Become Better At _____ By Teaching It To Others

Have you ever heard yourself, or someone else, say, “I’m terrible at ____”? For my wife, that’s the subject of math. My wife homeschools our children. However, she saves the math portion for me.

Since I love math, it’s not a problem. Actually, I enjoy teaching it to my children. But that doesn’t solve her fear and/or loathing of the subject. Recently I got to thinking, “How could I help her feel comfortable teaching math?” The very answer I sought was within the question itself.

As children, when we learn something, we naturally want to share it with others. At the same time, when we don’t know something, or are very unsure of it, we keep to ourselves when that topic comes up. We wouldn’t dare volunteer to read out loud, when we’re just learning how to read.

It’s not until we become comfortable with something that we want to share it with others. And we can share through teaching.

Begin with what you know.

If you want to become more knowledgeable in anything, you first need to know how much you do “know.” For example, speaking another language starts with learning words in that language. No one would expect you to be a fluent speaker, without first knowing the words. We must start with the basics. If we don’t know any, then we start by learning the essentials.

Continuing with the language metaphor, it’s also important to understand sentence structure, pronouns, and pronunciation. Math, or any subject, is the same way. If we are to become better, we start with the essentials and expand upon that.

Teach others as soon as you learn something new.

Teaching others is a good way to reiterate what we’ve learned. It forces us to analyze what we know and articulate it in a way that someone else will understand. Perhaps you teach it the same way it was taught to you. At which point, you’re reinforcing what you learned and the methodology. Or, perhaps, you find a new way to teach it. When we take this approach, we’re actually taking it a step further.

By putting our own spin on it, we’re actually taking a deeper dive into the subject. It’s far easier to teach it exactly as it was taught to you. But you’ll learn much more when you analyze it and reteach it in a fresh way. The steps might be the same. How you achieved the result also might be the same. But the way in which the information was conveyed was different.

Changing the way we teach, from the way we were taught, strengthens our understanding of the subject. It forces us to adopt a different approach. By doing so, it allows us to better overall understanding.

Become the expert.

Of course, it’s imperative that we continue to learn ourselves. In order to be completely comfortable, we must become an expert in the subject. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to get a PhD or even a degree for that matter. Rather, it simply means to become a subject in what you’re teaching.

In math, if my wife dreads teaching simple division and multiplication, then it would behoove her to become an expert at either or both of them. She should learn as much as she can. And as she learns it, she teaches it. Eventually, she’d know so much that she could teach either one in her sleep.

The same goes for you and for me. If we feel that we’re terrible at ______, then we should consider teaching it to others. By doing so, we’ll become experts ourselves. At which point, we’d no longer be able to say we’re terrible at it anymore.