The newcomer deserves a chance to contribute before being permanently assigned the role of learner.

Groups are quick to hand out a role and slow to take it back. Someone arrives new, is helped generously, and then stays new in everyone’s mind long after they have stopped being new. The label starts as kindness and hardens into a ceiling. Meanwhile the person has skills nobody thought to ask about, because learners are not asked.

Think of whoever joined your team or club most recently. Give them one real piece of work, the kind with a consequence attached, and ask what they did before they came here. People grow into a group faster by being useful in it than by being taught in it.