Learn a subject better by teaching it to a child.
If you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t understand it well enough
- nobody actually knows, it’s often misattributed to Einstein
Not developed by Richard Feynman, but was developed to emulate how he approached things.
The primary objective of the Feynman Technique is to learn about a subject by teaching it to children, being concise and using simple words.
The Feynman Technique for Learning a Subject
- Write down all that you know about it
- Rewrite it as if you were explaining it to a child
- Children have small vocabularies. Remove jargon. Put it as simply as possible, but no simpler. Create & utilize accessible analogies.
- Children have short attention spans. Say what’s important. Then get out.
- Look for gaps in your knowledge
- Where do you have to make jumps in your explanations?
- These areas warrant further research.
- Tell your story.
Why Learn by Teaching to Children?
Teaching to a child forces you to break down complexity. You cannot hide behind big vocabulary words. You have to truly understand a topic to be able to adequately teach it to a child. When you break things down far enough and try to weave them into a story, you’ll find gaps in your understanding. These gaps are your jump off points for further research.
My Implementation of the Technique
I realized today that http://www.aarongilly.com/gillespedia is just an implementation of the Feynman technique.