The term "The Curse of Knowledge" really resonates with my life experiences at school.
I met a lot of teachers who are very kind and responsible with substantial knowledge in their fields/subjects. Interestingly, many of them do not know how to teach normal students like me, particularly in math. Similar things also happen with my classmates who are talented in Math. They won math competitions at the city/national level, but could not explain how to solve an easy math problem to their classmates. They got outraged sometimes (e.g., Why you cannot understand such a simple thing? Have you paid attention to my lecture? You must be lazy in doing your homework?).
I found that in terms of teaching math, it is more important to know why the students did it wrong than what is the correct/standard/perfect way of doing a particular math problem. However, teachers and students with math talents are usually trapped with "the curse of knowledge"--assuming everyone has the same capability, experience, and intuition, to solve a math problem in their way. Such phenomenon led to two more interesting consequences: 1) when some talented classmates tried to help me with a math problem, they sometimes found they could not understand each other as well because they took their personalized thinking pattern as granted that shared by all the other math talents; 2) as long as I know how to solve a math problem, ironically, I can perform as a better teacher to let the other normal students know how to do it, especially in terms of identifying the problems in their logics and thinking patterns.
I think my experiences in Math correspond with what is now happening in the political reality in the U.S., and possibly over the world. If we want to change the world and win support from more people, we should not take what we know as consensus shared by the other people, especially when we are more engaged or experiences in particular fields. Meanwhile, if it is possible, we should know more about people with opposing ideas and beliefs (e.g., who they are; why they think like that; If I were one of them, will I make similar decisions; am I even wrong?), especially when we want to persuade them.
The term "The Curse of Knowledge" really resonates with my life experiences at school.
I met a lot of teachers who are very kind and responsible with substantial knowledge in their fields/subjects. Interestingly, many of them do not know how to teach normal students like me, particularly in math. Similar things also happen with my classmates who are talented in Math. They won math competitions at the city/national level, but could not explain how to solve an easy math problem to their classmates. They got outraged sometimes (e.g., Why you cannot understand such a simple thing? Have you paid attention to my lecture? You must be lazy in doing your homework?).
I found that in terms of teaching math, it is more important to know why the students did it wrong than what is the correct/standard/perfect way of doing a particular math problem. However, teachers and students with math talents are usually trapped with "the curse of knowledge"--assuming everyone has the same capability, experience, and intuition, to solve a math problem in their way. Such phenomenon led to two more interesting consequences: 1) when some talented classmates tried to help me with a math problem, they sometimes found they could not understand each other as well because they took their personalized thinking pattern as granted that shared by all the other math talents; 2) as long as I know how to solve a math problem, ironically, I can perform as a better teacher to let the other normal students know how to do it, especially in terms of identifying the problems in their logics and thinking patterns.
I think my experiences in Math correspond with what is now happening in the political reality in the U.S., and possibly over the world. If we want to change the world and win support from more people, we should not take what we know as consensus shared by the other people, especially when we are more engaged or experiences in particular fields. Meanwhile, if it is possible, we should know more about people with opposing ideas and beliefs (e.g., who they are; why they think like that; If I were one of them, will I make similar decisions; am I even wrong?), especially when we want to persuade them.
Deconstructionism runs the new world of the Theater of the Absurd.