tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527613590529958801.post8736640735427477127..comments2024-03-21T19:08:05.737-07:00Comments on Genealogy's Star: Is Research a Skill or a Talent? Or Both?James Tannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02989059644120454647noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527613590529958801.post-28595136013541072762016-06-23T16:32:21.080-07:002016-06-23T16:32:21.080-07:00Good Mothers tend to have a bit of an advantage he...Good Mothers tend to have a bit of an advantage here. They have to adapt their teaching styles to all ages, as their children grow. It irks me that someone, somewhere told you and me both, that we "Know too much" to be good teachers. I'd like to know what that person(s) knows? I have not only a Masters in Gifted education and taught in high school 20 years, but I also obtained an elementary teaching certificate, and taught preschool for 11 years and lower levels for 3 years. I have 7 children and 35 grand children from ages under 1 to 25, and they love my lessons of life, family history, and more. I say non-sense to knowing too much. Hum bug!Cathy Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10461484882494138496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527613590529958801.post-26714988811238221252016-06-22T10:49:36.743-07:002016-06-22T10:49:36.743-07:00Thanks for this very interesting commentary. I am ...Thanks for this very interesting commentary. I am putting a note at the beginning of the blog post to make sure the readers read your comment. James Tannerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02989059644120454647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1527613590529958801.post-85878842631764311812016-06-22T09:03:17.345-07:002016-06-22T09:03:17.345-07:00No question in my mind that it is both. There is a...No question in my mind that it is both. There is also a subtlety that you did not address when it comes to asking questions: whether the person asking the questions has the intellectual ability to understand the answers given.<br /><br />The reference you make to knowing "too much" about a subject to be able to assist someone is something that resonates with me. I know a great deal about IT concepts and it can be very easy for me to make someone's eyes glaze over when talking about the subject by assuming too much knowledge and putting too much jargon into an explanation. To use a genealogical example if I were to refer to vital records a non-genealogist would reasonably assume that I am referring to records that are particularly important to a particular task or subject area, whereas a genealogist would know that I mean birth, marriage and/or death records. However it is not just whether the explanation is pitched at the correct level for someone's knowledge of a subject. What is also important is the capacity of a given person to actually understand an explanation.<br /><br />Take two people A and B with identical starting knowledge levels of a given subject. Assume that A and B have an identical learning style such that a given way of explaining something will work equally well with either A or B. It is still perfectly possible for A to pick up the new information and concepts much, much better than B if A has a greater ability in that particular area than B. For a given individual there are thresholds across which they simply cannot cross however much instruction they are given. Those thresholds vary by subject area and pursuit for a given person of course. For example I will never be a brilliant painter as my talents don't lie in that direction, but I am good amateur singer both chorally and as a soloist as my talents lie in that direction and I have practiced and worked on my singing over many years.<br /><br />To shift back to the example you give, there are two possibilities as to what happened:<br /><br />1. Despite trying to rephrase and alter what you were trying to say you did not manage to find an appropriate way to talk to that patron such that they would pick up what you were saying.<br />2. Despite trying to rephrase and alter what you were trying to say you would never have managed to find any appropriate way to talk to that patron such that they would pick up what you were saying.<br /><br />Both are failures to communicate but I suspect that case number 2 may well have been in play. In case number 2 the patron would never understand what you were trying to explain because the person in question simply lacks the ability to grasp the concept itself. To take an extreme example if someone has the intellectual level of a average ten year old child they will never be able to understand the concept of a probability density wavefunction that the Schrödinger equation's solution produces in quantum mechanics because the level of understanding required is so far beyond what an average ten year old can deal with.<br /><br />So we have three factors in play when considering how good someone is at something and how well they can improve:<br /><br />1. A person's innate ability to undertake a task<br />2. The ability of an instructor or teacher to communicate a new concept<br />3. The overall experience level of a person in a task or competence<br /><br />Points two and three are fungible but point one is not and thus it represents the ultimate overall destination point if a person has good teachers/instructors and lots of practice in an area.<br /><br />Personally speaking I tend to pick up new concepts very quickly and once I have assimilated them it is as if I had never not known them. That makes teaching others very hard for me as I can get frustrated if people don't pick up concepts as fast as I do and I also find it difficult to pitch things at an appropriate level for the person I am speaking to. I suspect that I would have given up trying to instruct that patron an awful lot sooner than you!David Newtonnoreply@blogger.com