Step 1. Identify Your Passion

In IP&T 682, we were challenged to blog about our passions. We were told that we could discover our passion by going through the Shower Test, which is the question of what we think about, related to IP&T, when our hands are busy but our minds are free.

For me, I've realized that due to my experiences this past summer learning about work cultures and the Carrot Culture, my mind often turns to the challenge of creating, sustaining, maintaining, and teaching a culture.

From what I've learned, our experiences lead us to certain beliefs, which in turn lead us to action, which give us desired results. So it is ultimately our personal experiences that cause us to change our actions. And what is teaching or learning, if it does not change our actions?

In a particular instance of the BYU Early Childhood Music Academy, Susan Kenney seeks to create experiences in her music classroom for 2, 3, and 4-year olds and their parents that will change the music culture of their homes. Experiences include both exploration and instruction periods, with homemade and store-bought instruments. Children are also encouraged to check out CDs of a variety of music to listen to with their families throughout the week, and are often given new musical instruments to take home for the week. The experiences there are part of a unique music culture. My questions concerning this method of instruction include:

• What is the culture being taught?
• What parts of the experience in the Academy can only be repeated, rather than modified, in order to maintain the culture learned within the home?
• What sub-cultures have arised as a result of experiences with this music culture?
• Does the music culture transfer to the home?
• If so, how?
• What is the main purpose/vision of this particular culture?

My thoughts of culture have an interesting connection with unity. It seems that in order to create and sustain any organization of unity, there must be an established culture in which to create experiences that will lead any member of that organization to act in a similar, distinct way. I think this might just suggest that unity comes from common experiences.

Some other complexities with this riddle include the idea that people internalize different experiences differently because of their previous experiences. This may suggest that we need to come up with a way to understand individuals' previous experiences in order to create experiences that will best express to that individual the desired culture. Though the technology to be able to do this may be way down the road, I believe it will be possible to individualize experiences so that individuals may come to a common understanding of a culture.

My mind grazes through these sorts of questions. It is important to me because I want education to be more than memorizing facts; I want it to be an experience that teaches people to make their own decisions and take initiative and authorship of their lives.

The connection between this passion and the gospel is the idea of sharing a culture of the Kingdom of God. I believe this culture is taught in sacred temples and even in our homes around the world. My questions for this culture are similar to my questions concerning the BYU Music Academy:

• What is the culture being taught?
• What parts of the experience in the temple can only be repeated, rather than modified, in order to maintain the culture learned within the home?
• What sub-cultures have arised as a result of experiences with the temple?
• Does the culture of Zion transfer to the home from the temple?
• If so, how?
• What is the main purpose/vision of this particular culture?

I believe that as our ability to share a culture is expanded, we can improve those processes to lead to better morals, better ethics, a happier people, and a better-informed, more unified public.