Teaching to Learn

To learn something difficult, attempt to teach it to someone else.

when we’re learning something new, and [[ Feeling Stupid ]], that’s the best time to talk to someone else about what you’re learning.

As children, we are told that the teacher is the expert and the rest of us are students, but we are all teachers and we are all students.

  • The great physicist Richard Feynman taught college-level physics all his life because he felt that the process of teaching brought him insights into his work.

  • Putting yourself in the position of a novice so you can figure out to explain something to another person is a very powerful tool and can facilitate thinking.

  • You don’t need to be an expert or put together a formal class to teach on a subject. You can start out a discussion with “let me tell you what I know about this…” and that is perfectly valid.

Therefore:

When you’re having a particularly difficult time understanding something, make an attempt to teach what you know to someone else.

You can teach through writing to yourself or others—Literacy—or for faster feedback, have a conversation with one or more people you trust

Notes/patterns mentioning this pattern