what is node and element and stuff. instructor assumes we know everything ?!

Well, I agree with one thing: this instructor sucks big time. I find him utterly confusing and a very bad teacher. Not the quality I expect from a Treehouse paying course...

The instructor Andrew Chalkey has to be the worst instructor on Treehouse. He goes over concepts like we are experts in what he is talking about. His strong English accent doesn't help either. I'm considering learning javascript concepts elsewhere.

A node is the object that all other objects in the DOM inherit from.

An element(p, a, div, etc.) is just one type of object in the DOM that inherits from the parent node object. You can see the other types here.

I'm not sure how much of a deep dive that course you're taking does into the DOM, but if you're looking for an exhaustive reference on DOM manipulation then I would suggest DOM Enlightenment.

Chances are if you're manipulating the DOM in any sort of production environment for web development, you're going to be using a library (like jQuery) to abstract the brunt of the technical mumbo-jumbo for you.

I'm glad to know I am not alone and am not the only one with the same feeling. I'm considering giving up learning JavaScript from Treehouse courses as their instructors seems to assume we, beginners, know everything. They start using terms that are never shown to us previously or they don't explain why they are using those terms.

I was trying to learn basic JavaScript here on Treehouse few months ago but I had to give up as the basic course is too complicated and ended up buying a book which was 100% more helpful than the basic JS course here.

Now that I have a basic understanding of JS I find myself on the same situation again.

Andrew Chalkley is a great developer and we clearly can see he knows how to code but sometimes I find him completely lost trying to explain stuff and I know JS is complicated to explain.

I think Treehouse should follow the Head First book approach when launching a course for beginners. Hope you guys don't get me wrong but it's been really tough learning JS here.

You have the basic idea, at least in part; but your unfamiliarity with the terms makes me think that you might have started with the wrong course. You might want to first take one of the courses that covers basic HTML document structure (and terminology).

this course assumes you have not only followed html and css basic courses, but also javascript basics, and perhaps others, like jquery basics, which is better for beginners. I am following the Front-End Web Development Track, and I've met "nodes" and stuff long ago, this is almost one of the last courses in the track. Perhaps you should try less advanced stuff first.