What is the most important condition for elevated learning?
Congratulations to today’s graduates. We join with your families and loved ones to celebrate this significant milestone. What a joyous moment to reflect on your accomplishments and the progress you are making in your lives.
I would like to pause for a moment to reflect on the learning and growth you have had in your time at BYU-Idaho—not just the subject matter insights you have gained in your majors, but more profoundly, what you have learned about how to learn in the first place. For your future, this will be the most lasting blessing of your BYU-Idaho education.
Let me start by asking what I think is a fundamental question: What is the most important condition for elevated learning?
I have asked this question to many students over the years and invite you to think about this today.
Inspiring Teachers. Some students respond compellingly that inspiring teachers have made a tremendous difference in their learning. I can recall teachers in my own life who leaned in, knew me personally, and were passionate about what they taught. They inspired my learning, and I was a better student because of them. Certainly, by coming to BYU-Idaho you have been blessed to be surrounded by some of the best teaching faculty in the country.
Compelling Curriculum. Others have responded to my question about the conditions for elevated learning by pointing to the curricular materials they studied. They explain that when curriculum is well organized and effectively presented, students are more engaged and can recall information more effectively.
Relevant Topics. Many students point out that if the subject itself feels relevant to their own life interests, they are more likely to engage and remember the materials.
Urgency and Purpose. Still others argue that when they have urgency and purpose for their learning, they are more likely to study with increased rigor and focus. For example, when I took accounting as an elective course in college, I found it dull and without application. Later in life when I was running a large media company, I found the same subject to be fascinating and completely relevant. Our circumstances often shape our learning.
Each of these conditions can, in fact, elevate our learning. We learn more effectively when we have inspiring teachers, compelling curriculum, and relevant topics, and we face a sense of urgency and purpose in our learning. And yet, underlying each of these conditions is something much more fundamental and profound: We learn most effectively when we have opportunities to act and use our agency. The ability to act, to choose, to take ownership, and be personally responsible for our learning increases our use of agency. It is the activation of personal agency that is the most important condition for elevated learning. Your ability to act and take responsibility for your learning will be far more important than the choice of a specific major or minor or any other job skill you have acquired. Your ability to use your agency in your learning will have the greatest impact not only on your future academic and professional growth, but on your spiritual development. We don’t write this out on your transcripts or display this on your diploma, but when we say you are a graduate of BYU-Idaho, we are signaling that you are someone who has acquired the ability to use your agency to learn and to grow in profound and lasting ways.
Agency Is a Principle of Action and Power
Elder David A. Bednar has taught that faith “is a principle of action and of power.” He explained, “As a servant of the Lord, my role is not to just disseminate information. If people are to increase in faith in Jesus Christ, then they need to act in accordance with the teachings of the Savior.” [1]
In the Doctrine and Covenants, we are taught that the power is in us when we use our agency to act: “Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.” [2]
Lehi taught that God created “both things to act and things to be acted upon.” [3] Building on this, Elder David A. Bednar explained, “As learners, you and I are to act and be doers of the word and not simply hearers who are only acted upon. Are you and I agents who act and seek learning by faith, or are we waiting to be taught and acted upon?” [4] In Teaching in the Savior’s Way, we read, “It was surely awe-inspiring to watch the Savior walking on the water. But that wasn’t enough for Peter. He [needed] to do what the Savior did, be where He was, and have the same experience himself.” [5] In Preach My Gospel, we read, “Learning from a good teacher is important, but it is also important for you to have meaningful learning experiences from your own study.” [6]
A Master Class on Agency and Learning
These are just an introductory set of resources on the importance of agency and learning. The doctrinal foundation of the relationship between agency and growth is profound. The gift of moral agency anchors the very foundation of the plan of happiness. As graduates of BYU-Idaho, you have been students in a master class on agency and learning that offers you a foundation for learning and decision-making in your future.
The BYU-Idaho Learning Model
In the very structure of your academic experience, you have been given repeated opportunities to use your agency through the unique principles and practice of the BYU-Idaho Learning Model. [7] While the principles of this learning approach are doctrinally based, I know of few settings where they are practiced so consistently as at this university. Regardless of your specific academic major, faculty have invited you to come prepared to learn before class. This came in efforts that included pre-reading materials, pre-class polls, and even written analysis. The choice to prepare meant your subsequent classroom learning was deeper and more meaningful than if you had simply showed up unaware of a given topic of discussion. You became an agent who learned to act and not simply be acted upon. Once in class, your BYU-Idaho faculty provided you opportunities to engage in discussion, share what you were learning, ask questions, and engage with others in your learning. Finally, you were given repeated opportunities to reflect on and then apply your learning outside of a formal classroom setting. These experiences to prepare, engage with others, and apply your learning have been a unique facet of your academic training at BYU-Idaho. They have given you opportunities to use your agency in your learning that will make you valuable no matter where you work and serve after graduation.
Student Leadership
The opportunity to act and not be acted upon has been part of the remarkable student leadership you have had at this university. BYU-Idaho has prioritized your opportunities to be participants in your student experience and not simply spectators. For many, this came through the hundreds, even thousands of programs and events you planned and participated in through the BYU-Idaho Activities program. Part of what makes this university such a vibrant community is the ownership students take for their own student experience, manifest in winter activities, athletic competitions, talent performances, and so many other activities that you chose to organize and plan during your time at BYU-Idaho.
