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While it's true that people start their careers early in life, this may also be an indication that they simply have a strong proclivity towards that field. There have been longitudinal studies, for example, that demonstrate that when kids do play-based learning in kindergarten vs hard core academics, they do as well, if not better at academics later on. There have even been studies that show it's better to delay kindergarten for some kids. https://pz.harvard.edu/projects/pedagogy-of-play

The other danger is that forcing a kid to learn a skill they're not interested in early can turn them off to it all together.

I haven't done a ton of research on this, but I do know that often when kids start early, they can also burn out (look at child actors as an example). The only area I've seen research on a real difference is children who learn languages before age 5 (and how they process the languages in their brain)

There are some amazing developers who learned to code as adults.

While it could be true, I'm pretty skeptical about age five versus age six being the difference your friend didn't become a world class pianist (sounds maybe like an excuse for not having the talent, discipline or simply the luck, which does play a huge factor). Starting early may help their technique and memorization to some extent, but afterwards judging a musician is highly subjective, and even someone who plays well at one moment in history, may not at another.

Fantastic. Thank you so much!

I'm sorry. It happens. Hopefully you guys will grow together again when he gets older. Big hug.

Playing the devil's advocate here...won't we need coders to build the AI, or the AI builders to understand code even if they're not writing it?

It's really a shame the way tools are introduced to students (like general appreciation) instead of learning the foundations and why behind doing things.

It sounds like you're taking more of an unschooling approach. It doesn't surprise me that they're thriving and testing well, despite the huge shortcomings of our school system that's incapable of differentiating learning to any type of student.

How interesting! I'm curious if your children have different personality types that would natural give one more proclivity towards coding than another? Also, kudos to you for the great child-led learning:)

Fantastic! I hadn't heard of Clasic Visual Basic 6. Really appreciate the tip. Also, excel is a wonderful tip. Thank you!

It seems like interest and passion are key when it comes to coding. It's good to expose kids, and if they like it, they'll keep learning and growing as programmers. If they don't resonate with that type of work, it probably won't get them that far.

Thanks:) I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

Super. Would you be willing to share some of the books you're using?

As a follow-up, I'm also curious if you think coding is still useful for kids to learn, both in terms of innovative skills and preparation for jobs...or will AI largely obliterate the need to code...

Panel on homeschooling and decentralized education with Naval Ravikant, Nir Eyal, Rachel Thomas, Ph.D., Kerry McDonald, Lisa Betts-Lacroix, Shiren Rattigan and Alycia Wright.

I don't know the full story of what led him to jump off the golden gate bridge that night. However, as an educator, as a woman who works in tech, I can see very clearly how a young Black man could feel really pressured and even maybe unworthy in a high stress, predominantly white environment like Netflix far from his family with little support. For someone so young.

I am deeply upset by what has happened here and I hope that Netflix and the tech community will mobilize to take a hard look at themselves and think about how we can support young people, and truly support diversity in our organizations, not just in numbers, but providing actual support.

This is about mental health. This is about race. This is about equity. This is about immigration.

I want answers from Netflix and I want answers from the Tech Community.

I want to know what happened in that office and in the San Francisco Bay Area that made it so Yohanes was not fully supported in his new job. And for this to be addressed.

I do not accept that this happened. I do not see things working the way they should. I demand answers and change from Netflix, the tech community and policy makers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I for one, am not going to let Netflix blame this on mental health problems in our country. The problem is starting INSIDE our teach companies and we have to take a hard look at how we do things.

An in-depth look at homeschooling and socialization; plus, how to make friends and build community in any learning environment.

I'm very sorry that you had a bad experience homeschooling, but there's little evidence overall that homeschooling damages children's social skills more than a traditional school environment. Many homeschoolers lead very vibrant, active social lives in inclusive communities.

Again, I'm very sorry you've met some people who were weird and happened to homeschool, but it's unfair to pass judgement on a large group of people, just because you met a few who didn't fit your own standards for normalcy.

I've met hundreds of articulate, friendly, intelligent and confident homeschooling families.

I think the myth that homeschooling leads to lack of socialization is largely untrue and a treat to those families who want to create an education that honors their child's unique academic AND social needs.

I could write a lot more on this and I have, in this blog, if you're curious to learn about the real lives of highly social homeschoolers. https://joinmodulo.substack.com/p/but-what-about-socializati...

Cool. Thanks so much!

the AI robot takeover has begun :)

well put. I like the "diverting attention" angle.

I think it's tricky when the product is truly unique. For example, I guess for Airbnb in the early days you could say that their competitor was couch surfer, craigslist or hotels...but also what they were doing was so different.

Some people say that if you don't have competition, it's not a good idea, but I don't believe that's entirely true. There are some completely innovative products.

