I just finished up a 2 and a half day course for the IT track at the SC Statewide Audit Conference hosted each year by the SC State Internal Auditors Association. I usually teach the CISA exam prep course, but this year I was able to move over to a different track and teach something new. Even preparing for a class or seminar with set materials takes a lot of time and effort, more so when you build your own content. So why teach?
First, teaching helps me learn the subject better. I realized this back when I started tutoring classmates in subjects they were struggling in. Most of the time, I would have to work through what was their blocker and then figure out a way to either remove the blocker (for instance, if they didn’t have trigonometry but were trying to understand vectors in physics) or go around it, if that was possible. That meant I had to think about how to teach it in a way they could understand, which might not have been the initial way I learned it. When you look at a problem or concept from a different point-of-view, sometimes you will see or understand something you didn’t before. That’s why it’s generally good to mull something over and try to change your point-of-view, especially for something complex.
Second, if you teach where there is a forum for others to ask questions and offer insight, you may learn something you wouldn’t have otherwise. For instance, while we discussing the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, I was blessed that one of the members of the class was currently working on the adoption of it in his organization. He was able to talk through the pros and cons that he had experienced thus far and I know that was a benefit to everyone in the room, myself included.
Third, is the sense of giving back. I’ve had a lot of great teachers and mentors. I want to pay forward the investment they made in me. I know I honor them by doing so. That’s important to me. I think of one particular mentor, Dr. Ryan Droste, who was an adjunct professor of physics at The Citadel. I never had the opportunity to have a class with him. Midway through my time at The Citadel, he had to move on to the College of Charleston. But I remember him as always available to talk physics, especially in his specialty, solid state physics. I cherish those times. And he was a teacher and mentor until he ultimately passed of cancer.
Finally, teaching presents an opportunity to get better at communicating your ideas. I had one of the members of the class who had been in a class a few years before speak specifically to how I had gotten better as a teacher and presenter. Sometimes you don’t realize you’ve made progress until someone gives you a progress check like that.
If you are passionate about a subject, try to find a path to teaching on it, even if it’s to a handful of colleagues. Even if you’ve never done it before and you anticipate it’s going to be a struggle, my recommendation is to still move forward. We often are bad at whatever we try to do for the first time. We often fail. However, we get better by learning from those failures and continuing to try. The same thing is true when it comes to teaching/presenting.