Education Week Notes Tuesday-- Part 1

HAPPINESS: WHAT DOES AND WHAT DOESN'T WORK (DEAN E. BARLEY): How can we be happy given the way the world is today?  Is happiness even a possibility? If you feel fairly energetic and upbeat most of the time on most days, you are generally happy.  Yes, but.... what about anger, guilt?  Is the pursuit of happiness selfish?  It's hard to draw from an empty well.  Happy people tend to be more altruistic, but we have to take care of ourselves.  Why be happy?  Why not just be resigned and realistic?  Because happiness tends to be part of the good life.  Sometimes we think that happiness is the result having crossed the finish line.  But happiness may be the engine that helps us cross the finish line.  Happy people do better in life.  Success leads to happiness and happiness leads to success.  We shouldn't wait for our ship to come in to be happy.  If we're happy, it creates circumstances for our ship to come in. we shouldn't wait for circumstances to improve before we can be happy.  People who are happy tend to make more money, maintain friendship, win elections, more resilient, have stronger immune systems, are healthier and live longer.  We can be happier TODAY! Are you satisfied with your life?  Do you feel that so far, you have gotten the important things you want in your life?  If you could live your life over, would you change almost nothing?  Happiness = your genetic set range (50%) + circumstances (10%) + factors under voluntary control (40%). That 40% is what we have to work with.  Changing circumstances doesn't bring lasting happiness.  You get used to your new circumstances and return to our baseline.  If we focus on changing circumstances it distracts us from focusing on other strategies that work better.  Life satisfaction has not moved an inch as people have become more prosperous.  In a study of 22 lottery winners, they returned to baseline happiness over time.  Materialistic people tend to have lower life satisfaction scores.  Happiness does not come from physical attractiveness, youth, objective health, education, gender.  Change your life.  Do one thing differently.  Things that work:  1.  Expressing and experiencing gratitude.  Think of someone in your life that you can say thank you to.  Write a letter to them.  You'll get a buzz that will last for a month.  He's done this with his 7th grade teacher and for a former bishop who was dying.  This will make two people happy.  Gratitude correlates with all the good stuff--energy, hope, empathy, connection with others, forgiveness.  Keep a gratitude journal.  At the end of each day, list things you're thankful for and why you think they happened.  You'll sleep better.  People who have done this for 3 weeks will continue doing it because it helps them so much.  2.  Cultivating Optimism.  This can cut your depression rate in half.  Our feelings are influenced by what we think, the way we see things, and our causal attributes."  If we want to change how we're feeling, we need to change the way we see the world.  Control vs. helplessness.  Pessimistic people interpret bad events as permanent, pervasive and personal. You need to dispute these thoughts.  What is the evidence?  What are other possible ways to think about this?  Focus on changeable and non personal.  Realize that you may be overreacting.  Give other people the benefit of the doubt.  3. Avoid over thinking or rumination.  It doesn't help to worry about stuff.  Rumination worsens sadness, impairs problem solving, saps motivation, and is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Distract yourself with someone you enjoy.  Focus your attention on something else and keep yourself busy. You can designate a worry chair and pick and time and place to worry. Tell yourself you don't have time to worry right now and you'll do it later. Write it down and tell yourself you've got it written down so you don't need to think about it.  Be careful with social comparisons.  Don't worry about what other people are doing.  Ask yourself if what you're worrying about is really going to matter 5 years from now.  4.  Practice acts of kindness. Pace it and add some variety.  Do some things you really want to do.  5.  Nurture relationships.  Spend five hours a week together and schedule time for each other.  Spend 5 minutes a day expressing gratitude for specific behaviors.  Have a 5/1 ratio of positive to negative affect (comments).  If you give people mostly criticism, that is not a healthy relationship.  In the morning, find out something your partner is going to do that day and then reconnect at the end of the day and actually listen to each other.  Talk about positive things. Are you bringing out the best in each other?  List attributes that initially attracted you to your partner and what you appreciate now.  Come up with an episode that illustrates those attributes.  Write about good times.  If they do something upsetting, write a charitable explanation for it.  