As somebody who's spent a few years teaching back in the day, I can absolutely testify to this - having to explain something to somebody else forces your own understanding to ctystalize to a deeper level. On top of this, students often ask questions about things you might have never thought about before so answering them forces you to come to new knowledge and understanding one way or another.
I can relate to this so much. I am a teaching assistant at my university right now and one of the classes I taught was a Java class. When I took that class myself about 2 years before then, I did work enough to get me a good grade. Now that I had to teach, I had to look over the material again and comprehend everything on a different, deeper level than before.
Another great post @tarazkp! 2018 is looking fun already haha
Indeed. Having to explain something really forces you to grasp it thoroughly. Having to synthesize a good and succinct explanation is what is the key I think. I used to teach English and you would be surprised at the amount of charts, graphs and tables I was drawing on the whiteboard to explain things. Having to analyze things like that surely deepened my understanding and appreciation for the language.
Glad to see you here :)
Yeah, I have been teaching in one form or another for 15 years now (adults) and I sometimes feel bad as I think I learn more than them :)
It's a pleasure to be back here ;)
Teaching used to be my main gig in my early to mid twenties and to be really honest, I miss it a lot! I seemed to have a knack for it and it felt quite fulfilling and as you said, I did learn a lot myself. Part of regular gigs included teaching business English to accomplished professionals from all kinds of fields and I have no doubt I was learning more than they were as they needed English for work so we often discussed what they do, how they handle different business situations and all kinds of fascinating info about the inner workings of their professions.
This is what I did my firs 12 or 13 years in Finland (still do a little) before starting my own business. It can be good fun.
I did that for a few years and than there was the financial crisis and work become unsteady so I moved on to other things. I've recently started doing some temp teacher work from time to time and I quickly realized how much I was missing it.