Nov 11, 2026 · 37 min · 10 segments
How would you teach someone to play tennis? You could hire five coaches to teach the mechanics of a serve, the physics of a bouncing ball, the history of the game, and the science of the racket. You…
Ben NelsonGuest
Daniel AtlinHost
I think the first thing to understand is, much like in these analogies and what I just spoke about, if you want to educate a student on X, Y, or Z, you should educate them on X, Y, or Z.
So the first component is be explicit in in the cognitive tools and the educational development that you want to provide to the student.
And so if you say, hey, I want to teach you how to be a critical thinker, don't teach me about the Renaissance gardens of Italy first and foremost, test me on the Renaissance gardens of Italy, and then assume that I will deploy critical thinking tools, not knowing, not defining what those are, but first say, Hey, let's teach you these tools.
Let's teach you them in a way that you can apply them when you explore the Renaissance gardens of Italy.
Nothing wrong with the study of that subject, but let's be systematic in your ability to interrogate the material that you're going to find in any pursuit.
Component number two, so maybe again using a tennis analogy, you really do need to know how do you hold the racket and how do you serve and how do you perform a backhand or a forehand and how do you work on footwork, et cetera, and how do you understand your opponent and be able to assess how they're going to use – nonverbal communications, aggressivity, their confidence levels to try and psychologically get in your head in a match.
And so when you are introduced these kind of underlying concepts, it's not like you're introduced, you define them and you move on.
You got to choose which tool to use in a given situation, but you won't know what to use until a couple of seconds before it is time.
So the ability to develop that agile flexibility or make these things second nature is crucial.
The third is how to deploy them, right? And the idea of how do you actually work on the technique of that backhand or the forehand.
How do you understand the nuance? With space deliberate practice, it's not just about you do the same thing over and over again mindlessly.
I think the first thing to understand is, much like in these analogies and what I just spoke about, if you want to educate a student on X, Y, or Z, you should educate them on X, Y, or Z.
So the first component is be explicit in in the cognitive tools and the educational development that you want to provide to the student.
And so if you say, hey, I want to teach you how to be a critical thinker, don't teach me about the Renaissance gardens of Italy first and foremost, test me on the Renaissance gardens of Italy, and then assume that I will deploy critical thinking tools, not knowing, not defining what those are, but first say, Hey, let's teach you these tools.
Let's teach you them in a way that you can apply them when you explore the Renaissance gardens of Italy.
Nothing wrong with the study of that subject, but let's be systematic in your ability to interrogate the material that you're going to find in any pursuit.
Component number two, so maybe again using a tennis analogy, you really do need to know how do you hold the racket and how do you serve and how do you perform a backhand or a forehand and how do you work on footwork, et cetera, and how do you understand your opponent and be able to assess how they're going to use – nonverbal communications, aggressivity, their confidence levels to try and psychologically get in your head in a match.
And so when you are introduced these kind of underlying concepts, it's not like you're introduced, you define them and you move on.
You got to choose which tool to use in a given situation, but you won't know what to use until a couple of seconds before it is time.
So the ability to develop that agile flexibility or make these things second nature is crucial.
The third is how to deploy them, right? And the idea of how do you actually work on the technique of that backhand or the forehand.
How do you understand the nuance? With space deliberate practice, it's not just about you do the same thing over and over again mindlessly.
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