When In Doubt, Teach

When we grow up, most of us attend public school. Within those walls, the idea of teaching and learning separate . You see yourself as one or the other, and it stays that way through the secondary school system. We get to the work force, and expect to follow through w. The option to teach is seldom given, if at all.  I think this is a mistake, because in my life I have found that it is much easier to learn something once you teach it. It gives the teacher the ability to going over the material again and keep what they learned in the first place. It also lets someone learn a new perspective through the questioning of students, opening options that haven’t been explored before.

Knowledge retention is a difficult task. Even if we spend the time to read all that we can, and take all the notes that we can, we can’t expect to remember everything. Having a reread list helps, because it allows you to pick up the things you miss. With that said,by teaching the ideas you learn, you relearn what you thought you understood. Like with the reread list, going over things, especially with the perspective of teaching something, changes what you keep and puts pressure on you to keep it.  Learning is hard, but stress can make it better.

You become a better student when you learn how to ask good questions. They  bridge gaps of understanding, and force everyone to take a second and consult what they know. When you teach, you get the opportunity to turn that on to the student. Those questions open up a world of experiences. Students can flip this on you, and  that is scary, because it shows our inefficiencies. But if we are strong enough, we can see that we can learn through those very same inefficiencies and become better. Through questioning, the teacher can become more in touch with the knowledge they impart, and find holes to either fix or to investigate something else. Each person we meet opens a new door for us through their experience.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but to teach is to know. Each time we get the opportunity to teach, we get the opportunity to learn more about our selves and the world around us. Teaching is by no means a one way street, because by teaching you get to improve your knowledge retention and gain a new world of ideas from another person. Each new person is a new experience, and each experience makes connections. By adding the concept of teaching to your toolbox, you gain another piece of learning down.