
Curse of knowledge - jsnathan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge
======
lordnacho
And this is why I used to joke with my tutorial partners at Oxford that the
more titles someone had, the worse they were at teaching. I did find that the
best tutors tended to be ones who were PhD students, with the content somewhat
fresh in their minds.

Part of it is that when you become very senior, you start to become an
administrator of a little research business, rather than a teacher.

Another part is that once you've internalised something, you cannot fathom not
knowing it. Imagine not knowing what the complex plane is, and trying to
explain it to someone who only knows what the real numbers are. Your
explanations just won't make sense until you can place the real line inside
the complex plane, and shepard the learner to the same state.

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hunta2097
I think the reason why Richard Feynman was such a great orator is that he
could overcome this gap to a certain extent.

Matt O'Dowd on PBS Space Time also has a great way of breaking down really
complex theories (especially if you watch a set of presentations in order).

[PBS Space Time (YouTube)]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g)

~~~
bike4beer
I love Feynman he was an entertainer, but honestly, even CalTech admitted that
nobody really advanced in understanding or created anything out his works, its
all like intellectual mind candy.

People who understand things who can roll up their sleeves, and get the job
done, are a rare breed, this stuff can't be taught.

Later, after you create you can return to Feynman, have a cold-beer, and
listen to his lectures and have a good laugh.

~~~
throwaway7645
Yea...his intro series seems to be physics concepts for the non math based
majors.

~~~
tgb
Have you read the Feynman lectures? They're not exactly trivial. They have
some diversions towards casual descriptions, but they're quite grounded in
mathematics. I haven't watched his course lectures, but I have a hard time
believing that they're that different.

He does write explicitly non-math based works as well, like the (IMO
excellent) QED book. But I also have his lectures on computation book here,
and I had to leave a good number of problems in it unsolved.

~~~
throwaway7645
Yea, you can watch on YouTube. They aren't very math based. Of course the
theory is mathematical, but you won't get that without equations. I'm just
talking about his intro course and have never read QED or his lectures on
computation. A great scientist making more accomplishments in an afternoon
than I will make in my lifetime :).

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zwischenzug
This is something I've thought a lot about as I've tried to teach basic skills
at $corp to smart people with relatively little formal comp sci or programming
experience.

It led me to write two books using the Hard Way method:

[http://learnbashthehardway.tk/learnbashthehardway.pdf](http://learnbashthehardway.tk/learnbashthehardway.pdf)

[http://learngitthehardway.tk/learngitthehardway.pdf](http://learngitthehardway.tk/learngitthehardway.pdf)

It doesn't assume zero knowledge, but it's so hard to know how to pitch. What
I like about the hard way method is that typing stuff out forces you to engage
the material and encourages self-learning through the topic.

~~~
chuckdries
Just a heads up - on the learn bash the hard way section 1.6.2 you tell the
user to enter csh but you never tell them to exit, so a beginner following
your instructions would be doing the whole tutorial in csh, not bash.

Granted, your comment about $ vs % and the fact that all the following code
snippets have $ they could figure it out but still.

~~~
zwischenzug
Thanks - just the kind of thing I need pointing out :)

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agumonkey
I always liked people who were very smart but without losing touch with
simplicity.

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k__
I tried to teach my girlfriend programming once. She understood stuff that
took me years in a few days.

When teaching, I remembered how hard concepts of variables and functions
really are. It's really hard to explain it to someone.

~~~
andromeda__
Sure you're not just smitten? Really? Stuff that took you years took her days?
Kindly care to expound?

~~~
wott
Perhaps he counts his years as a kid? When stuff seems magical, mystical or at
least very very fuzzy.

~~~
k__
Well, I started programming with 15.

But yes, I'm not a very smart person. I had to learn things a few times till I
understood them :/

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drsopp
This is my prime concern when teaching and writing. Other terms for this I've
seen is Expert Blindness and Expert Blindspot. A related term I've made up is
Cognitive Empathy; ones ability to overcome this curse.

I've struggled a lot myself in school, and I think that had something to do
with this.

With my current experience, just about any textbook I pick up and start
reading, I can often pinpoint a lot of issues in the text that has this
problem.

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perlpimp
sometimes when flustered and tired from writing code and dealing with complex
issues I access this, for humor and humility, for me.

[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/)

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norswap
In the same vein: [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-
principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-
iii-the-curse-of-development/)

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jgalt212
Keep in mind the converse as well, when negotiating. i.e. you don't want to
inadvertently leak information by assuming they know as much as you do.

