In the same way that doctors make the worst patients, teachers make the best students.

At Northwestern, I feel like every time I meet a new student, there is a silent understanding that we were, at one point, the best at something. We had to be in order to get in.

When I scroll through LinkedIn, classmates are constantly sharing new experiences and positions. Their impressive resumes complement their intellect, but there is one skill students are always missing: the ability to teach others what they know.

Students here work hard to perfect their skills.

It starts with crafting that perfect college application, and then it becomes mastering grades, connections and internships.

Most students were used to being the best at what they did in high school. However, being on one campus all together resets the hierarchy. It’s the same “small fish in a big pond” scenario, except the pond just got a whole lot smarter.

In elementary and middle school, I remember having “check for understanding” worksheets on the wall of my classrooms where students ranked how well they learned a topic. The highest level of understanding was always being able to teach the topic to other students.

The charts disappeared in high school, which is ironic because that’s probably the time I needed them the most.

I graduated high school early, and the chart found its way back to me when I worked as a preschool teaching assistant the year before college.

For six and a half hours every day, 14 students between the ages of two and five ran around my feet and peppered me with questions.

Early in the year, a coworker explained to me to expect chaos — the moments I witnessed every day were quite literally some of the best and worst moments of my students’ entire lives.

Some kids came in the door screaming and kicking because they thought their parents were never coming back. For others, spilling a cup of water on the floor was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened, and they would burst into tears.

Teaching students to count to 10 and recite the alphabet was the easiest part of my job, and even still, it wasn’t that easy.

Teaching helped me see the world in a different way. I learned how to see the world through my young students’ eyes. Anything I taught my students was nothing compared to what they taught me.

They made ordinary things magical again. Our class hatched butterflies in the spring, and I can still see the sparkles in their eyes and hear their giggles from when some landed on their noses and fingers.

Teaching is an art of communication. You rapidly process inputs from your students, sometimes simultaneously, and frantically search for a calm and appropriate output.

That’s why I think everyone should teach. Maybe not preschoolers, but, in some way, shape or form: advising, mentoring or tutoring. It makes you a better student in a way no corporate internship ever will.

While NU is praised for its academics, I’ve noticed that a lot of students are so overwhelmed with their workload and extracurriculars that they turn into passive learners.

While there is a difference between passiveness due to overwhelm and passiveness due to a lack of care, disengagement with the material happens all the same.

I’ve seen peers skip their 9 a.m. class because they were up until 4 a.m. studying for a midterm. I’ve also watched students view sports highlights and shop online while a professor is lecturing five feet in front of them.

Students so often watch TV shows and movies about doctors or lawyers and throw themselves into pursuing those career paths, but teaching shows have never quite influenced a movement, despite people using the skill all the time without realizing it.

Whether it be instructing your younger sibling on how to tie their shoes, helping your grandparents send an email or explaining the step-by-step solution to a friend’s math problem, these everyday moments in life show the subtle, yet important impact of knowing how to teach.

Of course, not every well-educated person makes a great teacher, and judging from the CTECs of some of my fall quarter professors, the NU student body seems to agree.

Teaching is not blankly expressing information. It is a practice based in understanding and engaging with your students’ perspectives and conveying what you know in a way that they can learn.

The experience of teaching fosters the crucial empathy needed to not only to be the best student, but a better student too.

The last form of mastery on the chart is the ability to teach. Can you?

Emma Russell is a Medill freshman. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.