The Best Way to Learn
Last night, casting about for a way to organize my future reading, I happened upon a statement of St. Francis de Sales, which I must necessarily paraphrase at this point. He said something to the effect that reading and talking were good ways to learn, study and examination were better ways, but the very best way to learn something was to teach it. This I can speak to from experience. In order to teach anything, you must crawl inside of it and really get to know how it works. A superficial knowledge is untenable because what you will then convey to your students will be a mass of confusion without focus. Better still, if you both practice and teach, but the necessity of teaching requires an intimate knowledge of your subject matter.