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What if you could launch a school, instead? This is probably my favorite problem. I think about it every day. It started a few years ago when it really began t

What if you could launch a school, instead? This is probably my favorite problem. I think about it every day. It started a few years ago when it really began to dawn on me that almost every single sociological problem that a society develops can be traced back to errors in its educational system. I began to imagine -- as realistically as possible -- just what kind of societies might develop based on different kinds of educational systems. There's a neat sub-problem though that you allude to: since we assume that education feeds into sociological tendencies which feed back into education, how can you dramatically alter the direction of an education system once it has been moving in a particular way for several decades? I think the answer is best exemplified in games of strategy, like Go. In general, any time you're faced with an overwhelmingly powerful opponent, you try to find a niche they don't care about, you establish a small, self-supporting base in that niche, and then you grow it as quietly as possible for as long as possible. So, for example, if you tried to attack the current education system head-on, in the form of essays or books or school boards or legislation, you will probably fail. But, what if: 1. You start with one or two after-school, extracurricular activities; 2. You develop some rigorous, detailed, well-thought-out goals and methods for teaching them; 3. You slowly add on more programs; 4. You centralize them into a single facility; 5. You begin to offer a not-worthless certificate at the successful end of each program thanks to (2). Well, now you've just gone and launched something which can push against the current educational system a little bit. If you make this successful, you can begin to -- a little tiny bit at a time -- publicly ask questions like, "Why don't public schools have programs like this?" It may be slow, but after spending a lot of brain time considering a large number of various ways of changing an educational system, this is the approach that I think has the best chances of success. I've been putting a lot of energy recently into growing my business, so that I can finance a small store in the next 9 months or so, so that I can have an appropriate space to offer a fun, basic mechatronics program next Summer, which is my step #1.

todayiamme 16y ago
Awesome. I've been thinking about doing something like this too. Albeit not in the concrete way you've put forward, but something analogous to it. If my startup takes off and I am at a stable plateau then I think that I can run a program like this on the premises. I could ask the people who are working with me to tutor/mentor kids by building stuff with them. Further, by having a hiring bias I can choose people with a personality that makes them more suited for such a thing. In the longer run wouldn't it be awesome to fund a Xerox PARC that doubles up as a school? It's an amazing way to create long lasting partnerships with a community. You are giving back and receiving precious talent in return. P.S. - Is there anyway I can help you out with your project?
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  > P.S. - Is there anyway I can help you out with your project? I had to think about this for a day. The short, immediate answer was "Yes! absolutely!", but I wasn't really sure in what ways. I think I need three things right now: 1. Links to people with experience in mechatronics and/or teaching such things to small groups of kids age 12 to 16 (or thereabouts). I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron, reasonably proficient at programming, and have taught rock climbing to groups of kids that age. So, I think I've got all the pieces, but any hints would be appreciated. I intend to use Arduino and the course syllabus will involve making a small, automated, maze-navigating robot over the course of a couple of months in the Summer. They will get to keep their robot. I will build one of my own starting early next year to make sure I have a good idea of what to expect in assembling it. 2. I really need "help finding help". I've got that affliction where I'm used to being self-sufficient and providing help to other people. As a result, I'm not very good at finding or getting help with things. F'r instance, I have no idea how to motivate someone else to be interested in what I'm up to, and I don't know how to ask for help, or how to respond to offers of help. 3. Finally, the same old yarn about needing resources. I didn't have any savings when I started my business a few years ago. I've grown it literally out of nothing, and it's pretty healthy, but its growth potential is limited mostly by my lack of capital resources at the moment. So, if you know of anyone that might have a passing interest in helping me sort that out, that would be nifty. Thanks for your interest! I'll post an update to HN once this thing gets rolling, hopefully in a few months. The main focus right now is to get my hands on a small building, which is requiring me to step up my revenue a bit.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - todayiamme 16y ago
    Thanks for replying! I live in India so I can't help you out in 2 & 3, but I can help you to develop the content. The thing is that I went through pretty much a program like this in my high-school. So, I do have a few observations and experiences that you might like to hear. for e.g. I think that you're making a mistake by starting them off with Arduino. Kid's unless they're really fascinated by it will get bored and won't pay attention if they don't see immediate results. It takes too long to make stuff out of raw materials and Arduino isn't a gentle introduction at all unless you use a kit, which doesn't make financial sense. A better choice would be to start with Lego and let them outgrow it. Allow the older kids to hack it a bit (Lego NXT is opensource) and make their sensors etc. for it and write code for it in the language of their choice. Whereas allow the 12-14 y/os to play around with lego and make mistakes until they get a hang of stuff and then move on the quick learner to the second rung. After they've exhausted this paradigm then move them on to Arduino. Now, they should be more receptive to the concepts you're about to propose and they'll love the challenge instead of fearing it. Can you email me at yesthisisananonymousid on gmail? I would love to thrash this out with you.

