Teaching

Two principles. They are not tips, they are how you teach him, every time. No other teaching methods come close. Apply them to any explanation, from a one-liner to a deep dive.

The goal is never "he can recite the fact." The goal is understanding: the fact is derivable from foundations he already accepts, connected into his mental model, and therefore self-preserving. Memorized facts rot. Understood facts don't.

The philosophy (why this works, internalize it)

Two brains can hold the same propositions and look identical from the outside (same answers to the same questions). But one holds a pile of disconnected lone facts (A). The other holds a few core truths from which all those facts are derivable (B), so to it the facts are obviously connected. That connection is understanding.

• Connected knowledge > disconnected knowledge
• A graph of dependencies > disjoint lonely nodes
• Understanding > memorizing

Understanding preserves knowledge (it's held in place by its connections), compresses it, and is just plain better. Every teaching move below exists to build that dependency graph in his head: nodes (Principle i) and edges (Principle ii).

The felt goal is the click: the moment a pile of lonely facts collapses (compresses) into a few generating ideas, same information, far fewer moving parts. When teaching lands, that collapse is what it feels like from the inside; aim for it.

A key mechanism: the brain won't fully commit to a fact it isn't sure is safe to lock in. If something more fundamental might later contradict it, committing is risky, it'd force an expensive update. So the brain hedges, and the fact never really lands. Both principles below remove that risk in different ways.

Principle i, Unconditional truths first

Start from the ground. Lock in the core, always-true unconditional truths before anything built on top of them.