“Why do we love our writing teachers so much? Why, years later, do we think of them with such gratitude? I think it’s because they come along when we need them most, when we are young and vulnerable and are tentatively approaching this craft that our culture doesn’t have much respect for, but which we are beginning to love. They have so much power. They could mock us, disregard us, use us to prop themselves up. But our teachers, if they are good, instead do something almost holy, which we never forget: they take us seriously. They accept us as new members of the guild. They tolerate the under-wonderful stories we write, the dopy things we say, our shaky-legged aesthetic theories, our posturing, because they have been there themselves.” -George Saunders, author and Professor, from his essay “My Writing Education,” The New Yorker
“If you can’t explain an idea to an 8 year old, you don’t understand it…If you want to understand something better, teach it.” -Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning Physicist and Professor
“Learning is a lifelong process. While we teach, we learn.” -Seneca
The idiom “those who can’t do, teach” originated from George Bernard Shaw in his play Man and Superman. It was originally intended as a cynical jab at political revolutionaries rather than an attack on educators. Over time, it morphed into a popular, often derogatory, stereotype suggesting that teachers are simply people who failed at their primary vocational goals. Which is so not true.
Interestingly enough, the original maxim goes all the way back to Aristotle which reads, “Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.” In other words: Only those who truly understand complex ideas can break them down for others to understand.
Wanna know if you really grasp the fundamentals? Wanna get better at your craft?
Try teaching it. There’s no better test than that.
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