Education Week

My mom and I went to Rexburg last week for Education Week at BYU-Idaho, which was fabulous! (I also saw my family, but my camera battery died before I took a SINGLE picture, so I’m waiting for family members to email/post some pictures before I blog about that.) Last time I went to Education Week was about five years ago, and I promised myself I’d go back every year. You all know how that goes…just like New Years Resolutions. My mom and I had talked a few times about going together, but we never got around to it. This year, however, I thought my high school class reunion was the same weekend, just an hour away from Rexburg. I went and bought plane tickets and made all my travel plans before the class reunion date became official, which was unfortunate because the reunion ended up being scheduled for this coming weekend instead of last weekend. (I can’t get the time off work to get back down there on Friday, and I definitely can’t afford another plane ticket so soon.) Kind of a bummer, because I wanted to go to the reunion, but Education Week was so good that I’m glad I got to go!

Education Week consists of a series of hour-long classes that start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 7:30 p.m., which sounds like a really long day but goes by SO fast. There are about 15 classes to choose from every hour. Most of them are in large auditoriums, so (unlike the other Education Week at BYU-Provo) we could usually get into the classes we wanted to go to. Most of the teachers taught a series of related classes that ran at the same time each day, so there was some continuity.

There was something for everyone. There were lots of family history/genealogy classes (my mom liked those), music classes, doctrinal classes, classes that taught ideas for a happy home, and fluffy “Just Keep Trying!” types of classes. There were several classes on world religions and ancient civilizations, which I thought was AWESOME, and I took every class that was available on those subjects. (Someday I want to go back to college and get a degree in Anthropology.) The teachers were mostly professors at one of the church schools and (at least in the classes I went to) were widely traveled and spoke multiple languages. It was fascinating to hear their stories about traveling in Tunisia, Jerusalem, Afganistan, etc. One teacher, who taught a series of classes on Islam, Sikhism, and Hinduism, had just returned from spending five months in India. He, along with his wife and six young children, had the opportunity to participate in an exchange program, which I would do in a heartbeat! The teacher who taught a series on the Dead Sea Scrolls had just published a book in Hebrew and was working on another book. (One of the class members asked plaintively if this one would be published in English.)

One of my favorite classes was the first one of the morning, and it had to do with the last days: Adam-Ondi-Ahman, the Battle of Armageddon, and the Millennium. I wouldn’t do it justice if I tried to go into detail here on this blog, so let me just say the class made me want to take an actual semester-long class on these subjects. There was also a series on Egypt that I thought was fantastic.

Wandering around BYU-Idaho, I couldn’t believe how much it’s changed in the 13 years since I went to school there (it was Ricks College back then). About half of the buildings didn’t even exist back when I went there, and the other half of the buildings have undergone major renovations. I was relieved when I went into the Romney Building and saw it was almost the same. Of course, the Mathematics Department no longer lives there (I was a math major at Ricks) and they moved the Recreation Department into their old space, so the building had a much different feel. They had even re-routed the sidewalks between the older buildings (which seemed like overkill to me) and gotten rid of all the statues and sculptures, so the campus didn’t really feel like the same old Ricks College anymore. Kind of sad, but I guess the world really does change when you’re not watching. I took some time to go to the Teton Dam Flood Museum, which, despite good intentions, I never got around to doing when I actually lived in Rexburg. They showed a movie which did a great job showing the human side of the disaster: people who were given an hour to evacuate before the dam broke, who then watched helplessly from the top of a hill as their town was engulfed by the 8- to 10-foot wall of water. Those same people smiled for the camera few days later as they shoveled mud from their homes and sorted through ruined possessions.

After Education Week I feel so inspired to work and learn and serve! I definitely want to do this again next year. If anyone is interested, here’s a talk database which has some of the BYU Education Week talks, as well as firesides, devotionals, etc.