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Let's say that each programmer is responsible for a programming club at a public school. Reasonably the club would meet 3 times a week, and would be 2 hours per session. Homework would be assigned, which would need to be 'graded', so you could easily expect 10 - 15 hours a week for the teaching commitment. Now, how many students would you be able to handle per mentor? I agree that teaching is part of leadership, but few team leaders have had to teach a 100 people at the same time. Maybe 30 per mentor? Of course, after a year or two the senior students could help as mentors. Who would join? Since it's a club, students will expect it to be fun. Granted, there are sports, band, cheerleading, etc where it is accepted that there will be hard work involved. They each have some kind of payoff, like games and concerts. I guess the club would be broken down into coaching and development sessions to teach skills, and then projects to develop them. You would want the projects to be something that the students could show the rest of the school, like a website or toy app. It would need to be small enough to be completed during a semester and could be done with the help of the art or A/V club. How will a professional programmer feel about all of this? Yes, it is rewarding to teach, but at the same time you would be working with teenagers with varying levels of commitment. You're selecting for a very special type of person now, that is a programmer with vision, leadership skills, and that actually enjoys being around young adults. I could see this working with small groups: 5 to 10 highly motivated students that already know the basics of programming hacking together apps with the help of a mentor. For those who don't know how to program yet, maybe work with the local colleges to open up programming courses similar to Vocational programs or Post Secondary Education Opportunities to learn the basics and earn college credit while still in high school. |