In good relationships, each partner reacts with enthusiasm and interest when something good happens to the other person.  Listen to them, give them praise.  We need to learn to manage conflict better.  Avoid accusation, personal criticism, and stonewalling.  Use humor, affection, "I see your point."  Keep frequent contact with long term friendships, show interest and encouragement.  Express affection and admiration, affirm their successes, keep secrets, be loyal, reciprocate favors.  Those who give more hugs are happier. 6.  Develop coping strategies.  What have I learned from this?  We can develop posttraumatic growth.  We can move forward.  Some problems can't be solved (such as a loved one dying) but we need to learn to cope.  Seek social support.  Find meaningful and pleasant activities, physical exercise, radical acceptance, religion, making sense of it.  There are many things we have no control over.  Write down your thoughts.  Those who write in journals recover more quickly.  7.  Forgiveness.  Forgiveness is a choice.  Willfully abandon resentment and related responses and endeavor to respond to the wrongdoer based on the moral principle of forgiveness.  Forgiveness leads to greater life satisfaction and physical health. He was running out of time so just briefing listed the other things.   8. Flow 9. Savoring 10. Committing to and working toward goals 11. Religion and spirituality 12. Take care of body.  Find one thing to do differently and change your life! 

HOLLYWOOD VS. RELIGION, MORMONS INCLUDED (BRETT H. LATIMER): What are plot lines saying about religion? Are they making religion seem scary?  The Oscar has become a false god that many worship. Films by far are the story tellers of our time.  Many students' perceptions of history come from films.  "Let me write the songs, and I don't care who writes the laws."  Remember Chariots of Fire? What would people think 1,000 years from now if they could look back at us?  That we worshipped by staring at small screens in our homes for hours on end?  Children spend more time with TV than they do with their fathers.  Satan has made television and film media as one of his most useful tools.  Even a person who avoids TV and movies altogether will have their lives changed by their influence on everyone else in society. How can someone ever hear the still small voice when something else is being cranked out at full volume?  What's going on with Hollywood?  A survey of influential television writers shows that they are far less religious than the general public.  Only 7% say they attend a religious service as much as once a month. 50% of the general public will go to a religious service. TV writers are not portraying reality, they are creating reality.  Their standards oppose gospel standards.  In the late 60's something changed in Hollywood.  There was an emancipation of films from morality.  To muse means to think, meditate and ponder.  To put an "a" in front of muse, means not to.  A-muse-ment means the opposite of to think.  There is a danger of kids going to bed with music playing.  With religion, the unseen is what matters most.  In Psycho, Hitchcock realized that the mind and imagination could do more than something portrayed on screen.  Think of Ben Hur.  They didn't show the face of Christ.  Our imagination did the rest.  The Passion of Christ might give you some perception of how bad the crucifixion was, but doesn't portray the atonement.  Many people were crucified, but they are not our Savior.  The Catholic Church is a major target that has been attacked by Hollywood.  The Godfather, Part III, tried to show a connection between the Mafia and the Catholic Church. Audiences tend to accept fictional stories as true, especially when they are repeated in several story lines.  Movie writers are willing to rewrite history.  They show church leaders as sexual predators. Several movie clips were shown portraying Catholics as terrible people.  But then old black and white clips from decades ago were shown portraying Catholic priests doing good, such as Bing Crosby in "Going My Way."  Sentimental old movies were crowd pleasers.  Sister Act with its benign view of nuns is an exception today. Hollywood seems sensitive with other groups, but portray that "It's okay to hate God."  Hollywood portrays Catholics negatively -- priests as pedophiles, corruption from the head down, teachers at parochial school as abusive, pope in league with the Mafia.  In the Da Vinci Code, says almost everything our fathers told us about God is a lie and is false.  It makes serious jabs at the Catholic Church.  It says Jesus was merely a man and that church leadership was turned over to Mary Magdalene, not Peter.  The net effect is that more Catholics went back to their church!  Protestants are great people who do a lot of good, but Hollywood has a negative view of them and goes after them.  They love to attack born again Christians.  It portrays the faithful as bone headed suckers.  "Religious delusion" is blamed for tragedy.  