Quote Originally Posted by Eric
Yeah, that's probably good and easier anyway. It's little tips like those that I've been missing up to now. When you enter into something with no antecedent knowledge, it's tough to just pick up and run with it. I feel like that's the single biggest mistake a lot of people make when teaching something: understand how little the person being taught may actually know.
Yeah, and I if anyone _should_ know that all too well...being a teacher...still I constantly run into situations where I assume way too much understanding of the thing at hand from my pupils due to them 'seeming' savvy with the subject...and then I go on and on and realize later they've fallen off the wagon forty minutes back and nobody said anything. I hate that! Especially if they are such a sulky bunch they only reveal it in their grading of the course.

Doesn't help that I myself am the type that just plunges in head first at anything at hand without too much thinking on whether it's hard or not. Many a time I've had these horrible feelings of getting in too deep when I've done something. Like when I tore down the entire plumbing/drainage/water system of my house...at some point I just stared at the gaping holes that went thru all the three stories of the house and for the first time really started thinking I've never done anything like that before, I've a friggin' Master of Philosophy degree not a construction professional...when I thought about all the things involved from electrics to pipes and toilet seats and tiling and concrete mixing and whatnot...cold hand groped my chest...



...but it turned out OK, I just found out how to do things as I went along.