Geekery Abounds

Why is this actually such a good summary of both of their teaching styles though?

Sophie came from an environment where street smarts saved your skin, you didn't study; you did. I mean, you can't exactly learn out of a book how to take a car hit or steal a painting. Over time, she gradually refined her techniques by running scams and stealing priceless artifacts until she became the best. That's not to negate the loads of research she probably did to get as good as she is, but as we see in Tournament Job, a lot of the time she is able to con without much preparation at all.

So it makes sense when she's teaching Parker, Hardison, Harry, Breanna, and even Maggie how to grift that she doesn't actually grift on their behalf or by having them follow behind her when she plays a character. She gives them a few suggestions and lets them try it out for themselves. This also relates to non-grifting teaching as well, like when she's teaching the crew about the nature of smuggled artifacts in The King George Job. She allows for each crew member to tell their observations about the statue of Ra before she details why that's significant. With Sophie, you learn and you con by doing.

Eliot came from a sports and military background, where you receive a looooot of feedback, a lot of the time in insult or brutal honesty. Depending on the person, feedback combined with further training and repetition can lead to solid improvement. You best believe that Eliot has taken every piece of advice to heart so that he could be the best. He has cultivated his skills through many different facets, namely in black ops, retrieval assignments, and culinary school. We see evidence of the years of training and experience in every single episode. With Eliot, you learn and you con by honesty (ironically) and correction.

So again, it makes sense that Eliot's the most brutally honest out of the whole crew and uses that to his advantage when teaching. Because he calls the crew out on their individual shit, it allows for them to assess dangerous or painful situations accurately and work together to evade or conquer. They improve because of his feedback. That's not to say that Eliot is not an incredibly gifted teacher or that he doesn't tune his feedback to who he's teaching (I love how gentle he is with kids and Parker for example), but he doesn't sugarcoat to spare people's feelings. He wants them to succeed, but he's not above knocking them out in the name of showing them proper technique to do so. We see this time and time again with his interactions with Hardison and Nate.

He's trying to conduct a home visit. It's not going well. The last visit didn't go well. It's becoming more and more clear that he's probably going to have to separate this little girl from her only living relative, which he doesn't want to do. Nani's not helping her own case, and he's coming down pretty hard on her. And then suddenly this bizarre little blue creature pops up and flings a heavy book directly at his face. The sisters insist it's a dog, but it doesn't look, sound, or behave like any dog.

The thing is, Agent Bubbles knows about aliens. He knows for a fact that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists and that it knows about Earth. And yet he doesn't challenge the idea that Stitch is a dog or try to either immediately remove Lilo or demand that Stitch be sent away. He does specifically tell Lilo that the next time he sees Stitch he expects Stitch to be "a model citizen." Not under control or well trained, a model citizen.