688 karma · joined March 24, 2011
When I do, I would start with a website/blog, probably using Ghost. Good community starts with good communication. Comments are just fine for initial community building. Once you have some traction, consider a forum.
Also, look into Front Porch Forum, they've been doing it their own way for years, it can work.
Otherwise, I hang out on Bluesky.
My son gamed alot for 2-3 years, he's moved on to focusing on maths, philosophy and fitness. He puts me to shame tbh.
Some people have no kids. Some people have lots. Does it really matter?
However, my unschooled child loves maths and has...and much more...he's now doing maths at uni. He's also so deep into the philosophy world that my mind hurts just reading the titles of the books he buys.
I wish I had the encouragement and freedom to explore without judgement when I was that age.
Honestly, the socialization is a myth. Homeschoolers socialize with all ages, that's healthy and educational from a huge amount of perspectives. e.g: kids can be become leaders by supporting younger or less able kids.
My kids still get out. They are still taught by qualified professionals. It's just on our terms and in environments that feel healthier to us.
We're not with them all the time, but we definitely don't get as much free time as those that go to school.
For maths, but they pick it up pretty easily in day to day conversations and activities (ipad and gaming helps, imho)
My 11 year old went to school part time, lasted half a term, but his maths skills were on par with the kids there, if not better. He had never done any formal maths.
I only speak on behalf of our family, everyone has different experiences, but it's still important to recognise that life and education can be done differently.
Self directed learning (which is basically unschooling) is so powerful and it's not uncommon for kids to go from zero reading to reading thick books (like Harry Potter, for example), within 6 months.
Kids/people have to want to learn and it's hard to manage that in a school setting.
I know as an adult that I can't learn things that I'm not interested in, it's the same for kids. And the curriculum is generally not very interesting.
It's also funny how my kids outwit me and know so many things that I don't know about.
And how I've gone on to specialise in what drives me, and that just works.
Or how my eldest self taught himself maths to uni level and is now doing maths at uni.
I'd actually prefer people don't join that community. It's a very special little place on the internet for me. And people that know me know understand it's got nothing to do with money, that it's a fun experiment and the money is just a way to attract the right kind of people and make the community a joy to run.
I think the more active building in public people feel it is a community, but it probably takes them a while to get there. Some people need extra support to get to that public stage, or need a more private space to talk about things they feel they can't do in public.
Part of building in community is to create a supportive environment to help them build in public better. For example, I often say tell people 'in community' that something they've just said would be a great tweet. They tweet it and then I share or jump in the conversation there too.
The first step to becoming more diverse is acknowledging the lack of diversity.
To get diversity more effort needs to happen in reaching out, most people don't do this because it requires extra work. As you mentioned, many people feel these things are not for them. Or perhaps they lack the confidence/skills/bravery to take things or even to enquire about the investment.
I saw the founders of Code Untapped give a talk the other week. They run hackathon/meetups and they are always experimenting and changing the times of them to try to reach more people who otherwise might not be able to attend.
And if you want to reach a diverse audience have diversity in your team, easier said than done, I know. But if you do things like Venture Partners, you could make a point of only having Venture Partners who are minorities. But also be prepared for white males to kick up a stink if you do this <--- I see this a lot!
https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/news/ceo-of-i...
https://www.businessinsider.com/intercom-ceo-eoghan-mccabe-a... (has a paywall)