“Natural” Teachers

Dylan Kane:

Speaking confidently, explaining ideas clearly, having some content knowledge, and getting students to like you are all things that many humans get good at outside of teaching contexts, and at first glance someone with those skills might appear to be a natural teacher.

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The heart of teaching is much more subtle, much harder to learn, and much more counterintuitive.

Isn’t this true of any field of endeavor?

I find it’s often the case that those who show the most “natural” skill in something, wind up being the ones who have the most difficulty un-learning what they believe they know and understand as they work toward mastery. They’re more likely to get frustrated once things become more challenging for them.

I always find it more rewarding to try to get better at things which I feel require work for me to really engage with. Anything that seems immediately obvious or straightforward to me gives me pretty major pause, because I’m probably over-simplifying it.