
Why I pulled my daughter out of high school to teach her to code - tm33
http://www.joeeames.me/?p=11
======
Someone1234
So she tried something new, discovered she loved it, and since you yourself
love that same thing you're withdrawing her from all other outlets to try new
things and focusing her on the thing that you love...

Or to put it another way, she tried web-design and liked it, she could have
tried a dozen or more other things in high school (social or classes), but now
instead you're dropping all of those opportunities, and putting her on this
one unified path at the ripe old age of 16.

Online high school might get her a certificate she'll need for college (and
certainly if she applies to a CS program all of this will be a benefit) but
she is still missing opportunities to discover who she is and what she loves.
Plus making friends...

~~~
eanplatter
I can't disagree more. I wouldn't call high school an 'outlet to try new
things'. If she learns to be a developer by the age of 18 how is she tied down
from doing anything else? I would say that self discovery is amplified outside
of a high school environment not stifled.

I also think networking and making friends is also augmented outside of high
school.

~~~
skorecky
It's absolutely a place to try new things. Sports, Music, Theatre, Clubs,
Social Groups, etc. It's much harder to get that experience outside of a place
that _gives_ it to you.

Outside of high school where are you going to meet new friends? You made
friends by doing the activities that the school provided. Because it found
people in the same age range that had similar interest.

Not every high school is the same, but I don't agree with your statement at
all.

~~~
timthorn
> Outside of high school where are you going to meet new friends?

Sports clubs, theatre clubs, Scouts, neighbours, Homeschooling groups...

~~~
Vendan
Presenting to large groups at conferences, teaching the governor...

------
jgrahamc
_That experience radically changed my opinion about my daughter’s future. All
of a sudden I was frustrated that she was stuck wasting her time in high
school taking yet another history class, when she could be doing what she
wanted to do with her life and spending all day learning skills that will help
her in her chosen career._

Because, you know, fuck History. What use is that?

~~~
bvanslyke
My jaw dropped at this point. It's more like "fuck being a well-rounded
person". Or fuck understanding references that educated people make in
everyday life.

~~~
Vendan
So every homeschooled child is automatically ill-educated? Or maybe, a child
with parents that actually care about their child and her interests is rather
lucky?

~~~
tzs
No ancestor of your comment said anything about homeschooling.

~~~
Vendan
No, they implied that she was going to get a horrible education doing it at
home and online, which I would consider to be homeschooling.

~~~
tzs
Yes, they implied (or outright stated that) she was going to get a horrible
education, but they did NOT imply that it was due to being homeschooled, nor
did they imply that every homeschooled person would get a horrible education.

------
dmur
From reading the post it seems like her dad made this decision for her, which
feels a bit off to me. While the school may not have been serving her needs
intellectually, I can see a strong argument for sticking it out socially. Then
again, if she was already isolated or had strong friendships outside of
school, maybe it's not such a big deal. Would enjoy hearing Katya's side of
the story.

~~~
VLM
Three sort of related observations.

From what I remember, I socialized both with people I liked, and people I
disliked, a lot more outside the high school building than inside during
history class. During lectures and tests I usually zoned out and sometimes
worked. She should be better off socially, as long as she doesn't sit on the
couch and watch TV all day or whatever. (edited to clearly explain my opinion
comes from kids "socializing" with kids results in little more than Lord of
the Flies behavior, and hanging out in the real world instead of high school
should be incredibly valuable to her)

Another observation is its highly culturally incorrect to say it, but she's
missing out on the important work skill of just phoning it in and being
patient while appearing to care. Sure, soon as the school bell rings, life can
begin and she can boot up her computer. In the real world you're going to
spend hours, maybe days, at diversity training and OSHA certs and PCI
compliance and ISO9000 and the programming world for decades has been full of
silver bullet dev fads that, much like the diet industry, mostly revolve
around making the motivational speaker money rather than really "doing"
anything. If they actually fixed anything they'd be out of a job, so you do
the math there. And sometimes you'll simply have a boring pointless job,
that's life. So this is the major malfunction of the plan.

