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But maybe school should be about education, rather than training? Broadening minds, rather than turning out cookie-cutter programmers. Teach someone how to th

But maybe school should be about education, rather than training? Broadening minds, rather than turning out cookie-cutter programmers. Teach someone how to think for themselves, start them in some (foreign) languages, introduce them to history and literature, give them the basics of mathematics and science, and they can easily learn programming and will have the broad base to come up with great ideas. Hot-house them on 'how to launch a startup' and 'coding in Fortran' and you'll probably turn out legions of people very good at passing exams in 'structure of business plans (in the year 1999)' and 'syntax of Fortran', but when the world moves on they won't be able to adapt. That said, I think your idea is sound, though your methods are wrong. A school should encourage creativity and intellectual development - that's how to produce your future YCombinators, journalists etc. I think we're seeing the failure of the training model in India, where they do turn out legions of capable developers, but comparatively few capable entrepreneurs. I guess I think that the best way to achieve your goal is actually closer to the current educational systems than one so directly and narrowly orientated towards the goal: education is more of a journey than a race.

dfranke 19y ago
I don't think the qualities that liberal educations attempt to teach can actually be taught be directly. Rather, I think they're just things that people with good attitudes pick up by osmosis when you let them work on non-bogus projects.
garbowza 19y ago
This isn't about training students to be cookie-cutter programmers. The concept is to provide the students with education on how to CREATE things. That is the opposite of cookie-cutter.
palish 19y ago
Unfortunately, the current public system fails to educate very well, and a lot of private schools are based on the public model. With that said, I know there are excellent private schools. This would be in addition to those. It seems like the best compromise will present itself when real-world tests are done. The whole school won't be devoted to training, but there will be a certain percentage of training. The fact that there is a single focus (Your startup at the end of the road) will be the motivating force for students. I would've given anything to know that there was light at the end of the tunnel besides "go to college". I totally agree with you. Education is a wonderful journey, not a race. Students would be able to find out what they like and a specific idea that motivates them, then get access to resources that would help them create value relating to that idea.
SwellJoe 19y ago
I have to agree. Kids almost certainly shouldn't be set on a path to tech entrepreneurship from birth. It takes a unique set of skills to be a good entrepreneur and/or hacker, and almost none of them are technical or trainable via a particular curriculum. Creativity comes from being given the right to create freely from an early age with honest criticism and encouragement. Self-esteem comes from being given the opportunity to succeed (and fail) at interesting problems over and over again. And I'm not sure how one teaches ambition, but it's another vital component. I don't think it matters a bit whether these are taught in a "hacker" curriculum or a traditional curriculum. As justinsb points out, there are schools in India teaching this model as we speak...and while the startup culture in India has been exploding, I believe the success rate is even lower than in the US (maybe there's many other factors involved...maybe in ten years or twenty, India will be a startup machine, and all because they've built this programmer training culture within major universities). Certainly a strong math and science education can't hurt anyone, whether they want to be an entrepreneur or not.

dfranke 19y ago

I don't think the qualities that liberal educations attempt to teach can actually be taught be directly. Rather, I think they're just things that people with good attitudes pick up by osmosis when you let them work on non-bogus projects.

garbowza 19y ago

This isn't about training students to be cookie-cutter programmers. The concept is to provide the students with education on how to CREATE things. That is the opposite of cookie-cutter.

palish 19y ago

Unfortunately, the current public system fails to educate very well, and a lot of private schools are based on the public model. With that said, I know there are excellent private schools. This would be in addition to those. It seems like the best compromise will present itself when real-world tests are done. The whole school won't be devoted to training, but there will be a certain percentage of training. The fact that there is a single focus (Your startup at the end of the road) will be the motivating force for students. I would've given anything to know that there was light at the end of the tunnel besides "go to college". I totally agree with you. Education is a wonderful journey, not a race. Students would be able to find out what they like and a specific idea that motivates them, then get access to resources that would help them create value relating to that idea.

SwellJoe 19y ago

I have to agree. Kids almost certainly shouldn't be set on a path to tech entrepreneurship from birth. It takes a unique set of skills to be a good entrepreneur and/or hacker, and almost none of them are technical or trainable via a particular curriculum. Creativity comes from being given the right to create freely from an early age with honest criticism and encouragement. Self-esteem comes from being given the opportunity to succeed (and fail) at interesting problems over and over again. And I'm not sure how one teaches ambition, but it's another vital component. I don't think it matters a bit whether these are taught in a "hacker" curriculum or a traditional curriculum. As justinsb points out, there are schools in India teaching this model as we speak...and while the startup culture in India has been exploding, I believe the success rate is even lower than in the US (maybe there's many other factors involved...maybe in ten years or twenty, India will be a startup machine, and all because they've built this programmer training culture within major universities). Certainly a strong math and science education can't hurt anyone, whether they want to be an entrepreneur or not.