Often these films don't do well in the box office because of their anti religious messages.  Pastors are portrayed as greedy and duping people into giving them money.  Hard working honest pastors aren't portrayed.  The Bible is shown as "the enemy."  John Lennon said, "Imagine no religion" but toward the end of his life regretted that.  What about Jews?  For the most part they are viewed as an ethnic group, not religiously.  They slam Orthodox Jews. What about religions in general?  The religious character often is portrayed as the bad guy.  They're the killer, the kook, a dangerous nut.  One movie showed a man reading the Bible and then plotting to bomb Las Vegas to punish them for their sins.  A Bible quoting woman in a murder mystery turned out to be the killer.  Often when old classic movies are remade, the bad guys are portrayed as religious in the new movies, when their religion wasn't even mentioned in the old movies.  Religion is portrayed in film as being the "Opiate of the masses."  In other movies religion is removed or unnaturally absent. One movie portrayed small town America but did not show one church.  Where can you find a small town without one church?  In "Cast Away" with Tom Hanks, he never looked up. He never turns to God.  That is not natural.  Robinson Caruso is infused with religion, and acknowledges complete dependence on God. Hollywood is not an equal opportunity offender. 

DEVOTIONAL ADDRESS (ELDER JAY E. JENSEN): He acknowledges his total dependence upon the Lord.  The Holy Ghost is our true teacher.  Let one speak at a time and all listen to his sayings, that all may be edified.  Edify means to improve spiritually.  It is part of a revelatory process.  The Holy Ghost is the true teacher in this work that leads to edification.  There is a cause and effect relationship for edification to occur.  We need an appointed teacher, a firm foundation.  Brigham Young insisted that faulty stones in the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple be replaced so that the foundation would be right.  The appointment of a teacher is under the direction of a higher authority, ultimately God's authority.  Worthiness is essential.  They needed to be guided by divine truths.  Trust no one to be your teacher except he be a man of God, keeping His commandments.  We need to improve order and reverence, both at home and in places of worship.  There is a lack of reverence in the church.  We need not point the finger at others.  You fix you.  If one person can stay in a meeting, everyone should be able to.  Often one person is listening, another is sleeping.  True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior.  Both learning and teaching needs to be improved in the church.  Invite diligent learning.  Scriptures are our best sources of learning.  We become a diligent learner when we are teachable, when we listen to the Spirit, when we don't resent correction, when we are a reverent listener, and when we are persistent.  There are formal and informal meetings in church.  Sacrament Meeting is a formal meeting.  An informal meeting invites class participation.  The use of visuals is not approved in formal meetings, but is used in informal meetings.  Often the most effective teaching takes place in informal meetings.  We not only need to carry our scriptures in our hands, but in our hearts.  Inspired questions lead to inspired learning.  We need to apply ourselves to understanding the Lord.  Parents need to lead their children in family scripture study and family home evening. This learning is more effective when it is more like a conversation rather than like another meeting.  Teacher is appointed, teaching and discussion governed by order, what is discussed is centered on truths, those who are not speaking should listen, both teacher and listeners should be respectful.  There is much to be learned. The Lord's leader has a united presidency.  They listen to each other and to inspiration from the Spirit.  They don't tell each other what they must do.  One can lead out in suggesting, but they should be equals.  The same should be true in marriages.  We need to listen carefully to each other and ponder and pray to be guided by the Spirit in meekness.  Education will occur only through the power of the Holy Ghost.  He is the true teacher.  You cannot lift a soul unless you are standing on higher ground than he is.  In informal settings, we regularly rotate our position as spokesman.  We have different but not superior roles.  The teacher is not better than the learner. Most missionaries have eternal investigators.  They depend on the missionaries, living on borrowed light.  Never give a lesson where there is no student participation.  Avoid the pitfall of teaching lessons and not people.  Don't worry more about covering all the material than in helping the listeners grow.  The Comforter will bring all things to our remembrance.  The teacher and student need to share responsibility for learning.  Invite the Holy Ghost to do what only He can do so that all may be edified. 