For a couple centuries teens have been famous for doing crazy things, she'll
probably turn out just fine even if everything does crash and burn. Its not
like she's got 3 little kids and a spouse and mortgage and medical issues and
elderly parents relying on her. A good way to learn how to survive and bounce
back from failure, and how to avoid failure, is to fail, so weird as it sounds
I hope for her future's sake she totally crashes and burns like only a teen
can (metaphorically) ... she's young enough to stand back up, get dusted off
and patched up (with a little parental help, probably), and learn how NOT to
crash and burn when it really counts, later in life, when there's absolutely
no one to rely on. Or the short version of the above is she's a teen, doing
teen stuff, just like she's supposed to, at least in my opinion as old man
parent.

~~~
GolfyMcG
I believe one of the benefits to this is that she won't learn to "phone it
in." Why is it considered a skill to accept the status quo? If she is raised
in and develops a life that is magnitudes more productive, perhaps she will
impart that attribute on the world. Perhaps she'll start a company which
doesn't accept the bureaucracy of the world as a necessity.

------
objclxt
Something really struck me with this post (emphasis mine):

> _I felt_ like public high school just wasn’t serving her best interests
> anymore, and it was time to do something radical _on her behalf_ , and at
> 16, she just didn’t belong there anymore.

I can't decide whether it's just the way you wrote it, or whether you're
genuinely making these decisions on behalf of your daughter.

Did your daughter feel like high school wasn't serving her best interests? I
don't know, because you don't say in the post. It's all about you, and your
actions. I would hope a sixteen year old would be at a point where he or she
would have a degree of independence. I will be honest with you: if my parents
had done this to my, my life would have been considerably worse. I code for a
living, but I didn't _learn_ any of those skills in High School, or college. I
was a studio art major in college, and English Lit / Music in High School.

There is not necessarily anything wrong with a purely vocational education,
although personally I think the humanities are vital. However, there _is_ to
me something wrong with unilaterally pulling your daughter out of high school
because of the hopes and dreams you have for her.

I hope that really the problem is one of phrasing. The post would come out in
a much better light if rather than portraying yourself as the decision maker
it turned out actually, your daughter was the instigator. If that's the case,
I apologize. But if it's not...well, that makes me uncomfortable. It seems
like others here feel the same.

~~~
KatyaEames
My dad is known to have a problem with clarity

------
jorjordandan
A lot of people here seem to be grasping at straws to defend the status quo.
Doing things like presenting at conferences, teaching the governor to code,
etc., at age 16 are amazing experiences that are only available to people who
are willing to do things differently.

And the judgements against her parents are unfortunate. This is one family
doing something different. We need more people willing to do interesting
things with their educational choices, not less. This is not something a
parent would do lightly, without taking great care to discuss with her what
she wants. Her parents probably know her far better, and care far more for her
well being then anyone here does!

As far as missing out on liberal arts/other subjects... 1) she is still going
to take high school online, and 2) it's not like high school education is all
that great. A person could do better off teaching themselves at khan academy,
and listening to history podcasts, and reading books that interest them.

I'm amazed how critical people are being, who know nothing about the person or
situation.

------
ryanmarsh
The comments in this thread are why I hate talking about homeschooling with
people who don't.

Albeit if he intends to not teach his daughter any history then he is doing
her a great disservice. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. I think the
sentiment he was expressing was similar to the one I expressed when I dropped
out of high school at 16. I loved to learn, I loved to read (especially about
history), I read my text books cover to cover, but I was bored and trapped
inside a system that absolutely wasted my time (from my 16 y/o perspective). I
loved to program and I was getting paid for it. Why sit in a school 8 hours a
day, shuffling from room to room, dodging bullies, waiting on teachers to deal
with disruptions, dealing with teachers who were incompetent or didn't care
(never mind the few great ones). I did a spreadsheet with my own sort of ROI
calc. School lost, and the rest is history.

I applaud him for doing this. She can still get into a great CS program at a
great school. She'll certainly have more free time to prep for her entrance
exams.

