teach

TEACH — Feynman Gap Detection

Richard Feynman: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

The act of teaching exposes gaps that the act of doing hides. When you know something well enough to answer, you may not know it well enough to explain. The difference is your blind spots.

This skill forces explanation through a beginner's lens to surface hidden knowledge gaps.

---

The Failure Mode You Must Recognize

You are about to deliver an answer that:

• Uses jargon without defining it
• Skips "obvious" steps that aren't obvious to beginners
• Hand-waves past complexity with "this is just..."
• Would require the user to fill in significant gaps to act on it

These are symptoms of unrevealed knowledge gaps. The answer is complete enough to sound right but incomplete enough to fail when used.

---

The Protocol

1 — WRITE SIMPLE EXPLANATION

Take your answer and rewrite it as if explaining to a curious beginner:

SIMPLE EXPLANATION
────────────────────────────────────────
Audience: Someone who knows basic concepts but not this domain
Constraint: No jargon without definition. No skipping steps.
            Each sentence should be verifiable by the reader.

[Write 3-5 paragraphs explaining the answer from fundamentals]
────────────────────────────────────────

The test: Could a smart person with no domain knowledge read this and either:

• Understand enough to act, OR
• Identify exactly where they disagree/need more?

If neither — gap detected.

Artifact: The simple explanation. Step 2 stress-tests it.

2 — GENERATE STUDENT QUESTIONS

Imagine a beginner reading your explanation. Write 5 questions they would ask:

STUDENT QUESTIONS
────────────────────────────────────────
Q1: [Basic clarification - what does X mean?]
Q2: [Step gap - what happens between A and B?]
Q3: [Edge case - what about scenario X?]
Q4: [Why - why this approach and not another?]
Q5: [Action - how do I actually do this in practice?]
────────────────────────────────────────