Want to know it? Teach it!

By Aaron on October 7, 2006 at 12:41 am | In Blog Posts | No Comments

As many of you know, I’m in the first year of a PhD program in Math, Science, Technology and Engineering Education with my focus on astronomy education. Education is a new realm for me so there will be many stories coming forth. The first stems from a literature review I’m doing for a class.

I learned 10 times more about astronomy by teaching Intro to Astronomy adult education courses the last few years and by writing most of the 63 SA episodes than by getting my BS in astronomy. The degree gave me a foundation, but BS’s in astronomy are not designed to teach you about astronomy in general. They are designed (unfortunately) to 1. weed out those who can’t make it in grad school and 2. focus the survivors’ efforts into a few tiny astro subtopics.

So I ran across a paper in an education which said that – on average – people remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they read…80% of what they do and 90% of what they teach. That is clearly a rhetorical approximation, but one based on truth. If you want to really know some astronomy, teach it to someone else.

If you are one of those who wants to know more about astronomy, but feel overwhelmed by it all, then I have advice for you. Choose your favorite topic, and give a talk about to it to your local astronomy club. If you don’t have one, or are too nervous, then present it to your family during your next dinner/long car ride/etc. or try to explain it to co-workers over lunch. Try to teach it to someone. If you want, post your talk idea in our forums and we’l be happy to give some ideas and advice.

Quickly you’ll realize that suddenly you know quite a bit about something. That will usually lead to learning more about things associated with it. For example, you may give a talk about quasars – then decide that their jets are really cool – then want to learn more about radio astronomy – which is used to observe the jets – which leads to interest in SETI – which leads to UFOs and craziness.

But, hey, at least you learned a lot about astronomy before you went nuts.