So, I have a 12 yr old in the house. Another thread inspired me to start this one, so here it goes...
I want to teach my kid (who is really into technology and is relatively savvy) about the internet, web design, development and ultimately online marketing.
I'm thinking about starting a project w/ him where I ask him to figure out something he would like to make a site about. Initially, I'll help him do all the design and stuff inside photoshop and then scale that out to slicing and writing the HTML and CSS.
Next step is teaching him about hosting & other technical details etc. Eventually moving to monetization ater we've gone through the process a few times.
He's taking general "technology" classes in school, but I'm pretty confident I can teach him a lot more than what he's going to get out of that and give him a big advantage.
Anyone have any thoughts about the approach I should take?
Hey! Pat yourself on the back for doing this!!
IMHO, the best thing you could ever do for him is give him
a REAL EDUCATION....
Took me years to find that out - without getting too philosophical, Einstein once said,
"Education is what you have when you forget everything you learned in school...". In other words, teach him
how to LEARN!
The world is changing so fast, esp. in the tech game, you can teach someone everything they need to succeed and it is likely that 5 years from now, much of it won't even be relevant. BUT if you teach him how to learn, boy he will be so far ahead of the game....
Hell, he already is if he has you as a guiding force willing to put this much thought into it....
I think it would be great if you start off by laying down a contextual foundation for
why what he's learning is important and also why it it could be
fun.....
The first thing to teach him is how to manage the
most important asset he will ever have - not money, but TIME.
God I can't imagine why they don't teach people this stuff in schools. It is so useful, but just not discussed.
You know a mentor of mine once said,
"you will be paid in life according to how much you value your time."
Actually, when you think about it, time really is the only non-renewable resource as it's possible through public capital markets to borrow an almost infinite amount of money -but time?....WE all only get 168hrs a week or about 8700+hours a year - no matter where we are on earth, how much money we have, etc, etc...
So if you start him off by telling him that his time is
very precious and that he will be the happiest in life learning the skills that will allow him to spend his most precious "life currency" doing exactly what he wants to do, - man does that give him both an understanding and a powerful incentive to learn how to do just that...
So
1) You explain to him why it's so
important for him to learn
2) You show him
how to learn - by that I mean the process of actually
a) setting a goal for him self - whether it's to learn how to ride a bike or create a money making website
b) using an exact process for gathering information on how to achieve that goal
c) implementing the information he learns.
With something like this, not only will he come away with a fantastic "fish" but he will have learned "how to fish". One day he won't have the benefit of a wonderful dad (wink) who can show him how to do stuff, but boy if he has 1) and 2)in essence your teaching will stick with him for the rest of his life! Long after you are (sadly) gone....
BEING A GOOD TEACHER
Lastly, I just took a course that kind of talks about this stuff (told you about it...) and one of the most important things they discussed was the fact that
people learn in different ways - so first, it may be helpful to find out
what kind of LEARNER he is.
For instance: some people learn by
hearing - these are the kind of people who tend to do well in a typical school setting. Ironically this is considered to be the most ineffectual form of teaching (think falling asleep in class) - also it probably is the most boring....
Next is
kinetic - they are like hands on and practical, they need to be able to actually "feel" or physically do something first before they really get it....
Next is
visual - these are the kind of people who get stuff by seeing it - example is you create a video that you have him watch....
Actually I think there's another but I forgot it I'll have to look it up with my notes, lol....
Lastly, as the course pointed out, you want to have some actual checks and balances to make sure he is getting it.
For instance you might say to him
"Describe in your own words what you just learned". This will make sure you guys are on the same page.....
BTW, the wonderful thing about teaching him how to "learn" is that once he learns he can go teach his friends who will teach their friends, etc, etc...
Not to sound like a broken record, but good on you for doing this - really!
On that note, Good luck bro