Also, regarding "teaching" things in homeschooling. Once a kid reaches a
certain age there's not much you (or a public school teacher) can teach them
better than Khan Academy, a great book, or a life experience.

~~~
rev_bird
I think the thing that bothers me (and, it seems, lots of other folks) most
about this is the feeling that the daughter had very little say in the matter,
when by that time, if you're presumably mature enough to start working toward
a career, you're mature enough to have some say in what you do all day, every
day, instead of high school.

------
carlmcqueen
This makes me uneasy from my own perspective, someone who changed majors in
college, well older than 16.

What keeps me grounded and open minded to the approach is that my wife knew
what she wanted to do from 6th grade on and while she grows and changes in
that career, she is where she wanted to be.

Maybe people know what they want at 16, but I think the purpose of taking just
another history class and opening themselves up to many things they didn't
know about is important and keeps your skills versitile rather than atrophying
all but one muscle.

~~~
Vendan
I knew what I wanted to do when I was 8. I'm 27 now, and I've got a solid
career ahead of me, doing what I wanted to do when I was 8. Couldn't be
happier.

~~~
viewer5
I can't even imagine that. What was it you wanted to do?

~~~
Vendan
Computer Programmer. Got my first computer when I was 8, all it had on it was
basic OS utils, and that either included a copy of QBasic, or I got a copy
from somewhere. Never looked back

------
jowiar
It's not my job to be a backseat parent. But the attitude in our field of "Up
with CS, everything else is crap" needs to stop.

There's a certain ego endemic to our field, stoked by politicians who worship
the "STEM fields", that other fields are "less important" or "less useful".
Maybe my view is skewed because, both in high school and college, I was
blessed with stellar history teachers. Understanding how the world works -
what makes people, people, the situations that have led people to where they
are today - learning what we can repeat and what we can avoid repeating?
There's a whole lot of value in that, and this attitude contributes heavily to
the lack of human decency in our field.

Even from a purely "practical" perspective, the gap between being good at
"coding" and being good at "writing software" is the "writing". Probably the
most prolific engineer I know from my alma mater was an history and philosophy
major, and I honestly believe a great writer is closer to being a great
software engineer than a great algorithmist.

And yet my alma mater creates and harbors a culture where CS majors above
history majors in the academic hierarchy.

~~~
mcphage
> There's a whole lot of value in that, and this attitude contributes heavily
> to the lack of human decency in our field.

That's a really good point—I hadn't made that connection, but I think you're
absolutely right.

------
diogenescynic
Probably the most important aspect of high school is learning to socialize and
making friends. It's a shame you're taking that away from her. There will be
time for coding later, she has her whole life ahead of her. Let her be a kid
while she still can.

------
roywiggins
> All of a sudden I was frustrated that she was stuck wasting her time in high
> school taking yet another history class

Isn't it at least a bit more important whether _she_ was frustrated? Did she
want to be "pulled out"? Or did she leave?

I say this as someone who switched schools a few times, both of which was due
to having a terrible time and my parents offering.

But I had a normal highschool experience, learned a lot about civics and a bit
about history and literature. I mucked about with computers in my spare time,
did a math undergrad, work in software dev now. I had a lot of support from my
family, but they never made my decisions for me.

Ed: And I'm literally one of those devs who was given a book on programming at
age 10 and never looked back. But at no point was highschool a waste of time.
(Middle school, on the other hand...)

~~~
KatyaEames
I genuinely wanted to be pulled out of high school. I don't know how it was in
your day, but at this pint in time high school is about passing, not learning.

------
wfo
I was hoping from the title this was a biting parody of the pervasive
'everyone, learn to code, right now, drop everything else it's all that's
important' culture. Instead it's a full embrace. What a truly terrible idea.
If you, as an adult, want to go all in on this silly meme yourself by all
means feel free but don't allow, help, or encourage your children to. There's
so much more out there to explore.

------
jastanton
Sounds like she will be getting plenty of socialization in this new program,
and because she is finishing highschool online she is going to get a well
rounded education. I don't see this any different than a Montessori or a trade
school route.

