Teach As He Taught

Stages        (This is only a small part of the message).

Written by Charles Metten.  He retired from BYU in 1996 after completing thirty-five years in the Department of Theater and Media Arts. Professor Metten was born and reared in California, where he received his B.A. and M.A. from UCLA and met his wife, Patricia, who introduced him to the Church. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa and joined the faculty at BYU, where he was an insightful teacher, actor, mentor, and friend. (Emphasis added).

"...Now let me share a story about the joy of being a teacher of young people at BYU. The young woman in this experience helped me solidify something in my own mind that I have now come to believe is truth.  Teaching, real teaching, occurs only when the student is the focus, and the process of working together helps her accomplish something that is within her.

This young woman came to BYU from an Italian family living in California. Her family was a large one, although she was the only girl. She had come to BYU, where I first met her in one of my beginning speech classes. My, but she was shy. She wanted to drop the class because she was so frightened at having to get up in front of the other students to speak. I discovered that all her brothers were football players, basketball players, or track stars. She told me that she couldn’t do anything. I kept talking to her—I wouldn’t let her drop the class—I kept telling her to just stay with it and watch the other students.

Finally, the day came when I asked her if she would complete an assignment of telling us something she did well. She cried. After class she came up to me and sobbed, 'Oh, Brother Metten, Brother Metten, I can’t do anything well. I don’t know anything well.'  So we talked. For several days I had her come to my office, where we talked about her life on the farm and life with her brothers, life with her mom and dad.

Finally in our discussions I found out that she loved to make pizza. So I said, “Show me.” Right there in my office she showed me with nothing—she just pantomimed—how she made pizza with all the ingredients. She went through all of the motions. She stirred, and beat, and rolled the dough, and threw it in the air, thinning it out. She did the whole thing—laid out the olives and the salami, the pepperoni, then the cheese, and then she baked it. I said, 'Would you do that in class?' 'Oh,' she said, 'no, I can’t. No. I’m scared, I’m frightened.' She said, 'I’d faint.'

(Many of the students say they will faint, but they never do. It’s always an exciting experience to think about, though.)

Finally she agreed to do it, and one day she stood in front of that class. Only this time she brought her ingredients and her bowls and she started from scratch and made that pizza. The class was fascinated. They watched, they laughed, and they cheered as she went through making the pizza. And then, as she was finishing her talk, she said, “I put it in the oven and bake it. And now I would like you to taste some of my pizza.” She had brought a big pizza that she had cut up into twenty-one slices, and we all sat there and ate some of her pizza. When we were done, the class stood up and applauded and whistled and stomped their feet. They knew how difficult this presentation had been for her. She just stood there with flour on her face and hands and cried.

I went up to her and put my arms around her and said, 'What is the matter? Why are you crying? You have done so well. Everybody loved what you did.' She said to the class, and this stays in my heart, 'I have never been applauded in my life.'

Well, from that point on she began to gain some courage. She made friends, got an A in the class, and on the day she graduated she made it a point to introduce her family to me—her mom and her dad and her brothers.

About a year later she became engaged and married her young man in the Salt Lake Temple. I was invited to the wedding reception, and when I started through the wedding reception line, there she was, a beautiful bride, my pizza girl who had just blossomed in that class. And in turn, she had become a mentor and guide and teacher to other shy frightened students, both men and women, in other classes. As I greeted her and shook her hand, she pulled me to her and whispered in my ear, 'Thank you, Brother Metten, for being my teacher.'

My working in classrooms and projects with young people improved after that. I looked for ways to connect with students and ways to increase their own gifts and talents.

This young woman reminded me that God himself represents understanding and love, and that God lets people know that he loves them. He lets us know that we are important. He lets us know that we can do things well. This young woman—my pizza girl—certainly made me feel so."