Teaching Using Learning Objectives

While the new Teacher’s Council provides opportunities for teachers to collaborate, the primary purpose is to teach members of the church (including families) how to learn. Our social norms, both in and out of the church, condition us to operate as Self-Help Junkies, with a higher emphasis on completing the reading task than actually learning something.

With this in mind and using Blooms Taxonomy, I’ve taken two lessons from January’s potential topics on the Godhead and written examples for learning objectives.

Topic: The Godhead

Learning objectives:

List the members of the Godhead.

(3) Talmage: Agency

Jesus The Christ – Study Guide

(3) Agency

In the Premortal Existence (PME) “the entire human race existed as spirit being…they were endowed with the powers of agency…” (p. 17). If we treat agency as the power to act righteously with the ability to make choices, it adds to the richness of the construct.

Elder Talmage explains that God’s omnipotence relates to agency and also provides an answer to the underlying question of how we are able to exercise agency despite His omniscience. He permits us the ability to make choices without infringing upon our desire to act righteously. However, when we choose sin over His commandments we no longer engage in agency. Instead we stray from the strait and narrow and His Spirit is withheld.

(2) Talmage: Premortal Existence

Jesus The Christ – Study Guide

(2) The Premortal Existence

Genesis 1:26-27 is the biblical account of what is left of the premortal life, which according to some LDS scholars was over 2.5 billion years of existence. In this organizational meeting (Abraham 3:22-28), we were all present and witnessed the Savior’s appointment as the Redeemer. Jesus explained that some souls would be lost and not make it back. Lucifer argued that he could save them (v. 26). In verses 24-25, Jesus is already the Chosen One. He is speaking in past tense that we (God the Father and Him) we prove us to determine if we keep our covenants made (in the premortal existence).

100-Year Anniversary of Jesus the Christ

LDS Book Reviews

Jesus The Christ – Study Guide

Introduction

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Thomas A. Wayment have written a study guide to James E. Talmage’s Jesus The Christ commemorating the 100-year anniversary of its publication. They presented an overview during Education Week (2015). I picked up the book and will share some thoughts from their writings.

Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon

I’ve been approached multiple times by family members to listen/watch a 4+ hour discourse on a new theory surrounding the Book of Mormon geography that claims the actual Hill Cumorah is in New York.

The attached article is written in defense of anti-Mormon and anti-Book of Mormon critics. However, found within the text of the article is the basis for, in my opinion, the soundest approach to the Book of Mormon geography.

Although this article is more than 20 years old, it’s worth reading again.

Click here for the article.

Flipping Your Lid

This is my most recent letter to my son.

For those of you who are fighting addictions, harmful behavior, codependency, family disorder, or struggling with your testimony, this will provide a foundation for healing.

If you can name it, you can tame it, as the saying goes. The ability to become one has many layers of meaning. Your happiness (well-being) is contingent upon it.

Dear Elder Himmer,

At the heart of the Lord’s great intercessory prayer from the Garden of Gethsemane, he expressed this desire (command) “…that they may be one, as we are.” (John 17:11)

Living a Sheltered Life

“No man knows had bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.”

Bad people don’t know wickedness because they live a sheltered life. Sheltered from the resistance of evil. If we resist evil, evil fights back. If we don’t resist evil, evil leaves us alone.

Lying down in a windstorm doesn’t give one an appreciation for the strength of the wind. Only standing up against the wind can one appreciate the power of the wind.

Coincidence

Coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.

Albert Einstein

The effort that goes into disproving God is addictive in nature. I often wonder how believing in God can be so harmful to mankind, but accepting organizations and programs that outright harm humanity is acceptable. Is this what the bible refers to when the last days are described as calling good evil and evil good?

Life Long Learners

The following is a talk given by my son Andrew in Leander, TX. He and his family just moved into the ward and joined his older brother Charles.

Insights on Mortal Life

5.25.2014
Andrew Himmer!
Insights on Mortal Life
Leander TX !!

PREAMBLE

It’s always a pleasure to attend the same ward as my older brother Charles. Moments to embarrass him don’t present themselves very often. So, when I responded to Br. Bishop that I was delighted to receive the assignment to speak, I really meant it.

The Emotional Intelligence of Joshua & Caleb

In Numbers 14 we read about the 12 spies of Israel sent into the Promised Land to scope out Israel’s eventual homeland. No mention is made if they hired Realtors or not, although they drafted two reports as a result of the trip. One report by Joshua and Caleb and one report by the other ten.

One can infer from the text that each man sent was one of his tribes best. However, no mention is made of the requirements, qualifications, or skills needed to be the best. Were they the smartest (IQ), most charismatic, strongest, loudest, most pious, richest, or was it based on nepotism, they were the oldest of the tribes literal lineage to whichever son of Israel bore the name of the tribe?

Authentic Happiness With Missionary Companions

Those of you who have served missions will readily recall certain companions who were more challenging than others. Some companions were introverted and others never shut up. It was a great learning ground for us as we prepared for the bonds of matrimony. Statistically it appears that many of us still struggle with interpersonal relationships. It’s possible that the source of frustration may be an intrapersonal conflict.

Priesthood Authority

I really enjoyed conference weekend. My highlight was probably Elder Oakes and how he addressed the Priesthood. Here are a few bullets that I especially enjoyed:

Women function in their calling with the authority of the Priesthood
Men and women have reciprocal authority
Only men will ever be ordained to a Priesthood office
Men are not the Priesthood, they function within the Priesthood
Only women have the God-given power of creation
Marriage is a full partnership – not a limited one
Women and men are equal with different responsibilities

The Trial of Christ: Ironies, Contradictions, and Violations

The Mosaic Law had safeguards placed within it to prevent wicked leaders from usurping their powers and making scapegoats out of the people. Jesus_Pilate

After the Jewish leaders talked themselves into believing that Jesus was guilty of a death sentence, they presented Him to Pilate.

Here is a short list of violations:

No one-day trials resulting in capital punishment.
No self-incrimination or confession without corroborating witnesses who agree with each other.
No hearing before the Sanhedrin in the house of the high priest.
The voting cannot be unanimous for a guilty verdict.

Ironies and Contradictions

Teaching

How To Teach A Lesson

There is an old saying within the Church: “Teaching: No Greater Call!” Yet how to effectively teach is a hard lesson to come by. Few members called into teaching position exercise effective skills in conducting a discussion, nor do they ask inviting questions that promote ideas and thoughts. The most effective way to engage in a learning environment is to stretch one’s comfort zone and challenge existing assumptions. However, this often introduces fear and hesitation into the teachers’ and students’ space and therefore restricts their actions.

Gethsemane

My son Elder Himmer, who is serving in South Korea, sent me a few questions this week. The provided answer is to the question about the difference between the Garden of Gethsemane and Golgotha. This post addresses Gethsemane.

Jesus approached death on three occasions, the Garden of Gethsemane, the scourging, and on Golgotha. In Gethsemane He experienced death symbolically, however, no human can bleed at every pore and live. During the scourge, any human would have died. On the cross he permitted himself to die.