

Help me inspire 7th graders. - far33d

I've been asked to speak for a group of 7th graders taking a programming class in a Palo Alto school. I want to title my talk - Why You Should Be a Hacker. The rough outline is: <p>1) Cheapest way to innovate - low barrier to entry, you can build things without having a lab, lots of tools, or anything more than a computer, and building things is FUN!<p>2) You live in the center of the startup world. SV is a special place, and you are lucky to be a part of it already.<p>3) Software will be everywhere (rotary phone evolves into the iPhone) - even if you don't hack professionally, you'll want to know how things actually work. <p>4) You can wear whatever you want (this is more about hackers being rule-breakers)<p>5) It's all about practice - and you have a big headstart.<p>PG's essays are awesome for someone who already knows they are a hacker to get inspired to do something on their own. I'm hoping to inspire the next generation of YC'ers to start now.<p>Any suggestions? 

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willarson
Sounds like you have a fun opportunity lined up. I would personally try to
broaden your message some. Kids get told what they should do all the time.

I would tell them that one of life's true joys is to find something you love
and to spend your life working on it. Then you could segue into a discussion
of how hacking has been a personal source of meaning for you. Talk about the
points you mention above, and then bring it full circle by telling them that
any road they walk down can be equally fulfilling if they find something they
truly care for: life's value derives from what we do, not what we have.

Hope your talk goes well, and keep in mind there is probably a reason you are
being asked to give a talk and not me. ;)

~~~
far33d
Good point. I'll make the title "N reasons I'm a hacker, and why you should be
too" or something like that.

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pramodbiligiri
"building things is FUN" Start with _that_ point. In fact turn it around and
say "Let's have some FUN..and also happen to build things"

The other points are too abstract for 7th graders. For example, 2) is strongly
empirical, partly circular reasoning. 3) and 5) will only appeal to the
academic types who anyway work towards scoring in exams.

A demo would be great. Tune into some part of kiddie pop culture (some
handheld game or Myspace or whatever) and demo how that can be built. No need
for snazzy graphics, Even a bare bones version will work.

(I'd go for HTML, Javascript. Biggest reason is that it's easily accessible
everywhere, and comes with a decent UI toolkit and Turing complete language)

I'm assuming you have been invited since you are a practising professional.
It's the job of the teacher to explain how things will be (points 2 to 5). You
ought to _be_ that person in front of them for those few hours.

Walk the talk. Show the enthu in your eyes, voice. Kids pick up such things
better than any words. Every gesture in your body language will matter. Unless
you successfully come across as cool, 4) will be a waste.

Hope that helps :)

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far33d
Thanks.

I was definitely going to start on the FUN aspects. I love being a hacker
because I love building stuff. Hacking just happens to be an easy way to build
lots of different things really easily.

I'm going to ground most of my talk with examples from my own job, which has
lots of snazzy pictures and cool stuff (I'm in visual effects / animation,
comes with the territory that kids are impressed by it).

I wanted to talk a lot about innovation, and basically refactor a PG talk to
7th graders. Instead, maybe, I'll be all about fun over innovation.

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tsuru
I currently teach seventh graders in Japan. Many of my students are just
starting to learn algebraic concepts and seeing word problems, I would
definitely recommend trying to get their interesting from things they do know:
video games.

Since you mention you are in the vfx industry I wonder if you might be
planning a Maya/MEL presentation? I think that would knock their socks off,
since you can see the real time changes to the running system without all the
compiling, testing. Personally as an attention grabber I would start out with
some of your "eye candy" stuff. "Hi, I'm _____ and my job is to make this
[kick ass images] happen"

One request I have is don't talk as if this is something for those only
naturally talented in math and logical thinking. Teachers want them to see
potential in themselves to improve, even if they are behind, if they start
hitting the books now they can do something like programming.

Lay out in no uncertain terms how one might progress if they are interested in
the subject. When I was that age, maybe a bit older, there were some fields I
was interested in but it was all just pie in the sky kind of stuff to me.
Stuff you learned in college. Not connected with the drivel at junior high
level.

I second the call to not use the word "hacker" RMS lost that battle to
Hollywood a long time ago. The kids will find the true meaning to it later.
Coder, Programmer, Technical Director (?) are some ideas.

~~~
Jd
Excellent, I will be coming to Japan in a couple months, hacking from a
location in the mountains.

