You Raised Me Up

By on December 14th, 2011

“The smartest worriers are learning to code or marrying a developer.” Howard Lindzon

I began an experiment recently to basically bribe my 13 year old sister to teach herself C#, her first ever language. After evaluating the range of programming languages (complexity, application) and that she might be interested in, I gave her my copy of Head First C#, which was one of the best-written programming books I’ve ever read detailing one of the easiest and useful languages I have ever learned.

I am a horrible teacher, so I just gave her the thing and told her to do her best. Her task would be to finish Lab #1 of the book, which was a racetrack simulator. It is about 150+pages in. Secretly I hoped she would go on to Lab #2, which was a simple dungeon game. That’s about 300+ pages.

At the end of Lab #1, I will give her my new iPad. We will see if she earns it.

This experience encapsulates three specific thoughts I have in relation to childraising.

  1. Programming ability is king. I don’t care if you aspire to be a doctor or lawyer, as far away removed from the mathematical sciences as possible. Math is functional programming. Logic is conditional programming. Organizational behavior is programming for complex systems/interactions. Psychology is programming for the individual. I could go on. Modern statistics, economics, and so on are of course impossible without the ability to program. At work I have at minimum tripled the productivity of my coworkers with judicious use of programming. Yes there is a steeper curve but at the end of it I can do everything six times faster and with X% less errors than you. In this manner I eliminated the need for my own job in my freshman year internship (and that is a good thing). I think I’ve made my point, but I should like to make it clear to anyone reading this that the proverbial “teach a man how to fish” is programming.
  2. No TV. There will be no TV in my house. Singaporean end of year holidays start in mid November and last til the start of the next year. In that time my sister has done nothing but find out more about the inane lives of Zack and Cody. Today I found her watching the Muppets. MUPPETS! TV = mental retardation.
  3. Creation Not Consumption. Yes I am harsh in #2 and yes I will make exceptions. But the overarching goal is to limit the amount that your child (or yourself) is consuming at any point in time and to maximize the amount that your child is creating. Encourage her to program, write short stories, make a film, start a business, whatever. Passively absorbing what other people push on to you, be it entertainment or knowledge or noise, costs money and time you just don’t have that much of. The world lavishly rewards Creators. It also enslaves and burdens Consumers – in menial jobs which are secure but don’t pay much, with expenses (entertainment, food, travel) that seek to deliver the lowest acceptable nutritional/”real” enjoyment value for the highest possible cost. When do you want to establish the habit of Creating in your child?

At the end of the day, I am not one to impose my own ideals on my own baby sister. But I cannot bear it in good conscience if I do not at least try to show her how I see things. This is the reason I used a carrot, not a stick.

Categorized under: Idiosyncrasies, Thoughts.
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