Deep End First, or Baby Steps?

It’s a conundrum. How do you teach someone something that’s very complicated? That requires a lot of skill and finesse? How do you teach this in a way that gets the job done and keeps the student engaged and interested?

I’ve learned a lot of difficult things over the years. I’ve had different instructors teaching me the same thing, but in radically different ways. And there are merits to the various ways that I’ve been taught. I suppose, in the end, what works is as much dependent upon the instructor as it is upon the student.

But what are these styles?

In my mind, I can come up with two end-member approaches to teaching. I’ve seen these in my youth, when I took swimming lessons, back pre-husband when I took guitar lessons, in high school as I studied (and never learned) foreign languages, and even now as I study swordplay.

One end-member is to just start out and jump right in. With swim lessons it was just that: Dive into the deep end, Penny. We’ll fish you out of you can’t swim, yet. Or, in guitar class it was being taught a whole song in a lesson, so that I could practice and play that one song by the time I got to my next lesson. With languages, there’s the immersion idea, like Rosetta Stone software promotes. And with the sword it can happen that one is simply handed a sword and jumps in and starts to fight. (A little clarification here: In proper sword training one would *never* just start fighting. But this – for better or worse – is the mode of ‘teaching’ utilized in the SCA heavy weapons combat, which superficially looks like sword fighting, but is really more like hitting each other with sticks [which can be a lot of fun, mind you!].)

The opposite end-member is to learn a skill set first. In swimming, you learn to float and properly kick before attempting the deep end. With guitar, it’s scales and chords and simple progressions and basic, basic songs before you’re allowed to touch popular music. With language, it’s studying the various tenses of verbs, tons of vocabulary, and proper grammar before you actually try to have a conversation with someone. And with the sword, it’s starting various guards, footwork, and sword control before you even hold a weapon.

So which is better?

In some cases, there are obvious safety considerations. But some of those can be avoided with proper safety and practice gear. I mean, I wouldn’t have jumped in the deep end were it not for the fact that there was a life guard there, and presumably my instructor knew how to swim too.  The benefit of just jumping in is that one gets a sense of immediate achievement. The feedback is fast as well. The downside is that one can fall into some really bad habits, or worse, get hurt.

The benefit of being methodical is that the student gets the techniques right the first time. The chance of developing bad habits is greatly reduced, as is the chance of injury. The downside though is that it can get a little dull. Fui, Fuisti, Fuit, Fuimus, Fuistis, Fuerunt. Fueram, Fueras, Fuerat, Fueramus, Fueratis, Fuer… oh something. I’m sure I conjugated that wrong, but whatever. That’s what I remember from Latin back in high school. That and “Graecia mihi est,” which means “It’s Greek to me.” I can’t actually speak any Latin. I took two years of French and can’t speak that either. That’s a lot of effort for no obvious  product.

I took guitar lessons, once upon a time, from two different instructors that each used different methods. Truth is, I preferred the instruction I got from the one who gave me popular songs to learn without going through all the gory details of how chords work.  However, I know that with only that training, I could never have picked up sheet music and played it. My other instructor was teaching me that, but it was slow-going.

So again, I ask which is better?

Is a combination possible? Three weeks of meticulous study of form and structure and a few days of immersion as a special treat, perhaps? Maybe this model is the way to go. It would teach the lessons needed and give an eager student an opportunity to try out their skills. And upon return from the immersion phase, the student will most likely have realized how little they know and will be glad for more detailed instruction. This is the method that I think would work best for me, anyway.

What about you? Any thoughts?