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Perhaps someone can sort this into the fallacy in which it belongs. Experts make bad teachers -- Most people make bad teachers -- easily explained by teaching

by LanceH 10y ago

Perhaps someone can sort this into the fallacy in which it belongs. Experts make bad teachers -- Most people make bad teachers -- easily explained by teaching being a skill separate from other skills. "Technical people make bad managers" is another one I see put into use all the time.

iandanforth 10y ago
The article is saying that having something explained to you by someone who's abstractions are closer to your level will be, in the default case, better than by someone who has more "advanced" abstractions. Additionally, great teachers are ones that can match abstraction levels with their students and slowly advance those abstractions as the student learns. So, no it's not a fallacy, and yes the process of becoming an expert reduces the likelihood that someone will be a good teacher (of non experts).
- audleman 10y ago
  > and yes the process of becoming an expert reduces the likelihood that someone will be a good teacher (of non experts). I agree, but would add that it loops around. Somebody with a very good grasp of the abstractions at some point can go back and review all of the intermediate ones. They can hold them simultaneously and help guide students through them. That makes them excellent teachers.
  - LanceH 10y ago
    I've been thinking about this through the day and it really may depend on the domain being taught. A non expert may be able to teach a well defined skill step by step better than someone else who performs those steps without thinking about them anymore. I've done too many years of math tutoring to know that the non experts in math teaching math are not doing a consistently good job. A non expert in a complex field has no way of teaching off script -- which is where a lot of students will end up entirely by accident. I see it all the time tutoring math. I'm helping students who wandered from the one way that it was being taught. I help them get back some understanding when they feel lost trying to execute algorithms to solve problems. The article is very long on assertions and short on everything else. The final argument against this in my experience is that experts blow away non experts on fundamentals. Sports, math, science, writing, cooking, construction, painting etc...
simonsarris 10y ago
You may be looking for Sturgeon's law: "ninety percent of everything is crap." > The phrase was derived from Sturgeon's observation that while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, it could be noted that the majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of low quality and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard from other art forms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

by LanceH 10y ago

iandanforth 10y ago

The article is saying that having something explained to you by someone who's abstractions are closer to your level will be, in the default case, better than by someone who has more "advanced" abstractions. Additionally, great teachers are ones that can match abstraction levels with their students and slowly advance those abstractions as the student learns. So, no it's not a fallacy, and yes the process of becoming an expert reduces the likelihood that someone will be a good teacher (of non experts).

audleman 10y ago
> and yes the process of becoming an expert reduces the likelihood that someone will be a good teacher (of non experts). I agree, but would add that it loops around. Somebody with a very good grasp of the abstractions at some point can go back and review all of the intermediate ones. They can hold them simultaneously and help guide students through them. That makes them excellent teachers.
- LanceH 10y ago
  I've been thinking about this through the day and it really may depend on the domain being taught. A non expert may be able to teach a well defined skill step by step better than someone else who performs those steps without thinking about them anymore. I've done too many years of math tutoring to know that the non experts in math teaching math are not doing a consistently good job. A non expert in a complex field has no way of teaching off script -- which is where a lot of students will end up entirely by accident. I see it all the time tutoring math. I'm helping students who wandered from the one way that it was being taught. I help them get back some understanding when they feel lost trying to execute algorithms to solve problems. The article is very long on assertions and short on everything else. The final argument against this in my experience is that experts blow away non experts on fundamentals. Sports, math, science, writing, cooking, construction, painting etc...

simonsarris 10y ago

You may be looking for Sturgeon's law: "ninety percent of everything is crap." > The phrase was derived from Sturgeon's observation that while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, it could be noted that the majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of low quality and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard from other art forms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law