in Education

The Curse of Knowledge

I’ve always been vaguely aware that people who have built up significant expertise in a particular field sometimes have trouble teaching others who are learning those skills for the first time. Only recently did I realize that this phenomenon has been extensively studied and is generally referred to as “The Curse of Knowledge“.

The studied existence of this phenomenon has led me to a specific conclusion. You don’t have to wait till you’re an expert to teach others what you’ve learned. In fact, if you’ve recently learned something, you may be in a better position to teach it to someone else, since you’re still aware of what it’s like to learn it for the first time. When you become an expert, you’ll have to deal with the “Curse of Knowledge”. So teach others while you’re still relatively immune to the “curse”.

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