Teaching through it
On kindergarteners as sponges, the skills gap, and why anyone who wants to explain or persuade needs to learn a few basic tricks
One of the most reliable heuristics is that the first time is usually the hardest. It’s not always true (that’s why it’s only a heuristic), but for most people, it’s right most of the time.
■ Certain types of people aren’t dissuaded by this difficulty: Small children are renowned sponges for new knowledge and skills. And that’s a good thing, or else we’d have a hard time getting them to learn anything important in time to develop independence and self-sufficiency.
■ But somewhere along the line, with the exception of the minority of the population that approaches learning as reflexively as breathing, most people seem to lose that child-like motivation to learn and shift into a mode that is more comfortable with what they already know. This is the classic problem of trying to teach an old dog new tricks. This puts two big challenges in front of anyone who wants to teach them new things.
■ The first is connecting old knowledge to new. In most cases, it’s vastly easier to build on a framework of existing knowledge (even if it’s only through metaphors and analogies) than to teach from scratch. For the teacher, the challenge is in finding adjacent knowledge that is close enough to the new material to be familiar but not so close as to keep the new information from sounding fresh and novel.
■ The second challenge is in answering the inescapable question: “What’s in it for me?”. Whether you’re a classroom instructor, a preacher, a candidate on the stump, or a podcasting host, you typically need to address that question at least once every five to seven minutes if you want the audience to pay attention of its own choice.
■ While these skills have always mattered, their importance is being magnified by the knowledge trends of the day, which include evidence of mounting student disengagement in the classroom, potentially critical skill gaps in the workplace, and shocking growth in time spent consuming media content.
■ The very act of self-government depends upon people being able to assess problems (especially new ones), apply reasoned judgment, and follow through with appropriate action. Those who want to influence the future would be well-advised to figure out how best to refine their own skills for connecting and explaining effectively.
