Just some random thoughts – Starting off with a famous quote attributed to Albert Einstein –
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough
Albert Einstein
Leadership
The Einstein quote came to mind for a “2 drink story” reason that I will not relate here.
I’ve been a “student of leadership” going back to my days playing “high school sports.” Athletics can become a “leadership classroom” – with “wins/losses” providing feedback – and obvious “leadership” lessons involved in “team performance”.
If a team is going to be “successful” then the “coach” needs to tailor their “coaching” to the level of the athletes. e.g. Coaching a group of 10 year old athletes will obviously be different than coaching a group of 20 year old athletes.
SO in “leadership education” they might call this “situational leadership.” In coaching this is the old “you need to master the basic skills first” concept.
You need to master crawling before you learn to walk. You need to master walking before you can run. Then riding a bike might take care of itself when/if you are ready – assuming you have “learned how to learn.”
Teaching
The task facing the coach/teacher/leader becomes helping the athletes/students/employees “master” the required skills.
The thought on my mind is that how much the coach “knows” isn’t as important as how much they can help the athlete learn.
“Playing” a sport requires different skills than “coaching” a sport. Just because someone was a great athlete does NOT mean they can teach those skills to others. Just because someone wasn’t a great athlete doesn’t mean they won’t be a great coach.
(… examples abound of both “great athletes” becoming great coaches, “great athletes” becoming “meh” coaches, as well as “average athletes” becoming great coaches – but that isn’t important at the moment)
Of course having great athletes can make an average coach look like a great coach – but that also isn’t my point today.
I’ve watched a lot of “video lectures” given by highly qualified instructors. Occasionally I run into an instructor/presenter that the only thing I get from their presentation is that THEY appear to know a lot – i.e. they didn’t “teach me” anything.
e.g. one instructor seemed to be reading from the manual – I’m sure in their head they were “transferring information” but the lessons were unwatchable. IF I want to read the manual – I can find the manual and read it. What I want from an instructor is examples illustrating the material NOT just a recitation of the facts.
Again, a presenter/teacher bombarding the audience with the breadth and width of their knowledge might be satisfying to the presenter’s ego – but not much else.
I’m a an of “storytelling” as an instructional tool – but that means “tell relevant stories that illustrate a point” NOT “vent to a captive audience.”
Education
Tailoring your message to the audience is probably “presenting 101.” It could also be “coaching 101” and “teaching 101.”
“Education” then becomes the end product of coaching/teaching/leadership and is ALWAYS an individualized process.
The worst coach/teacher might still have the occasional championship athlete/high achieving student. My experience has been that the “bad” coach/teacher tends to blame the athletes/students when things go wrong but takes all the credit if something goes right.
MEANWHILE – the “good” coaches/teachers are tailoring their instruction to the level of their athletes/students and recognize that, while getting an education is always an “individual process”, the “process of education” is a “group effort.”
Even if you go to the library and get a book on a subject – someone had to write the book for you to learn the material.
Learning to Teach
Those “bad” coaches/teachers PROBABLY don’t really understand their sport/subject – which is part of what Mr Einstein’s quote points out.
I have had “not so good” teachers tell me a subject is “easy” and that the class needs to memorize the textbook. Yes, the subject might be “easy” to some students – but not ALL of the students – and rote memorization as a means of mass instruction isn’t a particularly effective use of time.
I have also had excellent teachers tell me THEY learn something each time they teach a class. They don’t try to impress with their “vast knowledge.” They will try teach the students what is “important” (some memorization might be required but not as the major form of instruction). These instructors tend to be realistic about how much can be “taught” and emphasize the individual effort required to “learn” anything.
“You will get out of it what you put into it” is imprinted in my mind for some reason. This has morphed into my personal philosophy that “grades in a class tend to be an indication of effort and interest NOT intelligence.” Not everyone can get an “A” in every class, but if they put forth the effort everyone can “pass” the class.
ANYWAY – If someone teaches for 5 years and then looks back at their first year and DOESN’T see improvement in both teaching skills and mastery of the subject – well, they have 1 year of experience 5 times NOT “5 years” experience.