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jsjenkins168
Much of the general public associates the term "hacker" with what they see in
movies; evil geeky guys who break into computers to steal stuff. I'd start off
the talk clarifying what being a hacker really is so they are clear on the
term.

Cool that you're doing that though, good luck!

~~~
far33d
Ah yes. I made a mental note of that, but I'll put it in my real notes.

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edawerd
My public speaking teacher always drilled into our heads: Know your audience.
Thinking back on when I was a 7th grader, I can say for certain that I was
never interested in finding a cheap way to innovate, or that I lived in the
center of the startup world. Maybe it was just me, but when I was in 7th
grade, I was primarily interested in making millions of dollars. Why not
mention that you can make tons of money being a hacker (visual: Pictures of
successful young founders from Google, Yahoo, YouTube, etc)? There's nothing
wrong with that. =)

Of course, now that I'm older money is not the reason I enjoy hacking. But it
definitely helped me get into it when I was younger.

~~~
far33d
Another good point..

Thanks everyone. Your comments are definitely helping. I think I'll retarget a
bit. Instead of saying "cheap way to innovate" I'll focus on how it's easy to
build fun stuff that people will use and enjoy.

I'll still mention how everything will be software in the future, but will
probably skip the center of the startup universe stuff.

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whacked_new
I'm highly interested in the education of young adults, but why 7th graders?
7th graders and programming just don't seem to fit together. Perhaps you're
talking to a gifted bunch, but are they really precocious enough to understand
the concept of 9-5, let alone "startup"? If not, then I would cut out points
2-5.

I agree that inspiring youngsters is very important, but do you have
particular reasons for focusing on the professional aspect of it, as opposed
to, say, being able to do cool things with software?

Many years ago, there was a kid at a programming camp; he was a bit too young,
but not far off from 7th grade. And he declared that he wanted to learn
programming to make games, the kind that he played everyday, some 3D RTS.
Starting from scratch, for 2 months, that was quite plainly an impossibility.
He probably would've had a more profitable experience if he had more
reasonable, and relevant, expectations.

Rather than PG's essay as a starting point to motivate 12-14 year olds, I
would be more inclined to use more "palpable" examples, perhaps like the Mars
Rovers or movie special effects or something. It'd be pretty cool if you
started with a demo where by changing certain parts of the code you could
create interesting changes. (But I know nothing about the interests or
attention spans of the kids you are going to speak to.)

Just a thought. Please post after the talk!

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juwo
How boring y'all make it seem!

play them clips from movies (e.g. the scene from Titanic which was computer
generated), popular games

then play short interviews with the designers and developers who wrote them.

then show them a simple computer program, and it executing to do some
graphics. So they can correlate code with effects.

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neilk
Try to find something in their experience that matches the point you're
making. Maybe, get them to remember their most favorite class project, or
project outside of school. Point out how the best parts of such work might be
the freedom, the complete engrossment, the creativity, and the results. Let
them in on the secret that this is the way it was meant to be; work is
supposed to engage all of your abilities.

However, I personally do not believe that every child is born to be a hacker,
nor is this the only way to contribute. Your goal might be to reach the 10% of
the audience for whom this message makes any sense, and, perhaps to explain
that 10% to the other 90%.

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mynameishere
Mention that most jobs involve:

1\. Pushing paper around, and/or,

2\. Kissing ass to [bosses|customers|random people on the phone]

Programmers, by contrast, actually get to create something, like craftsmen of
the past. One of the very few jobs where that is true.

Nix the word "hacker". It either has a bad connotation or is an unrealistic
ambition for 7th graders (to those who understand the "good" connotation, a
hacker is a person of rare abilities.)

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ryantmulligan
Doing is the second best way to learn.

<http://hacketyhack.net/>

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mdolon
Please, please show them hackers can be cool. You can play sports and be a
hacker. You can be in a band and still be a hacker. And yes, you CAN get hot
girls and still be a hacker.

Enough with the thick glasses and pimple-faces!

~~~
far33d
I like to think that I'm pretty cool :)

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jgamman
ask them if they want to change the world. i knew i wanted to try and do
something 'big' when i was a kid (not that i had any idea what that was ;-). i
went into the physical sciences not programming but even at that age i would
have heard if someone had said 'software is changing the world - you can be
part of something amazing'. that, combined with access to other people, would
have been enough for me to plug into a hacking culture. as it is, i was pretty
lonely until i got into post-grad and found other people out there with the
same attitudes.

