Bransford’s piece on Experts Differ from Novices made me analyze my instructors and courses during my undergraduate years. Like Susan and Sara, I too had difficulty with poems. Only I was good at dissecting a poem or story, and giving my peers feedback on their poems, but I never learned to write a poem. I would follow the guidelines my instructors would give on how to construct a certain poem like a sonnet, but I never learned how a poem should feel, sound, and taste. I would complete my poetry portfolios with excellent grades, but I was never satisfied with my poems. The poems my classmates wrote were poetic, and my poems were simple. My peers would give me good reviews me for my grammar and clarity, but nothing on how I can sound poetic. I came to accept that I just did not have the art of writing complex poetry.

The readings however made me realize that maybe the reason I could not write poetry was novice instructors who may have been experts in their fields, but not experts in teaching their fields. I say this because I have had instructors who made me fall in love with a course just by the methods they taught it. For example, I have studied many lessons from different instructors on Shakespeare. But only one instructor in my third year of college made me truly appreciate Shakespeare. He was an expert not only in the subject matter but also in teaching it. The method he used for teaching Shakespeare was very well organized. His interpretation of the text always helped me relate to it in my environment. And thus, I was able to enjoy every minute of the course and excel on the course projects and exams without trouble. The course made me realize that I had not been able to understand Shakespeare because of the methods it was being taught. Many of my previous Shakespeare classes had been so occupied with memorizing dates, names, and chronological events, that it completely took the joy out of learning.

Bransford mentions that not all experts are able to teach their expertise. I therefore realized that not all poets can teach students how to write a poem. When writing a poem I would be constantly checking on the form and the structure, anything that could help me meet the line limit.

Several years ago I began working on a website with a group of students who wrote and critiqued Persian literature, and then translated them into English. When I began editing their translations, at times I was forced to change whole paragraphs so their arguments would make sense in the English language. My peers would get frustrated and ask what was wrong with their translations. They would argue that they had followed all the grammatical rules. They were so used to the patterns that they had studied, that when asked to look beyond their patterns, they were overwhelmed. These students had remained in that first stage of punctuation and hadn’t moved on.

I completely agree with Bransford on how experts in a field who teach, yet are not an expert in teaching can actually harm a student’s ability in learning that study. Similarly a teacher who is not an expert in the course he/she is teaching can also harm a students’ ability to learn.

-Nafiseh