The Curse of Knowledge (with a video)
The Curse of Knowledge (with a video)
The biggest enemy of effective explanation and what can teachers do about it.
The Usual Problem in the Classrooms
Almost every teacher has faced this situation.
You think/feel that you have given one of the best explanations in the class. Your examples were fitting. Your analogies were crystal clear. You have seen students nodding their heads as if they grasped the concept super clearly. “That was a great class,” you think.
But when you check the assignments, you realize that the students’ understandings are all over the place. Some have superficial understanding, some even have a completely differently understanding.
And you wonder, “how the heck could they NOT understand such a simple concept!”
In this case, you might have been the victim of your own expertise.1
Curse of Knowledge:
Steven Pinker, cognitive psychologist, describes curse of knowledge as “the failure to understand that other people don’t know what we know.”
Here, in the context of effective writing, Pinker explains the concept:
The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose. It simply doesn’t occur to the writer that her readers don’t know what she knows — that they haven’t mastered the patois of her guild, can’t divine the missing steps that seem too obvious to mention, have no way to visualize a scene that to her is as clear as day. And so she doesn’t bother to explain the jargon, or spell out the logic, or supply the necessary detail.
In other words, experts know so much that their own knowledge and expertise becomes the curse for them. Even though they might have good intentions, they fail at explaining to others.
The more one knows about a subject, the harder it is for them to explain it to a beginner/novice. This is because they have forgotten how it was like when they themselves were a beginner/novice.
Try watching this video (Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains The End Of 'Interstellar'),
and this one (Sadhguru with David Eagleman).
Both talk in lengths is such a comprehensible English. However, I can’t simply comprehend what Neil deGrasse Tyson is talking about four dimensions, nor can I understand Sadhguru’s abstract/philosophical response to David Eagleman.
It makes sense to Neil deGrasse Tyson and Sadhguru because they know what they are talking about. Both sound so smart, so intelligent. May be they are. But for someone like me, both sound like they are speaking Chinese language.
Curse of Knowledge in Teaching:
So in terms of teaching, the curse of knowledge is one of the major reasons teachers do a terrible job at explaining abstract concepts. Because it simply doesn’t occur to the teachers that their students don’t know what they have already understood or mastered.
Thus they might assume students already have prior knowledge or that the students have the same level of understanding as they do.
As a result, this leads to difficulty in explanation and understanding because the teacher might talk in abstract, vague, dense, complex, technical way because in their mind, everything makes sense.
But we know, just because a teacher explained it, doesn’t mean the students got it.
This cognitive bias can thus cause confusion and misunderstandings among students because the teacher may not realize that the students need more concrete information, examples, analogies, demonstrations, and practice to fully comprehend the subject.
Watch this video where I dive deeper into this cognitive bias.
How can teachers cure themselves from the Curse of Knowledge?
It’s terribly impossible to teach abstractions without breaking it down to the level of concrete details.
It’s like someone describing me his experience of “how easy it was” while bungee jumping at the Last Resort. “Don’t worry, bungee jumping is so easy. All you have to do is let go.”
No matter how well he tries to explain this “how easy it was”, I would not be able to understand that feeling because I have never attempted it. I have fear of falling.
Now an example in the context of teaching.
When I tell a student to “write a persuasive essay in 600 words”, in my mind I already know the structure of the essay. I also know the necessary elements of a persuasive writing. But it’s highly possible that the students doesn’t have any sense of structure of how to write a persuasive essay.
Or when you give instructions to a student. “Prepare a 10 min presentation” on a certain topic. In your mind, you already have visualized how the presentation should look like, the content it should cover, and how the student should open and end the presentation. And most likely, you would think the student also knows about it.
After the presentation, you have dissatisfaction in your face and you give a few critical feedback. And, the student ends up getting either confused or frustrated.
So remember this: the difference between the knowledge structures in novices and in experts
You as a teacher (expert in the subject you are teaching) are completely different than the students (novices with low level of relevant prior knowledge).
You can understand the content from the abstract (complex, interconnected, deeper) level, while your students can from the concrete (simple, loose, superficial) level.
The only effective way is to go back to the foundations of how learning happens.
1. Know your students
check their prior knowledge
check their current beliefs or experiences regarding the subject
if necessary, front-load a few important details or concepts
2. Teach from their level
speak their language (no jargons or technical vocabs)
relate to their context, profession, interest
give examples and non-examples as well
3. Seek feedback
from your students (their understanding is a feedback for you)
from your colleagues
from your observers
(Watch the above video for more description)
For further reading:
An earlier post, quite relevant to this issue:
Check out this concept of Expertise Reversal Effect. Excerpt:
Instructional techniques that are highly effective with inexperienced learners can lose their effectiveness and even have negative consequences when used with more experienced learners.