It may not be the right trend to set for everyone but I think it's just as
naïve to think that traditional public / private highschool or homeschool /
online school is the right path for everyone. It's a case by case basis, Our
school system as we know it hasn't been around for very long and as a matter
of a fact is criticized pretty heavy for being inefficient. I wasn't around in
the Greek / Roman days but I'm sure they did things pretty different and they
probably had inefficiencies and benefits to what they did.

Lastly I feel a lot of the criticism comes from FUD. Finding something you
love to do is not as common as you might think and is a huge factor in
success. I took an unconventional education myself and found the most
important aspect of all my of learning was that I did something I loved and I
tackled it hard which lit my desires for all kinds of other knowledge.

------
maaku
I pulled _myself_ out of high school at age 16 because I felt it was holding
me back from progressing in comp sci. Worst fucking decision of my life;
please encourage let alone force this on anybody else.

My high school didn't have a computer science program at all (late 90's), but
I grew up during the dot-com boom in silicon valley. My friends were getting
internships at web and networking companies over summer earning an unhealthy
amount of money for a teenager. I tried my hand at writing some computer
games, and found I liked making games even more than playing them. So I
thought: screw high school and all these classes which have fuck all to do
with what I'm interested in.

What actually happened is that within a year I found out that like any
teenager I had no clue what really interested me, except that it was easy to
find stuff which interested me more than being a code monkey. Yet I was
getting more and more locked into that as a career path.

Also, my social circle went to hell. I was neither with a cohort of friends my
age I could relate to and could relate to me, nor did I get to share in the
typical senior year of high school, and freshman year of college rites of
passage. I did not really know what I was missing until later.

I jumped around a lot trying to undo mistakes and find something I really
liked, which ended up costing me a small fortune in debt via 8 years of
college.

In the end I still write code instead of doing something more intellectually
and emotionally satisfying to me like archaeology or art conservation. Why?
Because some mistakes can't be so easily undone. I enjoy what I do, and am
paid well enough to support my family. But sometimes I wonder what could have
been, and why in the world my parents let me do this...

------
whiddershins
I don't think High School is so great. I hated it more than I can possibly
express, and I went to one of the best public High Schools in the country.

I dropped out and only regret it ~every other Thursday, and then only because
I think I would have enjoyed college, if I had picked the right one. And then
only because I would have possibly enjoyed the friends and networking
benefits.

I strongly feel, based on observation and anecdotal evidence, that traditional
school encourages people to need guidance their whole lives. If the social and
networking benefit can be replaced, anyone who can self-direct learning is
better off without the classroom structure. That goes double for people of
above average intelligence, and should be logarithmically more true in this
day of infinite internet information. Obviously this doesn't apply to
accredited professions.

This doesn't mean being self-taught is so great either. Mentors are
everything. But High School isn't typically a bastion of real, useful,
mentorship.

------
domiono
High school isn't much about learning all the different subjects, it's much
more about learning how to behave with people aka social skill. The author
should put his daughter back into high school again in order not to have a
socially incompetent daughter when she's older.

~~~
MrZongle2
Homeschooling father here.

My fear -- and the fear of our immediate family -- at the beginning of
homeschooling was that the kids would suffer socially. What we've discovered
in the 1.5 years since starting is that the opposite has happened.

Here in Colorado, homeschooling has been on the rise so finding _other_
homeschooling families is relatively easy. Local groups meet on a regular
basis: the kids socialize with other kids, the parents cross-pollenate with
other parents.

My kids have _more_ friends now than when they were in conventional school
(both charter and "regular" public schools), and they were hardly loners
_then_. They also get to socialize more with their friends since they have
dedicated time for that, instead of during hurried lunchtimes and between
classes. And yes, annoying kids are also homeschooled so my children _still_
have to learn and refine those social coping skills during the get-togethers.

I realize that there is a wide variation in homeschooling experiences, but
don't believe the myth about a lack of socialization: if it is important to
the parents, it can be easily dealt with.

An additional note regarding the OP itself and the author removing his
daughter from conventional school simply to learn web development: I'm not
convinced it was the right idea. His comment about his child being "stuck
wasting her time in high school taking yet another history class" rubs me the
wrong way for the same reason it does many other commenters here on HN; at
that age, being _exposed_ to different things is not only good but necessary
to build critical thinking skills and broaden horizons. While it is possible
that the author had other reasons to homeschool his daughter than simply to
immerse her into the world of software development, he doesn't do a good job
of detailing them.

