Do I know too much?

“Sudha, you are back home!” Sudha’s Dad looked elated, seeing Sudha back home from her school. Sudha had recently joined a secondary school as a Mathematics teacher. She was happy to be with children and was enjoying her time teaching them mathematics.

“If you have some free time now, you can help me out with my problem”, Dad said. “You see, I want to learn how to create a WhatsApp group. I want to start a group of all my school friends. We met recently at the 50th reunion of our school batch. It is a good way we can be in touch with each other”.

Sudha was exhausted after a long day at the school. She was still ruminating over what has happened in the class today while making her 5th-grade students understand how to carry out a division of fractions. Yet, she immediately agreed to Dad’s request as she was happy to see how her Dad was acquainting himself with the new technology and was trying to keep himself busy after his retirement.

“Yes, Dad. Sure! It is very easy,” Sudha replied.

“Dad, you go to WhatsApp, click on the green circle at the bottom, create a group and add all your friends from ‘contacts’ whom you wish to add to the group”. Sudha gave a series of instructions that left her Dad overwhelmed.

“Okay, let me try”.

Dad tried his hands on this new task. He opened up the WhatsApp, looked for the green circle and clicked on it.

“But where is the group I want to create?”

“Oh, Dad. It won’t be there. You WILL have to create it”.

“Okay. So, how do I create it?”

“Click on ‘New Group’ and create”.

“But, how do I ‘create’? There is no button to press that says ‘Create’”.

“No, Dad. You add participants; a group will get automatically created. You don’t have to press on any ‘Create’ button”. Sudha continued her ‘Instructor’ mode while making tea for both of them.

“Achha, Okay. But, Sudha I cannot see all the friends’ names. What to do now?”

“Dad, just search their names from your contacts”.

After spending a few minutes searching for the ‘search’ button, Dad replied, “I can’t do this. There is no ‘search’ button here”.

“Dad, just see properly. There will be an icon for that.” Now, both the parties were on the verge of giving up.

“Sudha, you don’t understand my problem. What appears to be so easy for you is not that easy for me. You are an expert in this, but I am not! I am a new student in this class. You need to understand that I have to learn each of these steps. I don’t know yet how to search for people from my contact list”.

Sudha pondered on what Dad said just now, and that was the ‘eureka moment’ for her!

Not just that she realized the mistake she was making while teaching her Dad, but she also got the breakthrough on the issue that was ruminating in her mind about today’s mathematics class. Despite explaining multiple times to her students how to carry out a division of fractions, she could not get it across to her students. Students were still struggling with the step of using ‘multiplicative inverse’ while carrying out fraction division. After reflecting on what Dad said just now, Sudha realized what was happening. She realized how her expertise in the domain was becoming a hindrance to her teaching. Sudha was underestimating the time and efforts required for novice learners in getting a hold on the newly introduced concepts. Precisely the same was happening with her Dad while she was training him on WhatsApp. So unknowingly, her ‘expert blind spot’ was making her overestimate her students’ ability to do the task.

‘Expert Blind Spot’ is being referred to as the situation wherein expert instructors are blind to the learning needs of novice students. This phrase is not just relevant to teaching-learning in formal education, but we experience this in our day-to-day life as well. If you had ever tried your hands with cooking for the first time and had asked any experienced lady from the home how to give tadka or tempering to your curry, I am sure you must have experienced the ‘Expert Blind Spot’. It is quite possible that despite receiving correct instructions for tempering, it would have left you still wondering what was the specific instance to add cumin seeds to the hot oil.

While expertise within a domain is an excellent qualification, rather essential for a teacher, sometimes it becomes an obstacle to effective teaching. Sounds strange! Isn’t it? One possible reason for this could be ‘Expert Blind Spot’.

Let us get some serious inputs about the process of learning and why teachers need to avoid their ‘Expert Blind Spot’ from becoming an obstacle to their teaching.

To develop expertise within a domain, a learner goes through four stages of learning; Unconscious Incompetence, Conscious Incompetence, Conscious Competence and finally, Unconscious Competence. Well, let us take an example to understand this. Imagine you wish to learn to drive and have enrolled yourself to a driving training school. On day one, you are a novice, and you know absolutely nothing. You are unaware of even what you know and what you don’t know to learn to drive. This stage is Unconscious Incompetence when you are completely ignorant about your competency and incompetency.

As you progress further through your training sessions, you develop some awareness about what you can do and what you can’t. You still haven’t developed the necessary competency needed for driving. Nevertheless, you are conscious of the skills you possess and the ones you need to develop further. That is stage two- Conscious Incompetence.

As more days progress and now you are about to complete your training. By this time, you have developed a fair amount of expertise in driving. However, while driving the car, you still go through your mental checklist of all the do’s and don’ts, all the rules to be followed. You are fully conscious of the new skill set you have developed. This consciousness is stage three of your learning- Conscious Competence.

A year passes, and you become such an expert driver that many steps you take while driving gets internalized within you; you don’t even notice them. It just appears as an automated process for you to manage clutch, accelerator and brake while driving. This is Unconscious Competence. The reason this is an unconscious stage is because you have become an expert, and you miss noticing the minute details of the task you are executing.

Now imagine what will happen to a novice learner who is in the Unconscious Incompetence stage of learning, and when being taught by an expert in his/her Unconscious Competence stage! No wonder such teachers miss out on many vital inputs because of the ‘expert blind spot’ they develop. Unfortunately, learners, too, miss on these very critical inputs needed for their learning process and find learning difficult.

In our teaching career, we all develop this Expert Blind Spot; especially if we have been teaching the same topic for years together. Young teachers may also face this problem if they haven’t been cautioned about it. Translating one’s domain into teaching that makes learners learn is a skillful act. As teachers, we need to become aware and mindful about our own ‘expert blind spot’. Let us consider learners’ learning needs beforehand to make their learning a joyful experience.