The Best Way to Learn is to Teach: Why it Works

Patrick Poh
3 min readFeb 11, 2023

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Learning is a crucial part of life. It’s important to always learn and grow, whether it’s through new knowledge, skills, or habits.

In the conventional way of learning, a student might just listen to a teacher or read a book and take in the information, we can call this “Passive Learning”. Even though this can work, “Active Learning” will be more beneficial.

Teaching has often been overlooked as a better way to learn.

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

Teaching is actually one of the best ways to learn. At first glance, this may seem strange, but there are several good reasons why teaching is such a good way to learn.

When you teach what you know to someone else, you have to think about it in a different way. This helps you remember what you’ve learned better and understand it better.

When you teach someone else something, you have to put it in your own words. This makes the information stick in your mind and makes it easier to remember later.

When you explain something to someone else, you often find gaps in your own understanding. You can then fill those gaps by doing more research or studying.

Makes you really think about what you know

To teach or share a lesson or message well, you need to fully understand it.

Something once taught is something twice learned.

Teaching helps you understand the material more deeply. As you talk about it with someone else, you might think of new questions or ways to look at it. This can help you comprehend the material better than you did when you started.

You can’t teach by having people memorize things or repeat things over and over again. You have to be able to explain the material and show how it applies to real life.

When you teach, you often have to get creative to assist your learners understand things that are hard to grasp. This process helps you get better at solving problems and find new ways to deal with challenges.

Forces you to organize your thoughts

It’s easy to get caught up in your own excitement about what you’re talking about when you’re teaching. This can be a good thing, since you should be excited when you teach! But it can also cause people to get off topic and talk about things that have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Teaching forces you to put your ideas into something that makes sense and is clear enough for other people to understand. If someone has a question after class or a lecture, they can get it answered without looking like they don’t know what they’re talking about (which may make them feel dumb).

When you teach, your students tell you right away what they think. This feedback can help you figure out where you still need to learn more about the material. Also, getting positive feedback from your students can be a huge boost to your motivation and make you want to keep learning.

Active Participation in Learning

When you teach, you are actively involved with the material, which makes learning more fun. This can also make people feel like they’ve done more and be happier with their lives.

You will have to do more than just read or listen when you teach.

You will have to talk, write, and explain the material in your own words. Actively doing something can help you remember the information better than just sitting back and listening to it.

Teaching gives you a chance to put what you’ve learned into practice. When you teach someone else, you’ll be able to put what you’ve learned to use. This can help you remember what you’ve learned and give you useful information about how you’re doing.

Conclusion

In the end, teaching is a good way to learn that is also fun.

By explaining what you’ve learned, you can remember and understand it better, improve your problem-solving skills, boost your confidence, get feedback, and become more interested.

So, the next time you want to learn something new, try teaching it to someone else. You might be surprised at how much you learn in the process, and it might help you learn more quickly and effectively.

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Patrick Poh
Patrick Poh

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