~~~
meistro
Don't fool yourself into believing it is the same as public school. I was
homeschooled until 9th grade and during that time we were always actively
engaged with other homeschooling families. Still, there is no substitute for
being around your peers 40 hours a week. Which is good and a bad thing.

Going into public school was a big shock for me and even more so for my
brother who only went to public school senior year of high school. It took
both of us years to catch up in social skills. Be aware you are making a
tradeoff, whether you think so or not.

~~~
MrZongle2
_Be aware you are making a tradeoff, whether you think so or not._

Oh, we're keenly aware that there's a trade-off. Both my wife & I went through
the public school system, and until the last few years considered
homeschooling to be "weird".

We're also keenly aware that there's _nothing_ to be gained from forced
exposure to apathetic/incompetent "teachers" (more like classroom _managers_
than mentors or instructors) and the occasional junior sociopath. Being bored,
unchallenged and unhappy with a group of other bored, unchallenged and unhappy
kids results in no additional intellectual or emotional payoff after a couple
of days.

Middle school -- where my children are currently, age-wise and academically --
and high school are not the same social experience as elementary school. Yes,
there's plenty of socialization....but generally not the kind of socialization
that many consider _pleasant_. And there appears to be far less actual
_learning_ taking place now than when I went to public school a quarter-
century ago; instruction has been largely replaced with standardized test-
taking and the preparation for those specific tests.

Homeschooling, like public schooling, is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.
However, _I know my children_ and have observed their behavior when dealing
with not only their peers, but adults and younger children. Socialization
isn't my top concern at this point: ensuring that they have a solid foundation
in language, math, science and critical-thinking skills is.

------
peterwwillis
I think your young years should be wasted on frivolous fun, travel, and
getting yourself banged up doing all the things that youth benefits the most.
Fuck having a career. You have another 60 years to work.

I find the parent's motives noble, but he clearly had to work hard to get her
to go to this class, which I don't think is a good idea for kids. At the very
least they may feel like they have no choice (because they live under your
roof), or they might develop an unhealthy dependency ('dad will love me if I
do this class, right?'). Obviously parents should try to expose their kids to
different things, but I wish they'd stop short of 'pushing'.

------
zorrb
Woah. Reading the comments here is absolutely surreal, am I still on HN?

Traditional high school is absolutely not a place where you go to "learn how
to socialize" or you get to learn all about "history" and being a "well
rounded person. It's a place where, for the most part, you go to get babysat
so your parents can go to work and not have to worry about you.

Very surprised at the reaction here, where in a different context I'd imagine
the same people would be talking about the failures of public education
instead of how much a sixteen year old is supposedly missing out on by
dropping out.

------
peteridah
Without knowing all the facts surrounding this choice, it is rather difficult
to judge if this decision was ill-conceived. But as a father of a home-
schooled 5yr old, I find myself constantly questioning the value/trade-offs of
traditional education paths rooted in a paradigm that doesn't quite fit
todays' world. With a bit of planning, History and Socialization skills can
definitely be learnt outside the High School System. I am all for a blended
learning experience, taking the best of the traditional approach and mixing
with unconventional learning opportunities.

------
pllbnk
Let's be honest, nobody knows the best way to raise their children. It is
entirely possible that someday his daughter will participate in similar
discussion whether it is worth homeschooling kids and will say that she'd been
home schooled and turned out very successful.

However, while reading the post, I felt annoyed with the author's attitude
toward public education and especially the spiteful comment about history.
Partially perhaps because I liked history lessons at school and still do like
the subject and partially because I think that a person must have a well-
rounded education.

Also, I believe that that it doesn't make such a huge difference when one
starts programming and maybe pushing the child towards it too early might do
more harm than good. I have discovered programming completely by myself in the
last school year when I was 17 or 18. Many guys who studied together at
university had started programming several years earlier and they definitely
knew more at the time, however the differences mostly disappeared in a couple
