One point that is being glossed over in this essay is that teaching is a difficult skill that is not as strongly correlated with comprehensive expert knowledge of the content than one might think. I say this as someone who worked as a teacher for 6 years.
Part of the process of developing expertise in a field of study is “chunking.” The expert mind sees lots of complex things together as a single chunk (which can be unpacked if necessary) whereas the beginner sees the individual pieces. This chunking helps experts to interact with other experts and to apply the material to solve complex problems. But it can actually hinder teaching beginners especially if the expert is not a skilled teacher or has not taught that subject material before. The expert might easily give an overview of the topic, but has to unchunk the knowledge before explaining it to the beginner in detail.
Good teaching requires many interpersonal, and pedagogical skills that are not at all needed for the original learning of the material.
One point that is being glossed over in this essay is that teaching is a difficult skill that is not as strongly correlated with comprehensive expert knowledge of the content than one might think. I say this as someone who worked as a teacher for 6 years.
Part of the process of developing expertise in a field of study is “chunking.” The expert mind sees lots of complex things together as a single chunk (which can be unpacked if necessary) whereas the beginner sees the individual pieces. This chunking helps experts to interact with other experts and to apply the material to solve complex problems. But it can actually hinder teaching beginners especially if the expert is not a skilled teacher or has not taught that subject material before. The expert might easily give an overview of the topic, but has to unchunk the knowledge before explaining it to the beginner in detail.
Good teaching requires many interpersonal, and pedagogical skills that are not at all needed for the original learning of the material.