todayiamme 16y ago

Awesome. I've been thinking about doing something like this too. Albeit not in the concrete way you've put forward, but something analogous to it. If my startup takes off and I am at a stable plateau then I think that I can run a program like this on the premises. I could ask the people who are working with me to tutor/mentor kids by building stuff with them. Further, by having a hiring bias I can choose people with a personality that makes them more suited for such a thing. In the longer run wouldn't it be awesome to fund a Xerox PARC that doubles up as a school? It's an amazing way to create long lasting partnerships with a community. You are giving back and receiving precious talent in return. P.S. - Is there anyway I can help you out with your project?

thaumaturgy 16y ago
> P.S. - Is there anyway I can help you out with your project? I had to think about this for a day. The short, immediate answer was "Yes! absolutely!", but I wasn't really sure in what ways. I think I need three things right now: 1. Links to people with experience in mechatronics and/or teaching such things to small groups of kids age 12 to 16 (or thereabouts). I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron, reasonably proficient at programming, and have taught rock climbing to groups of kids that age. So, I think I've got all the pieces, but any hints would be appreciated. I intend to use Arduino and the course syllabus will involve making a small, automated, maze-navigating robot over the course of a couple of months in the Summer. They will get to keep their robot. I will build one of my own starting early next year to make sure I have a good idea of what to expect in assembling it. 2. I really need "help finding help". I've got that affliction where I'm used to being self-sufficient and providing help to other people. As a result, I'm not very good at finding or getting help with things. F'r instance, I have no idea how to motivate someone else to be interested in what I'm up to, and I don't know how to ask for help, or how to respond to offers of help. 3. Finally, the same old yarn about needing resources. I didn't have any savings when I started my business a few years ago. I've grown it literally out of nothing, and it's pretty healthy, but its growth potential is limited mostly by my lack of capital resources at the moment. So, if you know of anyone that might have a passing interest in helping me sort that out, that would be nifty. Thanks for your interest! I'll post an update to HN once this thing gets rolling, hopefully in a few months. The main focus right now is to get my hands on a small building, which is requiring me to step up my revenue a bit.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- todayiamme 16y ago
  Thanks for replying! I live in India so I can't help you out in 2 & 3, but I can help you to develop the content. The thing is that I went through pretty much a program like this in my high-school. So, I do have a few observations and experiences that you might like to hear. for e.g. I think that you're making a mistake by starting them off with Arduino. Kid's unless they're really fascinated by it will get bored and won't pay attention if they don't see immediate results. It takes too long to make stuff out of raw materials and Arduino isn't a gentle introduction at all unless you use a kit, which doesn't make financial sense. A better choice would be to start with Lego and let them outgrow it. Allow the older kids to hack it a bit (Lego NXT is opensource) and make their sensors etc. for it and write code for it in the language of their choice. Whereas allow the 12-14 y/os to play around with lego and make mistakes until they get a hang of stuff and then move on the quick learner to the second rung. After they've exhausted this paradigm then move them on to Arduino. Now, they should be more receptive to the concepts you're about to propose and they'll love the challenge instead of fearing it. Can you email me at yesthisisananonymousid on gmail? I would love to thrash this out with you.