years. And those who still were better, they either were much smarter or
worked harder and the coding experience or lack thereof that everybody brought
from teenage years didn't really matter that much.

------
lr
"All of a sudden I was frustrated that she was stuck wasting her time in high
school taking yet another history class, when she could be doing what she
wanted to do with her life and spending all day learning skills that will help
her in her chosen career."

Wasting her time taking a history class? Oh, I don't know, maybe something
about being a well-rounded citizen who understands how society works from a
non-programming stand-point. Also, learning is so much more than just the
facts and what's going to land you a job. And formal education, more than
anything, is about the informal education you get while not in the classroom
-- like learning to interact with others, learning other perspectives, meeting
and getting along with people who are different than you, and the list goes
on, and on, and on.

------
temuze
I'm not a parent and I don't know this kid and I'm certainly not in a place to
judge.

That said, I will say that I enjoyed finished high school. Having that piece
of my teenage experience was nice and I was able to judge my other passions
with studies fairly easily. It was nice to meet other kids, make friends, go
to prom, have that experience growing up.

It's great that this girl is passionate about something but committing to a
career path so early in life makes me a little hesitant.

Also, I'm glad I "wasted" my time with the liberal arts. I probably won't use
the literature or the history I learned from school in my career but I think
it was a good experience.

------
mcphage
I want my daughter to be able to program, absolutely. But that doesn't mean I
want her to be a _programmer_. I want her to be able to take programming and
apply it to other interests she has—which means having other interests—which
means being exposed to things and ideas she's not currently familiar with to
learn what she likes and doesn't like. Pulling her out of the place we have
set aside for that, in order to devote herself to being a full time
programmer, seems like a step backwards. Being 16 should be about broadening
your horizons, not narrowing them.

------
DavidAdams
One of my biggest regrets is that when I was sixteen I didn't pursue an
opportunity to quit high school and do something more fulfilling. I spent the
last two years of high school working at a grocery store, working at a game
store, and trying to stay awake in class while coasting through with a B
average. I got to college, changed majors half a dozen times, got an English
degree, worked as a research assistant for a biology professor, where I was in
charge of the website and became a self-taught web developer. This lead to me
co-founding a software startup and becoming a successful entrepreneur and
product manager.

Just because this young woman is currently learning to code and is going
through a good old-fashioned apprenticeship with her dad doesn't mean that
she'll necessarily become a professional programmer, any more than my
profession at 16 led me to be a grocer or retailer. But what I learned about
retail and mail-order sales at the game store really helped me when I went on
to build one of the first ecommerce engines in the 90s. What I learned about
HTML and design doing websites about ecology in college was essential to my
entrepreneurship later on.

So the negative comments about this father pressuring his daughter or all the
fabulous high school opportunities she'll miss out on are really rubbing me
the wrong way. High school kids need guidance, and there's no harm whatsoever
in encouraging them to focus their energies in one particular area, even if
that means shutting out other opportunities. She's a young person, and she'll
have plenty of time to consider other things, especially if she ends up going
to college in a couple of years. Even if she doesn't end up being a software
developer for her permanent career, this youthful experience will form a firm
foundation, even if she ends up in finance, or business, or medicine. Couldn't
all of those fields use a few more people who know (or once knew) how to code?

My coding skills are now woefully out of date. But I understand enough about
how to make software that when I'm working with an engineering team, I have
realistic notions about what can and can't be done, and roughly how hard it
will be. But because my dad wasn't as engaged as this guy, I also have some
ace grocery bagging skills are are really just wasting space in my brain.

------
javajosh
I support this purely on the basis that people should experiment more, even
when (perhaps _especially_ when) there is a real risk to the experiment.
Bravo, and I hope it works out.

------
dunnowhat2say
Poor girl. You can learn to code, web development, or any kind of those hard
skills almost anytime at your life phase, but man, your highschool life is
just once, can't miss that..