It's definitely a bad set up for healthy socialization. Kids have little adult supervision to help them learn social skills or protect them from harm. Plus, kids need mixed age environments to learn, not 30 kids their age thrown into a closed classroom and 30 minutes of recess.

not really since school only covers 9-3, no summers and a ton of that money goes to upper level bureaucracy, real estate and corporate interests (like the companies that create standardized exams)

As a teacher for 20 years in 3 countries, I saw an education system broken at every level from failing public schools to pricey private schools.

In private schools, I saw schools answering to their boards, which meant a focus on SAT scores and IVY league admissions.

In public schools, curriculum is geared towards standardized tests created by private corporations. Quality varies enormously based on the cost of real estate in the area (meaning amount of tax dollars going in)

unfortunately, a lot of microschools are still trying to re-create school, this in spite of the fact that compulsory schooling was an experiment, that just stuck around, in spite of its failings.

Both systems put little emphasis on the individual child and their needs.

By design, schools serve a system, and not individual children. They're oriented towards standardization so that everyone can hit one mediocre level that justifies taxpayers dollars. We need a public education system that's flexible and oriented towards serving the needs of individual children and communities, not a standardized 9-3 schedule and curriculum that takes decades to tweak and change.

Furthermore, there's a fine line between indoctrination and education, but they are opposites, in fact. In my opinion, schools are more on the indoctrination side of things, not the love and passion for learning side.

Maybe we should also ask why we're outsourcing education at all? Why shouldn't it be the parent's role and why shouldn't we give them resources to do it well?

Bloom’s 2 Sigma problem revealed that one-on-one mastery learning leads to significantly better outcomes than group instruction.

High-quality adaptive learning apps can generate similar results.

Over the past decade, new tools and technologies have changed how we think about education and family life. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have expanded access to free learning opportunities. In 2006, Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”, the most popular TED Talk of all time, inspired many families and teachers to start rethinking their views on the effectiveness of the traditional school model. Founded in 2008, Khan Academy made it easier for any family to homeschool than ever before. Documentary films like Class Dismissed gave families an inside look at what modular learning can look like at its best (highly personalized, intellectually challenging, socially rich, diverse and eclectic) inspiring a new generation of families to start homeschooling.

But, the trend toward modular learning was supercharged in March 2020 when 300 million families around the world were forced into homeschooling overnight. A plethora of Edtech startups emerged to support the new wave of modular learners: marketplaces for learning pods, adaptive learning apps, and online classes.

While most families returned to school post-pandemic, many chose to keep going. They experienced that homeschooling gave their family greater flexibility and improved their children’s learning.

The internet is full of statistics and studies on homeschooling run by organizations with private interests on one side of the debate or the other.

We decided to sift through all the research and take an in-depth look at scholarly, peer-reviewed statistics and forecasts on homeschooling to determine if there are key indicators that prove homeschooling is really on the rise, what research suggests homeschooling can impact learning for the better, and how trends in other industries such as remote work and travel might point to a global shift towards decentralized K12 education.

Here’s what we found

Is homeschooling really better?

I've seen quite a bit of interest from this community in homeschooling, likely because product developers and software engineers understand that modular approaches and frameworks for experimentation lead to better products, not that a child's education is exactly a product, but still...

Having been in this space for a while as a tech founder and a teacher, it's interesting for me to see that some of the most common myths about homeschooling (e.g. homeschoolers don't have friends or parents aren't qualified to teach) are the least problematic aspects of homeschooling.

Thought some of you might be interested in taking a closer look at the top ten myths I hear about homeschooling, and what the real story is (in my humble opinion)

Hi everyone, I’m Manisha, the CEO and Co-founder of Modulo.

This comprehensive guide is based on our learnings over the last seven years, talking to thousands of secular homeschoolers, reading their questions and comments on reddit and facebook and helping over 100k families in seven countries homeschool during the pandemic through our non-profit, schoolclosures.org.

As a K12 teacher and tech entrepreneur for over 20 years, I’ve seen the full scope of the education system, from pricey private schools to failing public schools, to microschools, homeschool, and everything in between.

There’s a latent movement of techies, teachers and other innovators that are designing their children’s education using curriculum, tutors, online classes, educational software and social modules.

We call them modular learners. And they’re getting significantly better learning outcomes.

But most parents lack the time and confidence to do modular learning, even though they envy the outcomes they’re seeing in their friends.

We’ve created this guide for them - and anyone interested in playing a role in the fastest growing trend in K12 education.

Big thanks to Nir Eyal and Rachel Thomas, PhD for sharing their personal stories as homeschoolers.

If you have a moment, we’d LOVE to hear your feedback. What’s missing? What should we add? What could be improved?

Also happy to answer anyone's questions about homeschooling and modular learning in the thread

Cool! Thanks for sharing. How did your co-founder find you, btw?

A good number of people are making quite a fortune tutoring coding online if that's something you are interested in. I assume you are good with kids if you have one. What hourly rate are you looking for? I may be interested in in giving you some extra work as we have a couple families at Modulo looking for coding tutoring. Feel free to reach out. Very easy to find me from my bio.