The Highest Level Of Learning - Is Teaching
Teaching anything to anyone else forces you to think about that information differently.
You have to categorize it, sort it, organize it...
But most importantly of all, you have to PRODUCE it.
Language teachers understand the difference between:
- receptive skills (listening/reading); and
- productive skills (speaking/writing)
And they know the massive difference between being able to understand what someone says (listening) and being able to say what you are thinking (speaking).
Teaching is the "speaking" of learning.
What do we tell students who say, "I can understand, but I can't speak" ?
Well, the only way to really KNOW how to speak...
Is to start speaking.
Without that... you can't speak. (obvious, I know)
If they tell you "I don't know how to speak English" (in their native tongue)...
You get them to speak... first one word... then a sentence... then a paragraph…
Before long, they are speaking without you telling them to.
The same is true for teaching.
When someone says, “I understand how it works, but I can’t do it.”
Tell them to TEACH it to someone else.
It works like magic…
First you teach one idea… then a concept… then a process… then a system…
Before long, you are teaching others entire fields of knowledge.
And that’s why TEACHERS are actually high-level STUDENTS.
They PRODUCE learning.
They MASTER knowledge by synthesizing and organizing it.
And this is why teachers must constantly learn new information too.
You need a steady stream of new information and ideas…
So that you have something to synthesize and organize.
When you stop learning (stop receiving learning)…
You get stuck teaching old methods and information (producing learning from old knowledge).
When you constantly learn as a student (receive learning)…
You can synthesize it, organize it, and teach it to others (produce learning from new knowledge).
Because learning is at the core of both the student’s role AND the teacher’s role.
They are two sides of the same coin, forever linked.
So if you know something…
But you aren’t teaching it to anyone…
If you understand how it works…
But you haven’t shared that knowledge with others…
Just start teaching someone.
To your success,