~~~
KatyaEames
Honesty, I don’t feel high school is doing me as much good as DevMountain can.
Yes, high school will offer me the opportunity to spend 7 hours, 5 days a week
with people my age, but I don’t enjoy the company of the vast majority of
them. And yeah, I won’t be able to go to high school dances, but I never
planned to. I’m not a huge fan of spending the night dancing with a clammy
hand boy I don’t particularly like. It’s just not my thing. Dumb movies with
my friends on weekends? I can do that whether or not I’m enrolled in school,
and that’s how I would care to spend time with my friends. So no, not poor me.
I’m quite a lucky kid (:

------
meistro
_I was frustrated that she was stuck wasting her time in high school taking
yet another history class_

You don't go to school purely for knowledge. We are social creatures and
should be learning how to interact socially as much as we should be learning
about calculus.

College is the same way, whether it's undergraduate or postgraduate. By taking
his daughter out of school he is implicitly making the tradeoff that coding is
more important than _any_ social interaction with her peers. That seems
dangerous.

------
k__
Is this some kind of home schooling thing?

Or compulsory education just till 16 and then everyone is on their own?

I think it's dangerous... learned a bunch of interesting stuff after I was 16
in school.

------
jedberg
In 1999, I took a Sun Certification class. The instructor told us a story of a
kid whose parents said, "we have a $200K college fund for you, you can attend
4 years of college or take every Sun Certification class". He chose the certs.

In 1999, this 20 year old kid (only took two years to get every cert) was
making $300K/year.

I assume that got cut a lot in 2000, but at least for a while it seemed to be
a pretty good strategy.

~~~
kailuowang
Good strategy about money? maybe. Good strategy about life? really unclear.

~~~
jedberg
It was a bad life strategy. I've met other kids like this. While they are
super-smart in their field, they are terribly "unrounded" in anything else,
including basic life skills like social interactions.

~~~
jekrb
People tend to think brilliance and money is the end goal and often neglect
that having a good amount of social capital is also useful.

------
etanol
By the same principle, this girl will be also pulled of a CS degree becase the
man will be frustrated again that she will be stuck wasting her time in
college taking yet another set of computer architecture, operating systems,
compiler design or data structures and algorithm classes; when she could be
doing what she wanted to do with her life and spending all day learning the
next web development framework.

------
Fastidious
I think you can teach her to code, while she still goes to high school. The
'why' is not explained convincingly enough.

------
venomsnake
As a person that learned to code (and had a paying job as a programmer since
10th grade) in high school - you are overdoing it.

------
basicallydan
Doesn't 16 seem like the kinda age that kids should start making decisions for
themselves? This really reads a lot like the dad was making all the decisions
here.

Good for her, for sure, and well done. Still seems a bit fishy though.

------
sremani
Yes, she would be wasting time in History class, but she would also be missing
Mathematics class or Physics class, Chemistry or Biology class. God forbid
economics (if they teach that in USA). Being good developer is also about able
to write out articles, so English class does help there. The OP is privy to
his situation more than I am so, I give a lot of benefit of doubt, I would not
let my daughter quit unless she is solving real world problems and making some
real dough off of it. That would be the standard I would aspire for dropping
out of High school. Now College is a different story, I do not recommend if
the person is already proficient coder.

