Monday, August 13, 2012

My Learning Process

It's only taken me ten plus years, but I've finally nailed down how I absolutely, positively make sure I've learned something.

If I can't teach it, and I'm not using it, then I have not truly learned it. I have often learned things well -enough-, to be able to perform adequately. But unless I've made some attempt to explain what I've learned to someone else, I find that the lesson is not as deep, and not as wide, either.

I think it's because when I learn something just well enough to perform at a task, I allow myself to have gaps in my knowledge that aren't absolutely critical to the task at hand. But when I go to teach someone, I immediately have to fill these gaps in. And not just fill them in with bullshit, either. No, I go back and I double-check everything I thought I'd learned, and make sure that the knowledge I am passing on is correct. I can tolerate myself being wrong or not being fully knowledgeable, but I can't tolerate possibly corrupting someone else's knowledge pool.

Also, in teaching, I find myself thinking about the whole construct of my knowledge over again. Sometimes even at this late stage, I'll have a sudden a-ha! moment as I think over something I haven't thought about in a long while.

Anyway. At this point in my life, I am now realizing I have been doing an awful lot of doing, and often blindly, and not enough trying to teach. I am by no means a perfect teacher, or even a good one. But the act of teaching is healthy for me. And I like to think it's healthy for others. And I'm not even a teacher, really. Just a fellow student, who wants to share ideas. Where I have more knowledge, I want to give it away. Where I have less, I want to receive it.

Took me ten years to learn this thing, though. Wonder what single thing I'll finally, slowly, dull-headedly learn over the next ten?