Summarized, this post seems to be saying “Learning <thing> is most effective if you get the most effective teacher. The most effective teachers of <thing> aren’t necessarily the most skilled (“the best”) people—they are people who are marginally more skilled in <thing> than you (“the same”).”
The first sentence seems very true. The second sentence is often true, but as johnswentworth pointed out, there are exceptions. I’ll restate his exception and add two of my own.
(from johnswentworth’s comment) If the skill is niche, you may have no choice but to learn from the best. In particular, the best may be the best since they know something everybody else doesn’t.
It can be valuable to gain a “30000 foot overview” of a topic if you want to learn how experts in a field think. Such an overview is best given by “the best” in that field, not people who are “same”. For example, a graduate student in one field might attend a seminar in a different, only slightly related field, hoping to ignore the details and take away a broad bigger picture of the field.
Masterclasses exist. For example, a student musician may gain a lot from a single lesson with a world-class musician.
For examples 2 and 3, the shared attribute here is that it can be beneficial to learn the “compressed” knowledge the “best” expert has, rather than less compressed knowledge from a “same” teacher. Even if the student can’t “uncompress” this knowledge, there is still value in learning the general shape of a body of knowledge.
Summarized, this post seems to be saying “Learning <thing> is most effective if you get the most effective teacher. The most effective teachers of <thing> aren’t necessarily the most skilled (“the best”) people—they are people who are marginally more skilled in <thing> than you (“the same”).”
The first sentence seems very true. The second sentence is often true, but as johnswentworth pointed out, there are exceptions. I’ll restate his exception and add two of my own.
(from johnswentworth’s comment) If the skill is niche, you may have no choice but to learn from the best. In particular, the best may be the best since they know something everybody else doesn’t.
It can be valuable to gain a “30000 foot overview” of a topic if you want to learn how experts in a field think. Such an overview is best given by “the best” in that field, not people who are “same”. For example, a graduate student in one field might attend a seminar in a different, only slightly related field, hoping to ignore the details and take away a broad bigger picture of the field.
Masterclasses exist. For example, a student musician may gain a lot from a single lesson with a world-class musician.
For examples 2 and 3, the shared attribute here is that it can be beneficial to learn the “compressed” knowledge the “best” expert has, rather than less compressed knowledge from a “same” teacher. Even if the student can’t “uncompress” this knowledge, there is still value in learning the general shape of a body of knowledge.