BUILDING THE SALT LAKE TABERNACLE: ARMIES, AGENTS, ARCHITECTS, AND ACOUSTICS (ELWIN ROBINSON): He had a chance to crawl through the building.  It is remarkable in a number of ways.  It was built a long way away from the industrial part of the United States.  Four decisions made contributed to the building of the tabernacle.  It was begun during the Civil War in 1863.  The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, two years after the Tabernacle was completed.  Everything that went into building the building either had to be made locally or carried across the plains.  There were iron missions in Parawan.  They were able to smelt iron, but not nearly enough to support the demands of Salt Lake City.  Wood trusses were joined with wood pegs.  However, roof sheathing, wooden shingles, and wood lath all required nails. They wrapped rawhide around the split planks.  In 1857 the Utah War began.  Military wagons came constantly to Utah.  Wagons had iron on them.  The military wagons were heavily built.  The military abandoned a lot of their equipment in Utah.  All the wagons, rifles, etc., ended up in Utah and then there was a sufficient iron supply to allow building to happen.  There was a nail making machine and making nails was no problem, but finding iron to feed into the machine was the problem.  Boys would scour the neighborhoods and be well paid for any iron they found.  Some metal washers were made out of ox shoes.  Quite a bit of lumber was needed, a lot of it available from the nearby canyons.  Logging operations became difficult when a land agent with a chip on his shoulder came along. They logged above Alta which caused avalanches.  The initial architects were William Folsom, Brigham Young, and Henry Grow. William Folsom had just finished the Salt Lake Theater.  He was the most talented designer in Utah.  But William Folsom's plan wasn't the one that was eventually used.  Brigham Young's daughter said Brigham Young explained his idea of how to build the tabernacle by breaking an egg shell and putting it up on toothpicks.  He was 50 years ahead of his time in his thinking.  Henry Grow designed the trusses.  He designed and built the White Bridge in 1861, with Brigham Young as the general contractor.  It crossed the Jordan River at North Temple.  It was a 132 clear span across the river.  They took the lattice form and arching it over a congregation instead of over a river.  Turning a lattice form into an arch was not common.  They were launching out into the unknown.  Nobody had built a building with that kind of interior span.  They created a three hinged arch which was very stable.  If William Folsom's design had been used, it would have required significant maintenance and it's likely it would not still be standing.  Brigham Young made the right decision.  The acoustics of the building were such that it magnified and echoed any noise in the hall. At the first conference in 1867, Truman Angell sampled the sound in various locations in the hall.  The bustle and noise made by the people destroyed the words of the speaker or drowned them out.  Most of you have heard the pin drop in the tabernacle.  It's one thing to magnify a single sound, but another to have multiple sounds magnified simultaneously.  People sitting in the central part of the hall will get a disturbing echo.  You'll have trouble hearing the words.  They hung curtains to try to control the echoes.  The gallery was planned from the outset but was not completed until 1870.  Once the gallery came in, it improved hearing quite a bit.  All of a sudden, the vast majority of the people could hear.  Hanging garlands from the ceiling absorbed a lot of the echoes.  For 12 years, there were lots of garlands. When Utah became a state, they hung a huge flag on the ceiling of the tabernacle.  It had an electric light on the star that was Utah and at the appropriate moment, they lit it up.  Microphones improved hearing even more.  David O. McKay, who spoke in the tabernacle both before and after the microphones commented on how it strained your voice before the microphones.  All these things contributed to the success of the tabernacle.  It was without parallel in the world.  It was a new design, a real invention.  No one had built anything this size or shape.  Not everyone liked it, but everyone felt they had to comment on it.  In 1877 someone from the East said "nearly all of us know it from pictures." It remains one of the great buildings of the church.