Sister Kapp: 'The power of teaching'
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PROVO, UTAH
Teaching is an opportunity, a lifelong process and a potential profession that can impact students and teachers for a lifetime, Ardeth G. Kapp told a BYU audience of students majoring in education.
"What would be a greater return — is it worth your life?" asked Sister Kapp. "When you put it that way, I would say teaching is worth your life."
A former Young Women general president, author and lecturer who has taught elementary school and supervised student teachers for BYU, Sister Kapp drew extensively on her experiences from the latter two roles as she spoke Feb. 19 in conjunction with the "Power of Teaching" lecture series sponsored by BYU's David O. McKay School of Education.
Her lecture included segments she titled "It's Within You," "Compensation," "The Real Classroom" and "Keeping a Balance."
"It is within you to change the world — not the whole world, but the circle of influence you'll be able to reach," she said.
As for compensation, Sister Kapp related exchanges with two of her former fourth-grade students who are now adults.
One told her of his subsequent increases in success and self-confidence after being in her class because she had given him a sense that "someone loved me," while the other — ridiculed and belittled by peers — had kept a note Sister Kapp had written as his teacher telling him how special he was. He not only made sure he showed it to his fifth-grade teacher the following year, but he continued to carry it in his wallet to that day as an adult he met again his former teacher.
"I guess that's why I love teaching," Sister Kapp said. "It's years and years of compensation."
Sister Kapp emphasized that the real classroom is not the setting but the connection and partnership between the teacher and the student. She realized that in greater degree after appearing in a series of televised classes for the Utah Education Network.
"I did not want to teach in front of the television camera," she said. "I wanted to see the faces. I realized I loved teaching the children, not just the subject."
In underscoring balance, Sister Kapp said demands and schedules should not preclude the personal reflections, ponderings and promptings.
As an example, she recalled scrapping a heavy workload for a young school class one day, and opted instead to send them outside to experience with their senses a beautiful spring day. The results included a quiet boy penning profound expressions for the blueness of the sky and a statement of a previously struggling young girl who said, "I never knowed [sic] the world looked so good."
"Sometimes we can let the mechanics of teaching distract from the joys of teaching," she said.
Citing several times a statement from President Gordon B. Hinckley that student failures are teaching failures and student successes are teaching successes, Sister Kapp said the Spirit can direct and bless good teaching principles and practices — whether in a public schoolroom or a Church classroom.
"The power of teaching is within you because you are guided by the Spirit," she said, later adding, "You will be guided as you help mold these incredible young [children]."
