People pay a lot for authenticity. They want the real deal.
Authentic artwork. Authentic collectibles. Authentic jewelry. People pay a premium for things that are original. Nobody wants a knockoff. Even when it’s a good imitation, it just isn’t the same.
The same can be said of our teaching.
Your students don’t want a cheap imitation of someone else. They need you to be you. After all, God called you to this calling. He must see something in you that your students need. He’s told us as much through his apostles:
“You have to be yourselves. You cannot be a Bruce McConkie or Boyd Packer or Russell Nelson, though we would do well to ask ourselves why those teachers affect us the way they do. Learn all you can from the great teachers (past and present), but of course, in the end, you have to teach naturally; you have to teach your way. However, whatever approach that may be, the result should be powerful, authoritative teaching. …
[U]nless you feel passionately about something, you cannot possibly, worlds without end, ever make your students feel passionately about it. May I repeat that? Unless you feel passionately about something, you cannot possibly hope to make your students feel passionately about it. …
If the Spirit is the key to astonishing teaching—and it is—there is great risk in speaking from old notes or using one of your fellow teacher’s examples, or droning on with a rendition of one of the talks from general conference. Those are all good in their place and spectacular when they were given originally, so certainly use anything you can at anytime to bring life and variety to your teaching. But what will matter most will be how you feel when you say the words. Nothing is going to be a substitute for that.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Angels and Astonishment,” S&I Annual Training Broadcast, June 12, 2019)
See? The Lord doesn’t need you to be some great teacher from the past or even your colleagues or teacher down the hall. He needs you to be you. But he needs you to be the best, most passionate version of you.
It’s hard to get someone to care about something when it doesn’t look like you care about it. All of us have things in our lives that excite us. Our families and friends. Our favorite sports teams. Movies and music. Art and literature. We have developed a love for these things and they have been formative in our lives in ways that have changed us forever. Can we talk about Christ with the same passion and enthusiasm?
When we are being ourselves, our true passions show. They ooze into our conversations and behaviors. Ask any of my past students: If you want to distract Bro. Tatum for an extended period of time, what should you ask him about?
I would hope that they would say “Jesus” or “the Gospel,” but I’m certain that some of them would bring up comic books and comic book movies. Because I’m passionate about it! I’m a genuine geek, and it is easy to see. I’ve been exposed to so much of it for so long that it is just part of me. And I like that. But we haven’t covenanted to be a witness of comic books “at all times and in all things and in all places” (Mosiah 18:8-10), nor should we see Spiderman’s “image in our countenances” (Alma 5:14).
We have been asked to take Christ upon ourselves, and that is a lifetime commitment. And the more we try to be like Jesus and the more we come to love Him, the more our passion for the Gospel will show. And the more we have Christ’s image in our countenances, the more our students will desire to be taught by us because they will be getting taught by the Master Teacher through you. Now, the Lord isn’t asking you to give up your personal identity and other passions you have (unless of course they conflict with the gospel). Those things help make you the individual that you are, and they will only help you connect with those you teach. The Lord just wants you to really feel and believe what you’re teaching with the same passion you give to those other things.
So, always strive to be the best teacher you can be…
