Teaching to Learn

Written by Matthew Needham

Knowing something is one thing, but teaching it is another. The other night, I had the unique privilege of teaching my dear sister an hour-long crash course in physics. She’s actually quite intelligent and caught on pretty quickly to the things I was saying. She asked rapid-fire, but genuine questions and asked me to back up and restate things when she was confused, or when I was unclear. When all was said and done, I came out of the conversation thinking about things in a bit different of a manner than I had before and had also learned a thing or two by just working through some of the questions she had asked that constantly challenged me. I realized, although not for the first time, that teaching any sort of material to someone actually causes you to understand the subject better.

Whether it is due to just hearing yourself verbalize, being challenged, or catching yourself saying things that are just wrong and backtracking to correct, you still end up on the other end a more refined and rounded individual. Many areas of life could benefit from a practice such as this. School comes to mind; when studying for a test or quiz, a great discipline could be to get together with another person willing to put up with you, and laying out everything you think will be on the exam, and let them challenge you. I did this in Calculus III with a friend who was also in the class in preparation for the daunting Oral Exam of Theory. We sat for countless hours, days in advance, and taught each other theories of the chapter that we would have to recite to our teacher for fifteen minutes nonstop. Needless to say, I attribute my love of that class to those moments, truly learning by teaching a friend.

I submit that when you think you are a master of a subject and confident in anything, go teach your sister—it’s quite humbling!