from 6 to 16 years old in school, where they are to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and to develop the necessary skills for social interaction and some kind of career or work training. No child is ready by the time one enters school at 5, 6, or 7 to pick out one’s life career work. However, any child who has come from a home situation where one is loved and respected, appreciated, and involved in the life of the home is ready by this time to express some of the selfhood one has developed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

In a warm, accepting, integrated home, where each member is loved for oneself intrinsically, where each person gives and takes according to what one is capable of, the emphasis is on the full and free development of people who are the fullest, most real, happiest people they become. And as we prepare our homes to be places where the Spirit is welcome, we will be prepared to feel more at home when we enter the house of the Lord. As we prepare ourselves to worthily enter the temple and are faithful to temple covenants, the Lord will bestow a multiplicity of blessings upon us. “You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul. And you shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up,” reports Deuteronomy 11.18-19. By entrusting your children to educators who share your values, you will have more time for ball games and bike rides and meaningful conversations. Instead of debriefing your children, you will be getting to know them. “When they are learned they think they are wise,” reports 2 Nephi 9.28. I want you take you through an apprenticeship that is flawless. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10