Every workshop I teach gets shorter. Not because there is less to say, but because I keep finding things that were never load-bearing.
The test
For anything I plan to teach, I ask: what would someone do differently tomorrow if they only knew this?
If the answer is "nothing, but they'd understand it better", it gets cut. Understanding that changes nothing is a hobby, not a curriculum.
Three moves that work
Start with the wrong version. Show the naive approach, let people feel why it fails, then introduce the correct one. The correct one lands twice as hard because it is now the answer to a question they have actually asked.
One idea per artefact. If a slide has two ideas, it has zero. Split it, or delete one.
Make them produce something. Even a bad thing. Especially a bad thing — a bad thing they made teaches more than a good thing they watched.
The thing teachers get wrong
We teach in the order we learned. That order is almost never the order someone needs. We learned the theory first because we had a reason to; they don't yet.
So teach the outcome first, the shortcut second, and the theory third — and only to the people who ask. Some will. Those are the ones who go on to teach it themselves, and that is the actual goal.
A note on jargon
Jargon is not a sign of expertise. It is a sign of a community, and using it in a room that isn't in the community is a way of saying "this isn't for you" without meaning to.
I keep a list of words I'm not allowed to say in a beginner room. It gets longer every year. So far, nothing on it has been missed.
