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> "What I cannot teach, I do not understand"

I tend to agree, but teaching another person is also a whole different set of skills from being able to drive something yourself.

One prominent example is the "curse of knowledge"; it may take a lot of practice becoming a beginner to be able to teach for a beginner's perspective in your area of expertise.

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God, thank you. I really dislike the old aphorism that if you can't teach something you don't understand it.

Teaching is a whole complicated skill unto itself, especially if one is teaching to beginners. Like (since we're on HN), how easy is it to imagine someone very good at programming but would be a terrible choice as a Comp Sci 101 prof? I'm guessing "very."

The whole idea deeply undermines teachers of all subjects.

I think that “teach” has a different meaning here. There is “understanding something well enough to elaborate it in its entirety” (the technical capacity to teach it) and then there is the former + “and have the skill/talent of being able to explain it to a wide variety of other people from different backgrounds.”

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