May-11-2023, 11:42 AM
Thanks everyone - so I thought I'd check back and let you all know how it went. (TLDR; huge success)
The main problem I ran into is: "Teenager". It's an evolutionary thing - sons split from their dads. Not much any dad can do about that if they find themselves here... he just wouldn't accept any help from me at all :-(
The secondary problem we both ran into is: "kids". That's a systemic failure problem. Long story short - my primary goal failed, my eldest son started Uni, drowned so hard and hated it so much he dropped out. The "systemic" failure part is that University is too different from school (a problem they should know and have solved - it's literally their job to be excellent educators) - no schoolkid is ever mature enough to survive in an environment where the institution tells them something "once", and if they didn't hear/notice/remember without a reminder, they suffer. All well and good if you're teaching kids to "grow up", but not when you're paying a huge sum of $$$ to teach them programming. The answer to this problem is "GAP YEAR". Never let your kid go from school to any higher learning without a year off - that's where they learn what it's like to not be a kid anymore (the sad part: they won't even know they learned this).
By luck however, at least one smidgeon of my efforts sank in: the "python" and the "javascript" seeds of the idea.
After dropping out, and getting a job in a bar, and getting sacked, that was enough for him to work out how to be a grown up, and that menial work sucks, and he found himself an online course to learn what I suggested (general assembly). Yes - annoyed the crap out of me that he's paying *someone else* the equivalent of $100/hr to teach him the same stuff I know, but that's a psychological advantage: he's slaved a lot of hours earning that money, which appears to be excellent motivation so far. He's loving the course, doing really well, and is excited about getting a job in this industry now! I've forced him to use perplexity.ai extensively as well, which (unbeknownst to him now) is a critical life skill he's going to need to know and use going forward too.
Cool how the universe tends to work itself out.
The main problem I ran into is: "Teenager". It's an evolutionary thing - sons split from their dads. Not much any dad can do about that if they find themselves here... he just wouldn't accept any help from me at all :-(
The secondary problem we both ran into is: "kids". That's a systemic failure problem. Long story short - my primary goal failed, my eldest son started Uni, drowned so hard and hated it so much he dropped out. The "systemic" failure part is that University is too different from school (a problem they should know and have solved - it's literally their job to be excellent educators) - no schoolkid is ever mature enough to survive in an environment where the institution tells them something "once", and if they didn't hear/notice/remember without a reminder, they suffer. All well and good if you're teaching kids to "grow up", but not when you're paying a huge sum of $$$ to teach them programming. The answer to this problem is "GAP YEAR". Never let your kid go from school to any higher learning without a year off - that's where they learn what it's like to not be a kid anymore (the sad part: they won't even know they learned this).
By luck however, at least one smidgeon of my efforts sank in: the "python" and the "javascript" seeds of the idea.
After dropping out, and getting a job in a bar, and getting sacked, that was enough for him to work out how to be a grown up, and that menial work sucks, and he found himself an online course to learn what I suggested (general assembly). Yes - annoyed the crap out of me that he's paying *someone else* the equivalent of $100/hr to teach him the same stuff I know, but that's a psychological advantage: he's slaved a lot of hours earning that money, which appears to be excellent motivation so far. He's loving the course, doing really well, and is excited about getting a job in this industry now! I've forced him to use perplexity.ai extensively as well, which (unbeknownst to him now) is a critical life skill he's going to need to know and use going forward too.
Cool how the universe tends to work itself out.