Transcript

Each of you who teach seminary and institute has the desire of the heart to be an angel. This is good, but it is a great temptation to play the part of the Pied Piper and to figure that you're going to gather them around you, and that their love for you, and that you will love them into their testimony, and to feel if you can become very popular, you can lead them as their role model and make a difference in their lives. This is all good. However, I want to say while this is true to a degree, it is one of the greatest mistakes when a teacher turns the students to themselves rather than to The Lord. As teachers, we must ponder about this. There is nothing more dangerous than when a student turns their love and attention to a teacher, in the same way a convert sometimes does to a missionary, and not the Lord. And when the missionary leaves or when the teacher leaves, then they conduct their life in a contrary way. The student is devastated. His testimony falters. His faith is destroyed. The really great teacher is careful to have the students turn themselves to The Lord. Once we have touched the lives of the youth, we have to turn them to God the Father and His Son, our redeemer and savior Jesus Christ, through prayer, study, and application of those things that they are taught in gospel principles to do in their lives.

5.12 One of the Greatest Mistakes

Description
Elder Hales warns teachers not to turn the students to themselves; he urges the teachers to turn the students to the Lord. (Robert D. Hales, 'Teaching by Faith,' Address to Religious Educators, Feb. 1, 2002).
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