When was the last time you explained something to someone?

When was the last time you explained something to someone?

Did you do so willingly? With the excitement of mutual discovery?

Did you do so grudgingly, perhaps because they’d never understand anyway?

Or maybe because you couldn’t believe they hadn’t just googled it?

(Remember that website, Let Me Google It For You?)

Thinking about Rethink with Rachel’s DaVinci post, the other piece of him asking people these questions is that people used to spend a lot more time explaining things to other people.

Knowledge came from other people. Maybe from books or other asynchronous materials, but most often from face-to-face explanations.

How has it impacted our own learning and cognition that we are no longer called upon to explain or teach things to others as often as we did before the internet?

Even when a friend asks a question, don’t we often dig up the right link or YouTube explanation and send it along? No need to take the time to rephrase.

But we know that people learn by explaining things in their own words. “See one, do one, teach one,” goes the old adage for surgical trainees.

What do we lose when we don’t need to teach or explain things to others because we can just send them a link?

In many ways, this project is mainly about taking my own learning seriously.

That means noticing when I’ve encountered something new. It means noticing when I’m trying to build a skill and being ruthless about discerning what is or isn’t helping my learning. It means taking the time to engage with new ideas and placing them in conversation with other ideas that matter to me.

It means doing this in public, because sometimes things come out differently when you know there’s someone listening.

There are no answers here, no pre-determined topics, just a lightly shuffled compendium of curiosities.