you don’t have to be an expert to be a good teacher

My first year out of graduate school, I got a one year position as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Metals + Jewelry at a university.

This was a big deal. I was young and inexperienced and I didn’t feel qualified. I was also nervous as hell.

You see, when you step into a new teaching position at a school or college, it’s likely that the courses you’ll be teaching were decided upon long before you got there.

That was the case for me.

And one of those classes that was on my roster to teach that first semester was the raising class.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, raising means taking a flat sheet of metal and using hammers and stakes to form it into a bowl.

And it was not my strong suit.

In undergrad, I had stubbornly refused to learn the process. And in graduate school, realizing this was an area I was deficient in, I had a studio-mate show me a few tricks. But it wasn’t something I did often or well.

Before finding out I had to teach this class, I had made two, maybe three bowls.

That was it.

And now I was expected to teach other people how to do it?!?

But fortunately, the professor I was filling in for had some words of wisdom.

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve only made a few bowls. The students in your class have made zero. You don’t have to be an expert. You just have to know more than the students you are teaching.”

That’s worth repeating.

You don’t have to be an expert. You just have to know more than the students you are teaching.

One of the biggest fears I hear around teaching is the idea that someone “isn’t an expert” or “doesn’t know enough” to teach a class.

But you don’t have to be an expert to be a good teacher.

In fact, I’ve had some some teachers who were definitely experts in their subject but were terrible teachers. Teachers who clearly knew a lot about their subjects, but couldn’t communicate ideas effectively or engage students.

Each of us has knowledge. Each of us has skills. Each of us has things that we can do better than other people. We may not be able to do them better than everyone. But we can do them better than some people.

Your job as a teacher is to find those people.

The idea of waiting until your an expert or “know enough” to begin teaching is a huge limiting belief. If you wait for that feeling to go away, you’ll never teach. You’ll miss out and something that is potentially hugely rewarding, both emotionally and financially.

Your job isn’t to accumulate all the knowledge in the world before you start teaching. Your job is to find people who aren’t as far along the path as you are. (Whatever path that might be.) People who wish they could be exactly where you are. People who wish they had a fraction of the skill or knowledge that you had.

You don’t have to be an expert. You just have to know more than the students you are teaching.

Becoming a good teacher has nothing to do with being an expert. It has to do with understanding the skills you already you have, finding people who want to learn them, and clearly and effectively guiding your students through that learning process.

Teaching can also be your opportunity to learn more about a subject you’ve only personally scratched the surface on.

Teaching can become the process through which you become an expert.

It was for me.

Oh, and that raising class I was so nervous about?

It turned out to be my favorite class I taught that year!

I didn’t need to be an expert. I just needed to know more than my students.

And more importantly, I needed the motivation and desire to help them learn.

And I had that in spades.

* * * * * * * * * *

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What people are saying about classes with Megan:

“Thank you so much for your attentive, generous and informative teaching style! I love that you have such a systematic approach, it helped us all feel confident that we could meet our goals, no matter what! You seem to be able to see inside our heads, addressing all the concerns with clarity and wisdom. The path ahead is now clear, thanks to your brilliant guidance. I’m so glad I found you!”

-Malini Parker, artist

Blog to Teach is all about helping you build an audience of raving fans for your courses. But if you need help learning how to build an online class, be sure to check out my program Do/Teach!

One Comment

  1. Excellent point. I like teaching people skills online, but sometimes I feel like I don’t know enought to do it properly. I know more than the people I’m teaching though, so that’s good! 🙂