[api]

"They say that great athletes make bad coaches. Why? Because they can't explain what came instinctively."

Thank you for finally explaining to me why mathematicians are such famously bad teachers of math. They just start scribbling symbols without explaining what they mean because of course you know what they mean...

[jacques_chester]

I first heard it from one of the world's most experienced weightlifting coaches, Lyn Jones. It explained a lot to me too.

The corollary is that people who love something, but can't do it easily, tend to be good coaches. Because they've had to really make an effort and have diligently sought out ways to improve themselves.

Put another way: "those who can't do, teach" isn't an insult to teachers. It's praise.

[IsaacL]

Great quote from George Leonard's Mastery:

"In his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Zen master Shunryu Suzuki approaches the question of fast and slow learners in terms of horses. “In our scriptures, it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver’s will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second will run as well as the first one, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn to run.

When we hear this story, almost all of us want to be the best horse. If it is impossible to be the best one, we want to be the second best.” But this is a mistake, Master Suzuki says. When you learn too easily, you’re tempted not to work hard, not to penetrate to the marrow of a practice.

“If you study calligraphy, you will find that those who are not so clever usually become the best calligraphers. Those who are very clever with their hands often encounter great difficulty after they have reached a certain stage. This is also true in art, and in life.” The best horse, according to Suzuki, may be the worst horse. And the worst horse can be the best, for if it perseveres, it will have learned whatever it is practicing all the way to the marrow of its bones."

(Shameless self-plug - I wrote a blog post about this a while ago: http://i.saac.me/post/lurning-cearves/)

[stock_toaster]

  > Put another way: "those who can't do, teach" isn't an insult to teachers. It's praise.

Maybe that old saying should be rephrased to "those who can't instinctively do, teach".

[api]

That's actually incredibly optimistic... it means if someone has to struggle really really hard to get something, they're quite possibly better to teach it to others. The struggle itself imparts a unique skill that those that get it more "naturally" might not have.

[stretchwithme]

Those who understand how to do should teach.