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Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

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Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#1

Post by newsoul »

This may be only my observation, but, I have observed this many times. A truly exceptionally expert practitioner doesn't always know how to teach a beginner the workings of his field. He knows his field inside out and are almost always self-taught in achieving their expertise. Still when someone asks how do they self learn (atleast start) they are clueless or point to obscure or very high-difficulty resources.

Is it because the area they practise in now, is at a much higher level of abstraction than what a beginner should do and they have lost touch? Or is there some other reason?

E.g: You ask an expert programmer for advice on how to learn to become a good programmer, they will almost always suggest mid tier resources.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#2

Post by necovek »

It's pure statistics: a really good teacher is rare in its own right, a truly great expert is similarly rare, and now you are looking for an intersection between the two.

Add to that other circumstances like no teaching education for most experts in other fields, and there's your answer.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#4

Post by johncoltrane »

Expertise can't be taught. That's why you enter the workforce as a junior, whether you have an engineer's degree from MIT or you switched careers and are fresh out of a bootcamp. From there, the road to expertise is not paved with courses and books and hand-holding. It's paved with _lots_ of real world experiences, good and bad. Expertise _happened_ to those expert practitioners as it will happen to you as you fight fires, solve problems outside of your scope of responsibility, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#5

Post by muzani »

There's a very large gap of which the mid-tier is as natural to the expert as typing. I see this a lot in math, where the best lecturers are usually fairly junior.

My best friend has trouble reading graphs, as in y-axis, x-axis kind of thing. He doesn't know whether < means bigger or smaller. This is something a lot of experts have internalized decades ago, so we'd completely overlook how hard it looks to a beginner trying to learn comparison or AND/OR in a condition.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#6

Post by throwaway0asd »

In any field there could be a disconnect between the struggles experienced by the expert and the hand-holding expected by the beginner.

Programming is not just any field though. Programming is incredibly immature and filled with wildly unrealistic expectations. As a self taught developer of 25 years of experience I have largely given up teaching beginners how to easily write high performance code.

There is a lot of insecurity in programming putting tremendous downward pressure on bad habits. Teaching disciplined techniques to produce higher quality output is often met with hostility if contrary to a popular tool or current trend.

If the results of trying to teach produce such hostility why bother? Why would I volunteer my time to help people if the result is bitching, whining, and anger? Instead I will keep my experience to myself for my personal projects.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#7

Post by eesmith »

Teaching is its own skill. Teaching well takes time to learn. Few expert programmers have training as educators.

In your experience, are mid-tier practitioners better at teaching? If so, that would be mean less support for my hypothesis.

But it's not true in my experience.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#8

Post by krageon »

muzani wrote: post #5

There's a very large gap of which the mid-tier is as natural to the expert as typing. I see this a lot in math, where the best lecturers are usually fairly junior. My best friend has trouble reading graphs, as in y-axis, x-axis kind of thing. He doesn't know whether < means bigger or smaller. This is something a lot of experts have internalized decades ago, so we'd completely overlook how hard it looks to a beginner…

With respect, I think it is reasonable to assume post primary school education. The example given is perhaps a poor one.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#9

Post by muzani »

krageon wrote: post #8
muzani wrote: post #5

There's a very large gap of which the mid-tier is as natural to the expert as typing. I see this a lot in math, where the best lecturers are usually fairly junior. My best friend has trouble reading graphs, as in y-axis, x-axis kind of thing. He doesn't know whether < means bigger or smaller. This is something a lot of experts have internalized decades ago, so we'd completely overlook how hard it looks to a beginner…

With respect, I think it is reasonable to assume post primary school education. The example given is perhaps a poor one.

He has a college degree, albeit non-STEM. This stuff is taught in middle/high school here if you're not in STEM.

Also I've taught coding bootcamps and after a few batches, I set up expectations that, no, you can not learn programming from "nothing" like the ads say. You're expected to know touch typing, basic math up to algebra, and how to open files on your own device. Those who don't know these things should get a refund and try again for the next batch.

Re: Ask HN: Why are expert practitioners often so bad at teaching beginners?

#10

Post by zaptheimpaler »

Well like you said, expertise is generally self taught so they don't really understand the model of someone asking how to learn. They never asked someone how to learn. They pick a goal/problem to solve (or have one thrust upon them) and churn through whatever books or googling it takes to learn enough to do it.

idk i think the same pattern applies in many fields. as a beginner you worry about plan should i follow, which diet, which book, which language, which guru to follow. But all of the "how" questions are really just a proxy for the discomfort of feeling dumb and confused and incompetent at something new. The only real answer is yeah, feeling dumb is part of it, just keep going.

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