Chanting Prayers

“Once I watched a teacher instruct teenagers to chant the word “pots,” They shouted, “Pots, pots, pots, pots, pots.” Then the teacher asked, “What do you do at a green light?”

“Stop!” everyone shouted.

The teacher laughed and said, “That’s why there are so many accidents with teenage drivers.”

The teacher then pointed out that mindlessly chanting, “pots, pots, pots” (which is “stop” spelled backward) had primed the students to say “stop,” even though it was obviously the wrong answer. If the students had taken time to think, they would have said something different. He then asked, “Are you just chanting in your prayers, or do you really stop to think about what you are saying?”

The teacher who had his students chant “pots” later had them chant the word “roast.” After the students repeated it several times, the teacher asked, “What do you put in a toaster?”

Some student said, “toast,” but many paused to think and correctly said, “bread.” The teacher commended those who had stopped to think about what they were saying.”

John Hilton III, “Patterns of Prayer in the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, Oct. 2012, 60-63.