Serguey Asael Shinder – IT Professional

I thought I understood it.
I’d read it, nodded, moved on.

Then someone asked me to explain it,
and I fell apart.

The hand-waving. The “it just kind of works.”
The gaps I’d been walking past for months.

Teaching is a test you can’t bluff.

The act of explaining it plainly
showed me exactly where my understanding
turned into fog.

Now I use that on purpose.

When I want to really learn something,
I try to explain it to someone else.
Or write it down. Or answer the dumb question honestly.

What survives the explaining
is what I actually know.

The rest is just familiarity
pretending to be understanding.

– Serguey Asael Shinder