[throwaway3929]

You've rubbed me the wrong way. I'm sorry if what follows hurts your feelings.

Kids should learn how to program because they're interested, not because you want to quit your day job.

Marketing a camp for kids as a "job skill" is completely disgusting. It's like you're giving baseball lessons to kids while promising the parents that it makes kids more likely to play in the MLB later on in life. It's crass and insincere.

Kids like to play, have fun and be happy, not sit in a room and learn HTML. A real "benefit" you could provide is a safe haven for gifted kids who don't have the benefit of rich parents or even a caring school district, centered around programming, that markets itself as a "special place" for smart, sensitive kids who need that environment. Fill it with lots of cool science toys, challenging books and make it a happy place. Some gifted kids go home to a scary, dark place, and you could provide a haven for them, instead of setting unrealistic expectations for overbearing soccer moms.

"So how do you think I could make this pipe dream a reality and quit my day job?"

If it's such a pipe dream, remove your head from your ass and figure it out yourself. This is advice from the bottom of my heart to you. Finding your own "path" is a struggle, especially if you want to blow the system and do your own thing. Asking this question is a bad first step.

It's not a "pipe dream" though - you just don't want to work 8 hours a day and will market to pushy parents who want their kids to become startup millionaires to do it.

Working with kids takes a special kind of love, patience and understanding. They are very impressionable, and gifted kids are extraordinarily sensitive, speaking from the experience of being one. If you want to work with them just to make money, do the world a favor and find another scheme (there are lots of ideas to make money and carve your way in the world). If you'd like to talk about how to nurture bright kids who are interested in programming, you'll find a different type of commenter coming out of the woodwork, and I'll be happy to give you my perspective.

[Malloc_Leake]

Heh, no hurt feelings here and I don't think you really needed to make a throwaway account just to play devil's advocate. I guess "how do I quit my day job?" sounds a bit off when you put it like that. I recognize that most good teachers work more than 40 hours a week and I wouldn't mind doing that. I didn't bring this up yet, but my wife is a social worker and I admire her for what she does every day, helping people who really need it. I just feel like if I could teach kids advanced computer topics it would be a better (subjective) use of my talent than working directly or indirectly for the military. If I just wanted money the path of least resistance is right in front of me. I could leverage this internship for any entry level software engineering job and at a lot of companies / locations be making plenty to provide for my family. I just wouldn't be happy.

[throwaway3929]

I didn't make a throwaway to play Devil's Advocate. I mostly lurk here. I have an old account that I haven't used for three years, and felt weird logging into it.

The reason I took so much offense to your post is that it seems to capitalize "instant virtuoso" phenomenon, where parents want to sacrifice their kids happiness in order to make them proficient at something to compete with others, often vicariously. It's a cycle that ends with burnt out kids who feel bad about themselves for no good reason. I sound dramatic until you see what actually happens to gifted kids who are unrealistically pushed from a young age (hint: they kill themselves).

Like I said, I think trying to approach this as "giving kids marketable skills" is the wrong way to go. Teach a 6-year-old Python and HTML to be marketable? Yikes. You're mostly going to appeal to pushy parents, who think their kid will be the next Zuckerberg (cringe) if they pay for your lessons. Not only does that suck for the kid, but that'll suck for you too! It'll be frustrating and, if you care, heartbreaking to push 20 kids along at the same time.

IMO, what you want to cultivate in kids is a spark, not a concrete list of skills. Children don't work as plumbers for a reason.

I completely understand your view of your life, and you have my respect for thinking of something different. I have much the same problem, except I've lost most of my interest in computing-related things going into adulthood. I quit a Fortune 500 job where everyone drove BMW's and Mercedes, while being recognized as "talented", because I wasn't happy. I totally understand.

I'm simply providing some brutal feedback because it all hits close to home. I'm not trying to crush your dreams. I don't believe in that.

[throwaway3929]

By the way, if I were a highschool student, I would totally take a programming class in this vein, so don't take me the wrong way.

May I suggest age-segmented lessons? Pretty pictures for a little kids who want to play with it, and a focused curriculum for older kids?

[Malloc_Leake]

Of course, you can't teach 6 year olds the same way you teach 12 year olds, their brains aren't even fully formed yet. That was already a given ;)