My brother did this - taught French in a Louisiana middle school for two years after college. However, he was a humanities major who went on to a PhD program a

My brother did this - taught French in a Louisiana middle school for two years after college. However, he was a humanities major who went on to a PhD program afterwards; aside from a bit of stats in R, he doesn't do any hacking. It was a good experience for him, and it is an admirable thing to take on. He said that it was largely crowd control, and a little bit of teaching. The schools that serve low income people in Louisiana are in pretty grim shape, evidently. I don't think it would help a hacker much at all. But there are things other than hacking in life, right? I dunno, from the sound of it, I don't think it would be in the best interests a 22 year old hacker, who is almost bursting to get out there and work with an innovative startup, to step out of the game at age 22 to teach basic math in an underfunded school. The excitement, creativity, and freedom you have at that age won't be there forever. I'm sad to say that, though - because I personally do think that talented teachers make a positive difference, and I think that a more public-mindedness among technology workers would be a good thing (there's a strong undercurrent of distain for politics and legalisms - but if we don't participate, lawyers will be more than happy to regulate technology for us...)