Jeff Hunter talks about confusion as the moment when you stand at the crossroads of opportunity. When you lean into that feeling and ask “what is this confusion teaching me?” something magical happens. Fear and frustration are replaced with excitement.
Confusion is learning.
For many of us, the confusion starts when someone asks, “Why?” or “How do you know that?” If you have kids, you know this feeling well. In our current tech ecosystem it can feel very confusing to know what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
Embracing confusion as a teacher flips the switch. We go from frustrated, fearful, or even angry, to curious and open. This was a driving force when Chris and I started Maginative's AI literacy platform. We had more questions about generative AI than we had answers. The key was switching to from, "we don't know much" to "what if we helped others learn by teaching ourselves in an open forum?"
The open mindset is sometimes compared to the child mindset. Curious, innocent, compassionate, questioning. When we engage the open mindset by asking “what does this teach me?”, we can also engage openness by asking “how would I teach this?” Teaching, and being willing to be taught, put you in a learning mindset.
The great physicist and teacher, Richard Feynman reminds us that “the first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Your internal dialogue is a dangerous setting for ideas. Our ego can easily convince us our ideas are flawless.
The teaching mindset opens your ideas up to critique and scrutiny. Fooling yourself is harder when you’re putting yourself and your ideas out there.
If you’ve not tried it, teaching can feel a little intimidating. To me, it felt like public speaking. In time I realized it’s the opposite. Teaching is a dialogue, not a speech. When done well, it’s a conversation. Even a group adventure.
My favorite teachers took me on a journey to explore myself and my ideas. They piqued my curiosity. That journey was often confusing. I learned that being confused was my body's way of letting me know I was about to learn.
Embrace the confusion. Embrace the curiosity. Teach and be taught.