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by whatnotests 9y ago

malkia 9y ago
lol. that would've made me a really young father, but he's only 9.
- tonydiv 9y ago
  Awesome, are you an engineer too? A few questions if you don't mind me asking: 1. How serious are you about your child's coding education? 2. Do you teach her/him too? 3. Would you ever hire an instructor in a 1-on-1 or 1-on-2 setting if it were affordable?
  - malkia 9y ago
    1. I'm trying to be serious, but I often lose touch. My wife is more in control of the matter. 2. I'm not sure teaching is the best way to describe it... more like doing it together, and sharing knowledge. I don't consider myself to be a good teacher (after seen how others do it). Occasionally I pull real good "teachin'" - seriously, but then often I fell into too many details, and he gets bored. 3. Maybe, but possibly when he goes to middleschool. I grew up in Bulgaria, and since 7th grade I was in specialized Mathematics and Informatics (the "eu" word for "computer science") high-school. I went there because I was good in my elementary, middle school... only to realize I was just average, or even below compared to the other kids. But then I discovered that programming is what I really wanted, unlike many of the other kids (that was back in the 90s), and there was much less competition in this area. Nowadays its quite different... Back then, even saying that you were playing video games, and kids would consider you dork/geek/etc. But back to math-specialized high-school - Since I've started doing poorly, my parents got me 1-1 (sometimes 1-2) math teacher, just to keep on level. It was the norm to have 30-40 math exams for homework, and it took everyone of us hours to finish (Though one difference with schools here, is that there is rotation when you go to school - one month you go in the morning, the other month in the afternoon - so there was plenty of time to finish homework). So, it's definitely beneficial to have an instructor. It helped me. We are considering, but also from another standpoint - peer pressure. When all our friends are talking about how their kids go with private tutors/instructors - then you have to get on that bandwagon... I mean I hate that, but I know we have to do it. Last rant, I wish a classroom where the teacher would have only few kids - 5-6, not 20. I feel this would greatly reduce the need for instructors. And I'm willing to pay more taxes, whether I had or had not kids.
    - tonydiv 9y ago
      1. No problem, parents go through phases of involvement. Don't be too harsh on yourself :) 2. It sounds a lot like a flavor of Project Based Learning where you just "go do it" as opposed to Lecture -> Complete exercises. At least you know when your child is bored (they are very vocal users usually!). These are good things :) 3. Wow thanks for giving me more context about STEM education in Bulgaria. Do you think programming is a good way to mask "boring math?" I have found that it is a great proxy that gives kids tangible goals that they can see/do/sense, and often in the process they do plenty of math. Given what you are looking for, I would love to hear any feedback you might have about my project. It is a 1-to-1 or 1-to-2 online coding school for kids: http://block.school http://block.school Feel free to email me at tony@block.school or comment here. Thanks for the info!!!

malkia 9y ago

lol. that would've made me a really young father, but he's only 9.

tonydiv 9y ago
Awesome, are you an engineer too? A few questions if you don't mind me asking: 1. How serious are you about your child's coding education? 2. Do you teach her/him too? 3. Would you ever hire an instructor in a 1-on-1 or 1-on-2 setting if it were affordable?
- malkia 9y ago
  1. I'm trying to be serious, but I often lose touch. My wife is more in control of the matter. 2. I'm not sure teaching is the best way to describe it... more like doing it together, and sharing knowledge. I don't consider myself to be a good teacher (after seen how others do it). Occasionally I pull real good "teachin'" - seriously, but then often I fell into too many details, and he gets bored. 3. Maybe, but possibly when he goes to middleschool. I grew up in Bulgaria, and since 7th grade I was in specialized Mathematics and Informatics (the "eu" word for "computer science") high-school. I went there because I was good in my elementary, middle school... only to realize I was just average, or even below compared to the other kids. But then I discovered that programming is what I really wanted, unlike many of the other kids (that was back in the 90s), and there was much less competition in this area. Nowadays its quite different... Back then, even saying that you were playing video games, and kids would consider you dork/geek/etc. But back to math-specialized high-school - Since I've started doing poorly, my parents got me 1-1 (sometimes 1-2) math teacher, just to keep on level. It was the norm to have 30-40 math exams for homework, and it took everyone of us hours to finish (Though one difference with schools here, is that there is rotation when you go to school - one month you go in the morning, the other month in the afternoon - so there was plenty of time to finish homework). So, it's definitely beneficial to have an instructor. It helped me. We are considering, but also from another standpoint - peer pressure. When all our friends are talking about how their kids go with private tutors/instructors - then you have to get on that bandwagon... I mean I hate that, but I know we have to do it. Last rant, I wish a classroom where the teacher would have only few kids - 5-6, not 20. I feel this would greatly reduce the need for instructors. And I'm willing to pay more taxes, whether I had or had not kids.
  - tonydiv 9y ago
    1. No problem, parents go through phases of involvement. Don't be too harsh on yourself :) 2. It sounds a lot like a flavor of Project Based Learning where you just "go do it" as opposed to Lecture -> Complete exercises. At least you know when your child is bored (they are very vocal users usually!). These are good things :) 3. Wow thanks for giving me more context about STEM education in Bulgaria. Do you think programming is a good way to mask "boring math?" I have found that it is a great proxy that gives kids tangible goals that they can see/do/sense, and often in the process they do plenty of math. Given what you are looking for, I would love to hear any feedback you might have about my project. It is a 1-to-1 or 1-to-2 online coding school for kids: http://block.school http://block.school Feel free to email me at tony@block.school or comment here. Thanks for the info!!!