[politician]

I guarantee you that if your father is 59, that at some point in his life he's found a way to be more efficient at whatever his workload was at the time than a raw beginner. Design patterns are exactly that: patterns of efficiency.

The terribad thing about them is that they don't often explain why they are more efficient than the the naive path.

I'd recommend that you pose a series of tasks to your dad, and work with him to build them out, rebuilding them several times if necessary, to start that deep understanding of the art. Adopt a posture that this work is critical, and that you are working together. You'll both learn why as you do it.