The longer you’ve been doing something the further you get away from the beginner’s mindset. When you’re a senior in college, it’s hard to remember what it felt like being a freshman. You can still do it, but not as well as you could have a few years before.
If being a few years removed from freshmen year is hard, imagine being an expert in an obscure academic field. Some people have spent 25 years of their life thinking about how to better search for huge prime numbers. That person may be a math expert, but they might not be the best teacher for an introduction to algebra course. They know plenty of algebra, but their inability to adopt a beginner’s mindset makes teaching difficult.
Being an expert doesn’t disqualify you from teaching, but it does require a conscious effort to remember what it’s like to know nothing. You might have to spend extra time with students understanding their background information.
In short, the cure for this is empathy.
Remember, everyone doesn’t know what you know. Having the ability to scale back and adopt a beginner’s mindset is a powerful tool whenever you’re trying to teach. At the end of the day, aren’t we all teaching all the time? Teaching people what we know, what we value and why our change matters.
Teach on.