There were other opportunities to engage and serve other students, including those who volunteered or served in New Student Orientation, the Heber J. Grant Mentoring program, and the College Success course. Many of you worked through your college years, building the university as faculty assistants and employees in student support or admissions. Of course, thousands of you have served in ward and stake callings throughout your BYU-Idaho experience, serving as Sunday instructors, ministering brothers and sisters, Relief Society and elders quorum leaders, and so many other responsibilities. These leadership experiences across BYU-Idaho are examples of agency in action, at scale, across this entire university. President Henry B. Eyring saw this in you long before you ever came to this university. He said of the future graduates of BYU-Idaho, “They will be natural leaders who know how to teach and how to learn. … Those graduates of BYU-Idaho will become—and this is a prophecy that I am prepared to make and make solemnly—those graduates of BYU-Idaho will become legendary for their capacity to build the people around them and to add value wherever they serve.” [8]
Part of what makes BYU-Idaho so special, part of what makes you so special, is how you have used your agency to lean in, build yourself, and build other students at BYU-Idaho.
The Limits of a Lecture
I stated earlier that you have been enrolled in a master class on learning during your time at this university. I had this same experience of discovery and growth in my own time at BYU-Idaho, both as the president, but also in my assignments with the faculty and earlier, when I worked with the university’s student leadership programs. I loved the insights that came as we studied the principles of the BYU-Idaho Learning Model together and applied them with our students. I was inspired as I watched student leaders take ownership of their university experience in the BYU-Idaho Activities program, mentoring programs, and other student leadership opportunities. I marveled at the teachings of past presidents Henry B. Eyring, David A. Bednar, Kim B. Clark, and others who taught inspired messages on agency and learning, messages that permeated the university culture.
One of the lessons I definitely learned about learning and agency is that a standalone lecture is one of the least effective modes of learning, and yet I marvel that we are gathered here at graduation to do exactly that—listen to a lecture. So, I would like to flip today’s classroom and view this graduation message as a preparatory assignment, not a concluding speech. I invite you to consider my message as an introductory reading for you to activate the learning process. Following today’s graduation, take a moment to reflect on two questions:
- First, what is the relationship between agency and learning?
I have suggested several scriptural and prophetic resources to aid in that discussion. Please consider this question more deeply, discuss it with others, and look for ways to be a more active learner.
- Second, why will your ability to act and not be acted upon matter so much to your future?
When We Act, We Invite the Spirit
It is on this second question that I will conclude my own remarks. In his first general conference as the prophet of the Church, President Russell M. Nelson declared, “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” [9] You live in a time where the adversary’s deceptions are as widespread as they are destructive.
One of the many reasons we are invited to use our agency is that when we act, that faith in action invites the Holy Ghost, and it is the Holy Ghost who ultimately teaches and confirms truth. Elder David A. Bednar recently reinforced this in his worldwide devotional to young adults when he taught, “As we … preserve and exercise our moral agency to love God and serve our brothers and sisters, and take the Holy Spirit for our guide, we can avoid deception and prosper spiritually in the challenging and blessed times in which we live.” [10]
This is why we are striving to create a master class experience at BYU-Idaho on agency and learning. Of course, the active learning you have developed at BYU-Idaho will help you in your employment, future studies, and in your home. But one of the anchoring reasons we work so hard to give you opportunities to act is that you will need it in the coming days for your own spiritual survival. It is this more fundamental pattern of moral agency that we pray you will take with you as you leave this university.
President Russell M. Nelson explained that the real master class is the choices we are given in this life. In his address, “Think Celestial!,” he stated, “Mortality is a master class in learning to choose the things of greatest eternal import.” [11] In his worldwide message to young adults, our prophet stated, “You get to decide what kind of life you want to live forever … During this life we get to choose which laws we are willing to obey.” We are then reminded of the joy that comes when we choose the Savior and the God who loves us most. “Jesus Christ is the only enduring source of hope, peace, and joy for you. Satan can never replicate any of these. And Satan will never help you. …God will do everything He can, short of violating your agency, to help you not miss out on the greatest blessings in all eternity.” [12]
This is why we teach the way we do at this university. This is why we give you so many opportunities to act and not be acted upon. God loves you and He wants you to find joy in Him. As Elder Patrick Kearon explained, “God is in relentless pursuit of you. He ‘wants all of His children to choose to return to Him,’ and He employs every possible measure to bring you back.” [13] Every measure but overriding your agency. You have to choose. You have to choose Him. You have to choose His path. My prayer today is that your time at BYU-Idaho has helped you learn how to take responsibility for your learning and how to recognize the Spirit, and has encouraged you to develop a pattern of moral agency that will bless you throughout your life. May we choose that better path is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Scott Taylor, “Learn Elder Bednar’s Pattern for Studying Conference Messages—Doctrine, Invitations, Blessings,” Church News, Mar. 25, 2021; emphasis added.
[2] Doctrine and Covenants 58:27–28; emphasis added.
[3] 2 Nephi 2:14.
[4] David. A Bednar, “Seek Learning by Faith,” Ensign, Sept. 2007, 61.
[5] Teaching in the Savior’s Way [2016], 27.
[6] Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service [2018], 18.
[7] See the overview of the BYU-Idaho Learning Model.
[8] Henry B. Eyring, “A Steady Upward Course,” BYU-Idaho Foundational Address, Sept. 18, 2001.
[9] Russell M. Nelson, “Revelation for the Church, Revelation for our Lives,” Ensign or Liahona, Apr. 2018, 93.
[10] David A. Bednar, “Things as They Really Are 2.0,” [worldwide devotional for young adults, Nov. 3, 2024], Gospel Library.
[11] Russell M. Nelson, “Think Celestial,” Liahona, Nov. 2023, 117.
[12] Russell M. Nelson, “Choices for Eternity,” [worldwide devotional for young adults, May 15, 2022], Gospel Library.
[13] Patrick Kearon, “God’s Intent Is to Bring You Home,” Liahona, May 2024, 87.