Peers can be the best teachers, because they're the ones that remember what it's like to not understand.

The remark highlights a pedagogical advantage of near-peers: they retain a vivid memory of the confusions, missing prerequisites, and misleading intuitions that accompany early learning. Because experts often suffer from the “curse of knowledge,” they may skip steps or underestimate what novices find hard. Peers, by contrast, can translate concepts into accessible language, anticipate common stumbling blocks, and offer reassurance that difficulty is normal. The quote also implicitly endorses collaborative learning cultures—study groups, peer instruction, code reviews, and mentoring ladders—where understanding is built socially and explanations are iteratively refined by those closest to the learning edge.