« If you can »t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough »
Albert Einstein
The first words that came to my mind after reading this quote was “logic”, because for me explaining has to come with logic. And then there is “understanding” and “simple”
We could say that logic is simple, we just have to connect the dots, but there are generally a lot of dots and they could all get to a conclusion, a good one even, only what link is the best and how do we explain everything in the best way possible?
As the years went by, and by working on projects with many different people, I realized how important “knowing your audience” is. It’ not all about it, but it’s very important and it definitely helps with the strategy of explaining, because for me, one is needed before even starting to imagine presenting a subject.
I’ve met a lot of people, starting with my years in school, years that marked me in a bad way, people who explained things by following their own “wiring”, their own way of seeing things, and insisted on the others reproducing the exact same thing. I was stuck in school, especially in the science field, because the subjects were explained only as formulas and I couldn’t find anything logic in it since I didn’t know the “story” behind it, I didn’t see the “big picture”.
Whenever I have to explain something to someone, to teach, in a way, I put myself in their shoes for a bit, and to do so, I ask questions regarding their knowledge in the field, what other knowledge they have, I try go figure them out as individuals also, because that is a very important part since I have to adapt to their vision and avoid forcing them to adopt my ideas regarding the subject in question.
For me, teaching, explaining, has a lot to do with people knowledge too, having the information and understanding it does not mean being able to explain it, and that is one of the most common mistakes I’ve seen done within the educational system that I had to follow in my youth.
Of course, I only realize it now, and it’s very late, too late even, because I’ll never get those years back and my brain has already been wired in a certain way, a way that literally made it impossible for me to understand mathematics and physics. I now have small “ breakthroughs”, like sunshine through clouds, when I see the “big picture” of mathematics, but it disappears fast, because my brain doesn’t know how to navigate through those waters, it loses itself, and what I get in return is a feeling of sheer frustration and sense of inaptitude. That, of course, leads to other issues that one could encounter later in life, but that is another story to be told in another chapter maybe.
Getting back to the main issue here, this quote really “spoke” to me because it immediately identified with my way of doing things, in general, with the main idea: simplicity, getting straight to the point.
I am far from being simple, as a person, I am the first to admit it, I over complicate things, but only FOR ME. When it comes to others, I always try to smooth the path before them, so to speak, so they can get to the conclusions faster, and have that satisfaction that leads to “oooh ok, I understand now!”.
I reached that point only by getting out of my head, and taking a look at the subject differently so that anyone, with no background related to the subject, could understand, if not all of it, at least the basics of it.
Understanding: this word has different meanings, and I am very aware of all of them, in my opinion, this word is the basics of human relationships and 90% of the time it’s used in vain. I could say that as a person who has not been understood as a child and teenager (first of all by myself, I’m not even talking about others), understanding is an issue that matters enormously to me. I also realize that I need to give to others what I didn’t have, that feeling of being understood and to allow them also to understand the new. In this article, I’m speaking about the latter, but in the end, the two walk hand in hand
How many times we’ve heard the “I knows”? Some of them are real and some of them are not, but they are said because people have difficulties admitting that they don’t have the slightest idea about something, anything. From my experience people like to think that they have a general knowledge that allows them to get into any field, they like to think that, once they have reached the adult phase, they will never have to start from zero. And for me, starting from zero is one of the most important things when getting into a new field, even if you have basics information about it. It all has to be taken down and rebuilt by the one doing the explaining, otherwise they are fighting the “I knows” based on unknown information, information that can be trusted…or not. “Assuming” is not part of this process, I’m not assuming, I’m asking and depending on the answer I continue the explaining or I stop and I change the strategy.
This is the part where I actually reinforce my own knowledge. By putting the information in a shape that allows others to understand it, I re learn it. And this is where we get to the “understanding the subject”. Really understanding it.
I sometimes get a glimpse of what the main idea is, but I don’t pass enough time analyzing it so it it gets away from me or it fades in a way that it makes it very difficult for me, even impossible to reproduce it. It’s like my brain stocks it in a no man’s land (that is the short term memory), and if I don’t put a pin in it in the appropriate “shelf”, it fades and then goes away.
So what I do is that I write it down, but in my own words, no copying of someone else’s words, in this way my brain, by creating the words, stocks them in the long term memory.
This whole process, as poorly as it is described, is real, and I got to understand it by experience as well as through reading about neuroscience. The fact that what I felt matched the scientific explanation, made me trust my gut even more.
All this this process of learning/explaining is one of the most rewarding one in terms of self development, especially because it is not only about “self” but also about helping to others to develop. I believe that by helping others to become better, to know more, we become better as human beings
Being able to share knowledge is a great skill to have, for me it is one of the most important qualities of a human being. First of all because “sharing” is involved and second of all because knowledge is something that we cannot put a price on.