Education can help you learn about your eternal nature, discover truth and self-discipline, and become who God wants you to be.
Personal questions can help us evaluate our educational progress: “Where am I now? What do I need to do better? What do I need to learn in order to be more effective? Whom do I want to become?”
Speaking at BYU in 1980, Elder Hugh W. Pinnock (1934–2000), then serving as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, suggested these questions and explained that education is a key to becoming truly free.
“Both men and women are to have the same broad range of educational, social, vocational, and spiritual opportunities . . . ,” he says. “We should make these choices in a gospel perspective, remembering our eventual, eternal destiny.”
Although gaining an education requires dedication and effort, we are rewarded by discovering truth and self-discipline. “The virtue of all education is victory over oneself,” he says.
By earning an education, we learn more about our eternal nature and are better able to help those
around us. “We are to build, influence, lead, teach, and help each other.”
According to Elder Pinnock, educated people tend to—
1. Know that the foundation of all true learning is spiritual knowledge
2. Acquire, remember, and apply information
3. Be persistent
4. Be tolerant and inclusive
5. Recognize the importance of here and now
6. Be environmentally consciousness
7. Respect facts and truth
8. Use knowledge responsibly and productively
9. Appreciate the arts and extraordinary efforts
10. Attain deep integrity and Christlike morality
Read Hugh W. Pinnock’s full address, “Ten Characteristics of an Educated Person.”
Source: BYU Speeches
—Katie Hollingsworth, Mormon Insights
feature image by andree lüdtke
When I think of what it means to be an educated mormon my goal has always been disciple scholarship as articulated by Neil Maxwell. I use as my guide the talk by Elder Eyering titled child of God and accessible in BYU speeches. His characteristics–welcome correction, keep promises, work hard, help others, expect and overcome resistance–have been guideposts for me in my work as a scholar.