The best way to learn is to teach another, and the best way to turn the knowledge of this fact to good account is to learn why it is true. I don”t know that this enlightenment has ever been publicized or even learned. The Japanese use it. I don”t know whether or not they have learned why it is true, but it works; the Japanese students are always among the world”s most academically excellent.
Students teaching students is effective because, by extracting most of the egoism from the transaction, it allows one a more distant view of the concept to be learned and therefore a more complete view of it. Some parts of the problem that are too near the learner/teacher to allow him a good view of them are consequently not sufficiently impressive to attract and hold his attention. When we are trying to learn something, we need to back off so that we can see all of it. And trying to find a way to make someone understand something also removes the ego involvement, which uselessly employs a large amount of mental time and energy. Another important parameter is that one”s desires to influence another to learn something causes one to become thoroughly infused with the same urgency that he wishes to transmit to his student.
Dean Sparks, Lucerne