~~~
dunnowhat2say
Why did you waste your time learning those subject if you can read from reddit
or several tech news and popsci site?

~~~
sremani
To honest formal education/credential-ism had rather positive effect on my
life, one of its benefits is I was able to immigrate to US, without a college
degree and getting a passing grade in the aforementioned subjects I would not
have made it. As surprising as it sounds, coming to America was my goal 15
years ago.

Learning for Learning sake was the new bug that caught me after I landed on
these shores.

------
31reasons
Frankly this is pretty irresponsible thing to do. What if she wants to try
electronics, robots, physics or even medicine ? Does she have any way to
experience those things ? Web programming might be cool right now but in 10
years it might be replaced by something else. Rather than just focusing on Web
programming build your own curriculum around her interests if you think her
high school is wasting time.

------
pseudobry
I'm curious, how many of the naysayers here have kids?

------
RobertKerans
_Why I pulled my son out of school to learn chimney sweeping_

"He thinks it's great, like getting to climb a climbing frame all the time;
that's all he liked doing in school anyway."

------
elberto34
she is 16..not like she skipped out of HS completely

------
remixz
As a high schooler in a similar situation (am a web developer, have spoken at
a conf before, likely taking a full-time job once graduated in June), I just
want to give my two cents.

First off, I applaud her for doing what she's done so far. I think many people
here forget the confidence that takes at 16, and especially with the pressures
of public high schools for everyone to conform into the perfect image of a
"teenager", it's great that she's found her passion and is pursuing it. Keep
it up.

Now, about pulling her out of high school. I think it's really something on a
case-by-case basis, and not something that should just be judged here by
people without all of the facts. I think the biggest takeaway is that if she's
happy with this path, then she should do it. Simple as that.

Personally, though, I wouldn't choose to do that. I've had the opportunity to
do so, and I did consider it for a while. In the end though, I've decided to
finish high school at a public school. I have a few reasons behind this:

1\. My friend group. While I don't know what her social situation was like,
for me, my friends have been very important to my success. As a group, we're
diverse in our interests. We all have different ideas for what we want to do
next, and how we're going to get there. This is what makes it awesome. The
tech industry is, largely, a monoculture. So, I think it's very important to
have people around you who are diverse, so you can grow as a person by knowing
someone else's ways, views and ideas. This is important in high school
especially, since it's the time when you're finding out who you really are.

2\. Class selection. Building on the last reason's spiel on diversity, I
definitely think having a diverse class selection is great. When I started
high school, I already enjoyed programming, and was considering it as a
career. So, my class choices were chosen to be everything I needed to move
onto a good post-secondary program. However, the next year, I needed an extra
class to fill out my timetable, and on a whim decided to take a film class.
This turned out to be one of the greatest decisions I'd made. I got to meet
some really great people (that are some of my close friends now!), the class
itself was extremely enjoyable, and it really opened my eyes that not
everything has to be focused on one goal. If anything, taking this course that
wouldn't be for post-secondary has helped my career, since I have an
additional outlet to be creative in, plus another potential career path that
I'd enjoy for later.

3\. Social situations. Again on diversity (I think this is becoming a theme
here... ;-)), public school gives you the, uh, "opportunity" to deal with
many... interesting people. In other words, you have to deal with people that
aren't like you. While it's not always easy, I think it's one of the biggest
things that public schooling can teach you. In life, not everyone is like you,
and if you're immersing yourself in a monoculture early, you miss out on being
able to deal with these people. It's a life skill, and for anyone wanting to
move up into any sort of management, it's something that I think is necessary.

Overall though, this is all just my opinion. I'm not here to say that what
this father did was wrong, and that his daughter will regret this, blah blah
blah. In the end, I'm sure she'll be just fine, and likely be successful.
Doing things differently is great, and while it may not always be 100%
optimal, that's also life. Nothing is 100% optimal. We're all just trying to
make the best choices we can. This father thinks he's done so, and good on
him.

~~~
thro1237
If this really comes from a high schooler, I can say that you are going to do
really well in life :)

------
pearjuice
Teaching your daughter the flavor of the month Javascript framework, pulling
her out of high school due to a moment of fame and referencing "nice new
monitors and as many couches as chairs." as "The classroom even looks pretty
silicon valley-ish".

Anyone else has any finishing ingredient of this recipe for disaster? Ah
right, forcing feminism in tech by pushing your daughter into speaking at
public events.

~~~
sremani
I would not say it is disaster, it is a strong father imposing his vision over
his daughter, the intentions and integrity are commendable, but he has to also
consider "what he does not know", she may be really interested in Programming
but a Mathematics and Physics foundation would help her in field of Game
Programming or knowledge of Biology etc. would help with Bioinformatics.
Things of that nature.

