Let’s pick a famous song or melody. For example (feeling patriotic today) the American anthem.
Now I want you to sit across from someone and try to rhythmically tap the song on a table and see if she can guess. Heck! Even if there is no one there to listen, just go ahead and tap away.
How did you do? Do you think a listener would guess what song you were tapping?
This is actually a famous psychological experiment done with two groups of tappers and listeners. Tappers were 50% certain that the listeners would be able to identify the song they had had in mind while tapping. But the results of the experiment were shocking: only 2.5% of the listeners were able to figure out the song! In other words: the tappers overestimated their success ratio of being understood 20 times above how many times they actually were being understood.
So why this crazy disparity between expectations and reality?
This is due to a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge. The more we know, the harder it is for us to understand what it is like not to know.
When you know things that the other person does not, you tend to forget what it’s like to not have this knowledge. And this is one of the main reasons why so many people suck at teaching. Not because of a lack of knowledge (at the end of the day we all are experts at something), but for not being able to put yourself in the learner’s shoes.
I remember my neverending frustration during my condo remodel. I would watch video after video on Youtube trying to figure out how to, let’s say, install a new dishwasher or do the tiles in the bathroom. The person making the video would not spend any time discussing the tools needed and would rush through some steps or simply skip some others. Most likely because he thought some things were way too obvious to even bother. But I was at loss since nothing was obvious and my experience was zero. I felt dumb.
Then I would go to Menards and they would send me to 6 different ailes to get screws and tools with intriguing names that sounded like far away galaxies in a Star Trek episode. It was bad. I believe that is why the Taj Mahal was built quicker than it took me to remodel my tiny condo: they used people who understood all those youtube videos and were in the know while visiting Menards. True story.
So let’s say you want to learn physics. Who would you choose? Well, not me. I have no clue in the matter. You would choose someone who knows some physics of course.
But would I pick Einstein or a good solid community college teacher who is used to speaking to people like me? My pick should be clear to you by now. And not just because of Einstein’s thing with wearing a robe (and nothing else but a rope) around his (female) students. Also because there is a good chance Einstein would be of no help. Like a Menards employee on steroids.
This is actually serious and it matters to you and your Spanish. A lot (and I mean a lot) of the Spanish instructors out there are not even real instructors. They teach Spanish because they are native speakers and it is such a convenient thing to do while abroad and trying to pay the rent. They don’t know the rules, the tenses or how to explain them. But hey! They have a cool accent and you don't! So what do you know?
Then there are those who know the rules and tenses but don’t know how to put themselves in your shoes. They keep tapping lessons while you are on the other side of the table with your mouth wide open and looking slightly silly.
Even though they suck you see them as the experts. So you end up thinking you are the one who sucks. Frustration follows. And that is sad.
So make sure you find an instructor with the right balance between knowledge and empathy. If you do, you hit the jackpot.
This is something I learned while being trained to become a teacher. It was day one of the course, sitting with a bunch of wannabe Spanish instructors and I was all excited with all the cool tricks I was about to learn.
Then a tall skinny guy came in and stood in the middle of the classroom. Stared at us in silence for a good long minute and then, to our surprise, spent the rest of the hour speaking to us in Serbian while writing Serbian verb conjugations on the board. For a whole freaking hour! I did not understand a thing. NOTHING!
At the end of the hour he looked at us in silence for another long minute and then, in perfect Spanish, said to us: NOW YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE.
Left the room and we never saw him again.
Best lesson I learned through the entire month of intense training.
But now for the real problem. How do you deal with the curse of knowledge suffered by all the natives who don’t understand what you don’t understand?
Ah my friend. That is the real problem. And I will deal with this on my next blog post. Please stay tuned.