Ask HN: Starting a hacker school for underprivileged kids? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Starting a hacker school for underprivileged kids?

11 pointsphyscab5 comments

Hi HN, Longtime user and poster here. I've been ruminating for a while about starting something up a little outside of my domain: starting an after-school program for underprivileged youth to teach them how to code and build apps, specifically in San Francisco, CA. However, I have no idea where to even begin, who to call, how to build traction, or even if there are programs that already exist that I can lend a helping hand. This is where I would like your thoughtful input.

WHY: Ever since I learned how to program about 4 years ago, I've found programming to be enormously empowering. With little more than a computer and a power supply, anyone, no matter their race, gender, sexual orientation, location, whatever, has the opportunity to build their dreams and make them realities. I strongly believe that in the next 5 years, learning how to program will be just as important as learning English or Spanish or any other second language.

I believe that in teaching these skills early (thinking high school age?), students will be able to use them in their jobs, start their own companies, or perhaps just exercise their creative freedom and distribute their ideas to potentially a limitless audience! Plus, if marketed appropriately, this may entice minorities to enter STEM programs in college.

What resources are there to make sure I'm not re-creating the wheel?

Who can I talk to (email is in my profile)?

What qualifications are needed to pursue such an effort?

Any help will be appreciated!

As a teacher, I highly encourage you to pursue this. You will meet some wonderful students, and some of them will run with whatever you show them. There is a pretty good chance you will change a number of students' lives for the better. (I hate the "If I just reach one student..." mindset. You will reach a number of students.)

One of the best ways to move forward is to visit a school where you want to volunteer, and look for a teacher to partner with. The teacher can help recruit students, navigate administrative issues, and create opportunities during the school day for students to practice what you show them.

If you really want to focus on at-risk youth, I encourage you to teach something that can be done entirely with open source software, on non-current hardware. A few years ago I taught several groups of students to install ubuntu on old computers, and then taught a couple python classes. Students ran with it, and some are starting to take tech work more seriously. Had I written a grant and gotten a bunch of expensive macs in the classroom, few if any of my students would have been able to do anything more once the class was over.

Happy to talk more, here or privately.

I'd note that you want to check into the requirements to work with children re:background checks in California . I tutor CS at the local JC and just the possibility of working with kids under 18 means that I needed to be fingerprinted. I seem to remember hearing about a similar program in oakland, possibly related to the arcade museum.

There is Hackerspaces (http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/) but its not focused on kids. I think Khan Academy is doing a good job with the basics of Computer Science, specially geared towards kids. They also organize a summer camp for kids.

Checkout http://codenow.org (Ryan@CodeNow.org) I believe they are doing this exact thing. If you have any trouble reaching them let me know, they are in my coworking space and I will help get you in contact (details in my profile).

I've done this for junior high school students with great success. I keep meaning to write up methods/curriculum but haven't found the time yet. You can email me at HedgeMage -AT- binaryredneck -DOT- net if you'd like to touch base and get some pointers.

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