1.3 Why teacheR?

Most books are written as though you are a student. They teach you things so that you can pass a test or do whatever it was you need to do to move onto the next level or finish your project. This is very useful when you have a very specific goal in mind. For instance, people often get into R because they have a particular project they want to work on or because they think it could be useful for their work. Reading a book tailored to that type of project or work can therefore be very useful.

However, learning R this way, or learning anything for that matter, can present with some problems later down the line. Primarily, you’ve just learnt to do something very specific. There will certainly be tips and skills that will be transferable to future projects, but even then, once you’ve got a hammer, everything can start looking very nail-like.

And so I often try and take a different approach when learning and teaching R. Imagine that you’re learning R not as a means to an end, but because you’re going to teach it to someone else. This forces a more balanced and universal understanding, and can really help with your knowledge retention. When I began teaching R, my knowledge of R and how it works grew much faster than it ever had. And it was because of the teaching; people will ask insightful questions, ask you what happens when you do this or that and why does that happen, and those questions will force you to better understand R and how it works. It’s perfectly okay to say that you don’t know the answer when teaching, but when someone asks you why "TRUE" is apparently the same as TRUE but "True" isn’t the same as TRUE, I defy anyone who’s not curious enough to look it up afterwards.

So when you read this book, don’t think of yourself as a lowly student who’s learning R to pass their A Levels. Instead, think of yourself as a teacher in training.