Recently, I had to learn a set of material quickly enough to teach it, without being trained in it first. I had a deadline, a pile of content, and examples that did not help me make connections. I learn best when I can connect new ideas to things I know, and that takes time.
Learning deeply takes time
I have called myself a slow learner for years. Whether I am learning a guitar song, a programming language, or a new pattern, I need time to try it, make sense of it, and connect it to things I already know.
For a long time, I treated that as a weakness. Resumes that listed “fast learner” made me wonder if I was missing something. I have since stopped measuring myself that way. Some work does need someone to pick up a new task and apply it right away. But when a team needs several people to understand the same subject, learning quickly is only part of the job. Someone has to explain the work, including why it is done that way.
A fast learner who can pass something on is valuable. Someone who takes longer to understand it can be valuable too, especially when that time helps other people get there. I have heard from people that they understood a concept through my explanation after struggling with other explanations. I think the time I spend making connections helps me describe the idea in a way that lands for them.
I wrote about one part of this in “The Important Thing Is Not to Know Everything”. I do not need to hold every fact in my head. I need to know where to find what I need, when I need it. This post is about the next step: taking what I find, learning it well enough to use, and helping someone else learn it too.
I need different forms of explanation
I do not learn everything the same way. Sometimes skimming a book gives me the broad outline. Sometimes I need to listen, read along, and annotate. For some subjects, a few bullet points are enough. For others, I need to work through the material myself.
I also tend to think in images and concrete objects. I can picture how ideas relate before I can put those connections into words. When I write or teach, I am trying to describe that picture in a way another person can follow.
Knowing this helps me choose what to try when an explanation is not clicking. A diagram, a concrete example, or an analogy can give me the connection that a page of prose did not. I have also used AI tools to explain concepts visually when words alone were not helping.
Learning so I can teach
For the recent training, I gave an AI tool the course material and explained that I needed to learn it well enough to teach it within a limited time. I also gave it access to my “digital brain”, including my blog posts, talks, and journal entries.
It helped me build a learning plan and connect unfamiliar material to experiences I already had. It also pointed out that I was several steps ahead of the intended audience in some areas. That was useful. When teaching, it is easy to start from what feels obvious to me now instead of what the people in the room need next. That isn’t usually a problem for lessons I internalized a long time ago, but it could be a problem with lessons I have just learned.
The plan did not make me an expert in every part of the material. It helped me make sense of the core ideas and notice where I was still struggling. Those difficult spots were useful signals: if I had trouble making a connection, the learners following behind me might have the same trouble. I could slow down there and try another explanation.
I also had to choose analogies that would work for the people in the room. Star Trek references, for example, do little for me. I have seen some of the movies, but I do not remember enough to use them as a bridge to another idea. I try to use familiar examples instead, so people can spend their attention on the new concept rather than decoding the analogy.
The classes connected with the audience, even though I was still learning parts of the material myself. That gave me a useful balance: I could teach the parts I understood and stay attentive to the places where learners might need another pass.
What slow learning gives me
Taking longer does not automatically make someone a better teacher. But for me, the effort of understanding something gives me time to notice what is confusing, find examples, and build a path from what I know to what I am trying to learn. And then share that path with others.
AI helped me make those connections faster in this case, especially by connecting new material to my own notes and experience. The teaching still depended on understanding the audience and choosing what to explain next.
I am less concerned now with whether I can learn something as quickly as the next person. I care more about whether I can use what I learn and make it easier for someone else to learn it too.
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