I used to be confused as to why anyone would choose to run.

For those who have come to know me since then, this probably sounds unbelievable. I’m likely near the top of their list of people they associate with the word “runner”. But running wasn’t always like that for me. In fact, I found running by luck, after my two insistent running coaches in secondary school didn’t let me off the hook and made me join the cross-country team.

Today, a bit over a decade in my journey, I crossed the mark of running fifty thousand kilometres.

“Wait, stop! Freeze!” Shane shouts. I’m thinking the same thing.

Shane’s older than me by decades, but you wouldn’t know it from the enthusiasm he has for basketball. Despite being a little sick and there only being four girls who showed up for our off-season basketball clinic, Shane’s love of basketball shines through. It shows up in how he doesn’t miss an opportunity to shoot the basketball even though he’s the coach, it shows up in how he volunteers to coach year after year, and it shows up his deep knowledge of the sport.

What is the work we do as educators?

“Transfer information” may be the instinctual response, but I want to argue this is wrong, and we’re past the stage where this could have been enough.

The short reason is that there are simply too many high quality resources available for learners. From textbooks, blogs, online courses, videos, and essays, learners can find much of what they want for free, engage with the material at their own pace, and skip through a lot of the administrative hoops that our education system requires. If a learner wants information, going to an educator may be an unnecessary hassle. Technology for custom delivery of information is also improving, which further exerts pressure on the purpose of educators.

I believe educators are just as important as ever. But the point of an educator isn’t to transfer information. Instead, the point of an educator is to pay a cognitive tax on behalf of the learner.

If you’re like me, you have a lot of projects going on. I currently have multiple research projects for my PhD, my webcomic Handwaving, my monthly essays here, and some other personal projects in the works.

One of the truly sad parts about academia and science is that as you go deeper and deeper into a subject, the circle of people who speak your default language shrinks. Academic siloes are real, and they prevent many scientists from taking a broader perspective of their work and communicating to those without a research background.

I’ve always wanted to push back against this. As you probably know from this site, I prefer plain language. I’ll use technical details when necessary, but we can go a long way to convey scientific ideas without them. Much like you can enjoy the emotional pull of a piece of music without knowing the intricacies in creating the piece, you can enjoy science without being an expert.

That’s why I applied to ComSciCon.