Follow-up:
My own teacher may very well not be more accomplished than me, but his models of what practices are good for which predicaments, and his ability to see through my BS, are superior to mine
Conveyed with some measure of sensitivity, this means I learn better from him.
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Would you ever consider seeking out another teacher who you think is more accomplished than you? I've heard teachers talk about this before.
Or do you think the level of seniority is less important than a teacher's ability to read you, your situation, and respond accordingly?
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Seniority is immensely important.
My teacher may not be more accomplished than me *on average* in the domain we're studying, but he both knows more things about other areas and has specific in-domain accomplishments I don't.
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I do go other places sometimes for specialized training, and it would probably be an advantage if he just got his head out of his ass and got enlightened already (eh, ?), but my bigger point was that the true qualification for teaching is not skill superior to the student.
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Instead, teachers who are not shit rely on everything from superior mental models, through experience, through their own failings, to help the student better understand what they're doing.
If the student is more talented, the norm is they exceed the master. If not, it depends.
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eh, I had a student who exceeded me in a specific domain (energetic states) and I recognized it and sent them to another teacher. One must know ones limitations. And, ultimately, one should want ones students to exceed one.
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Probably overstated my case a bit, here.
But still, I'd say teaching ability is predicated on other things than one's own ability. Many of the best teachers are not *that* accomplished themselves. I believe you're the most recent person to tell me that, too.
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As I stated earlier, you know things that I don't know and you can thus teach me those things - but you also have much more metacognitive context for all the things we both know, which provides its own kind of value.
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If two people have gone equally far into the forest but one has a more complete map (& more relevant misc. knowledge, e.g. reading stars), that person still has an advantage they can leverage.
I meant something along those lines, I think.
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I find the openness of your responses as you interesting as the content of the responses.
In lieu of other measures, I picked my two primary teacher according to their seniority (5+ decades), and a willingness to translate their training into a new context.
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I am always skeptical of seniority in itself. My impression is that it correlates rather poorly with accomplishment, and worse still with teaching ability - all the while looking really rather impressive, whether it is or isn't.
But do continue... I, too, am curious.