Discover More About a Person

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. - Plato

There are several sayings like this. In writing they say "Show, Don't Tell" This means you need to find a way to get the reader to participate in what it happening in the story, not just tell them what it going on. Teacher cannot just tell students how to solve a math problem, they have to show them how a problem works on a chalkboard. People learn better when they see and participate in what they are learning. Being told not always enough to make it part of ones learning.

When you see a recipe, you sort of know how to make it, but until you can get the ingredients into the pan and see how they start to react to the heat and to each other, there is no telling how your version of that recipe will turn out. It takes time a patience to learn every aspect of the recipe.

Everyone learns differently as well. It make take a different aspect of something to make it click in my head than it will in your head. I might need to see the contours of a figure before I can see myself painting it on the canvas. You might need to see the colors you are going to paint with before you can start painting. There are infinite points of view and infinite ways to think about things. We just need to remember that people need to see how things work in their own way.

Explain it to a Six Year Old

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself" ~Albert Einstein

This makes perfect sense. Have you ever sat down with a child and tried to explain something to them. You think you can explain it to anyone, but then you find that you can't find the words to make it understandable to someone who doesn't have an extended vocabulary.

I think this is how most self help gurus write their books. You should try this with something you know a lot about. Sit down and start writing. Split what you are trying to teach into sections. You want something that is separated into bite sized chunks. You want your six year old to be able to go away everyday with a small part of what you are teaching.

Now start writing each section as if you are trying to explain it to a child. Use small words. Don't try to expand on anything in exhaustive detail. Try to remember that the people you are trying to teach probably don't have any experience in what you know about. That means the parts you take for granted, they know nothing about.

When you are done, try your teaching on someone else. They don't have to be six years old. They just have to know very little about what you are teaching. When you do this, you will find out some of the things you left out. You will notice their face when you say something that does not make sense to them. Those are you ques to make changes to your teaching.

The interesting thing about putting together this teaching, you will learn so much more about what you are trying to teach. You will be surprised at what you have learned yourself.