The dangers of deep knowledge
“Another noteworthy characteristic of this manual is that it doesn’t always tell the truth. When certain concepts of TeX are introduced informally, general rules will be stated; afterwards you will find that the rules aren’t strictly true…. The author feels that this technique of deliberate lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. Once you understand a simple but false rule, it will not be hard to supplement that rule with its exceptions.” — Donald Knuth, The TeX Book.
As technical writers and teachers, we feel it is our duty to present deep concepts faithfully, no matter how challenging it might be. But if one of the most well-respected programmers of all time needs to tell a few white lies in order to get his ideas across, where does that leave the rest of us? This one question has bugged me for the better part of a decade now.
When I’m teaching in a live setting, I can trace the vast majority of my stumbling blocks to tangents-of-tangents that spiraled out of control before I could even realize it. I start out talking to a whole room, but before I know it I’m launching an intense esoterica-laden monologue at the two students in the front of the room that are nodding their heads. By the time I come back up for air, I find that I’ve lost nearly everyone else, and that it’ll be a huge uphill battle to get them back.
The same problem exists in my writing: I struggle to find the level of depth and detail that will clearly express my ideas to my audience. As I’ve become more aware of this problem, I am getting better at editing out my distracting asides whenever I spot them. But that doesn’t stop me from writing them in the first place, and having a great deal of fun while doing so. Maybe this is just part of the creative process, but it is both a time sink for me and a source of great pain when I need to”kill my darlings” before publishing.
These self-indulgent dives into the deep end of things are not motivated (at least initially) by the desire to prove how smart I am, but instead stem from the overwhelming sense of responsibility I have to tell the truth when teaching — particularly the whole truth. This starts out initially as a service to the learner: I don’t want to put ideas in their head that are incorrect or misleading. But as I go deeper and deeper, it increasingly becomes a habit fueled by self-defense: I want to avoid any challenges to my own understanding of a topic, or my ability to teach it. This is mostly subconscious; a remnant of a time when I actually cared a great deal more about my reputation than I do now, but it still persists nonetheless. When you throw in the fact that the deeper I go into a topic, the more I find it personally interesting, you end up with a negative feedback loop that reinforces this nasty habit.
This is where telling the occasional lie (or half-truth) can really come in handy. Simplifying what you want to teach — even if it means losing a bit of accuracy in edge-case scenarios — helps both you and your students. Fewer moving parts means fewer obstacles for both the learner and teacher to stumble on. Sure, you may be asking your students to take a ride in a leaky boat, but if it gets them where they need to go, it’s better than one that never leaves the shore because you’re too busy looking for holes.
I could go on and on about this, but instead I’ll point you at an article from David A. Black that teaches this lesson better than I could teach it myself. In it, he talks about the “z-axis” of the teacher, and how it is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to teaching a good lesson. If you read that article and end up enjoying it, check out his entire four-part series on technical training; it’s well worth your time!
