Free Elite College for Kids
My kids attend a solid, heart-in-the-right place public city school. While I think that they can get the foundation of a decent education there, to suggest that the education is great is not accurate, verging on deranged, akin to suggesting that Minneapolis is the city for great bagels.
Take this as an example. Last year, my son was able to learn some computer coding in one of his seventh-grade classes, which is good. K-12 education is generally detached from the modern world, but the availability of coding classes can be a litmus test of whether a school is at least making some effort.
While he was able to learn some coding, it was sort of a duct-taped-together version of coding. He was learning coding, but in a typing class. So, coding wasn’t the sole focus of the class (at least it didn’t also include shorthand). And the teacher kicked things off explaining that she had no prior experience with coding.
This lone typing-coding class taught by the non-coding teacher was also the only such option at the school. And because my son had been one of the ‘lucky’ ones to get in in seventh-grade, and many other kids, rightfully, wanted to take it, he was done learning coding at his middle school now that he is in eighth-grade.
This is, of course, a farcical situation. One that needs to be underscored. We are seduced by the status quo in life. It makes us think things are okay and normal, as opposed to what this dearth is in the year 2022: just fully insane.
Companies of all sorts across the country are struggling to fill software development roles, roles which quickly can rise to six figure incomes. Even more extreme, expensive college degrees are not a prerequisite to the jobs—just a skill with coding. And add this: these young kids being blessed with a version of the mental plasticity that is ideal for learning things like coding.
So, what to do?
Should we get upset? Get together with some other parents, wring our hands and engage in some letter writing campaign, and ineffectually plead for additional resources that, if all goes well, may become available around the time our kids are graduating from high school?
No. That is not how those of us (read: me and you) who are committed to going outside the box to fortify our children’s at-times-wanting educations do things.
In this case, after my 14-year-old explained he had no other coding options at school, I had him march upstairs to his room and enroll himself in an elite university’s introduction to computer programming course (in this case it was New York University’s Basics of Computing and Programming, though Harvard’s famous intro course, CS 150, was one we also considered).
This is the education-augmentation way. The supplementing way. The not-homeschooling-but-not-settling way. There are just too many other options for our kids to fill in the gaps in today’s K-12 educational curricula to not take matters into our own hands.
But is that triggering? That some jackass parent (the guy writing this) can seemingly just skip the line and put his apparently gifted son in an expensive college program, while the rest of the kids bounce back and forth between typing and coding while their instructor tries to quickly teach herself how it all works?
I know it would be for me, were I reading this about another kid who seemed to have such a privileged option. I am easily triggered in this regard. But before putting me on blast, consider the following. My kids are not gifted. They are arguably not even precocious. Also, the elite college courses I am referencing are 100 percent free and available to anyone.
You’ve likely heard of MOOCs (massive online open courses), which are free online college courses that were first pioneered by Professor Anant Agarwal at MIT. Like Wikipedia or Khan Academy, MOOCs are an amazing free learning resource to anyone with online access and, in this case, grasp of English.
While you may have heard of MOOCs, there is a good chance you haven’t realized the degree to which MOOCs can be the answer to the prayers of parents looking to affordably enhance the education that is available to their children.
MOOCs are available in a wide range of courses, including a topic or two, I would wager, that is of great interest to your child and is also not available at your child’s school, at least at the level you would prefer.
If this sounds at all like an exaggeration, I encourage you to go to edX or Coursera right now to see for yourself. And while there, if you see an interesting class, why not create an account and click on enroll just to see how easy it is to make this happen?
There are challenges with taking edX courses that are worth being aware of. The biggest has to with the low rate at which they are completed. MOOCs have notoriously bad statistics when it comes to students completing them.
Something about how easy they are to start, how they don’t require payment, and how they are generally missing some key accountability features of traditional school result in only a fraction of students finishing, an estimated 15 percent or less by some analysis.
But that is where we come in. We are parents. We own these kids. They live in our homes, eat our food, wear the clothes we buy for them. We are, to be candid, all that stands between them and a super scary life of deprivation on the streets.
Of course, I kid. Kids today know their rights and such threats are thus empty. But you can play a helpful role as an accountability partner to your kids and help ensure that they do finish the course, as long as it is seeming productive and appropriate (if not, then ditch the unsatisfactory course and start a different free class ).
I have done this by continually checking in with my son on his progress. I can also view his progress on the account he set up and provided me access to. I have also watched a number of the lectures with him—for my own learning and to make sure he was understanding the content. And the reality is, he is really enjoying it.
You undoubtedly have other ideas for accountability. Possibly you will have your kid write up a short email summarizing what was most interesting about a given lecture or what they most learned, and then have them send the email write-up to you. You might also want to them to take a MOOC with a friend.
Lots of options for how to take advantage of this epically fantastic and glorious and life changing resource. Not surprisingly, once you get into it, you may well see a class or two that you want to be taking yourself, in which case you and your child can be accountability partners.
The bottom line is that, until we fundamentally transform K-12 education into something more modern and current, edX is an absolute gift from the gods for those of us parents looking upgrade education are kids are experiencing now. Free college courses, just an enroll-click away.
Additional Details and Disclaimers
There are other MOOC resources, the other most noteworthy one being Coursera.
MOOCs typically have a paid option, which is still highly affordable, and may help with accountability, as well as necessary to unlock additional features and earn certification of completion.
Coursera even offers a certificate program in coding that is in partnership with Google and includes six classes and takes six months to complete, which is the sort of thing that has colleges, especially expensive middling colleges, getting nervous.
For your first class, you will want to explore the components of the class with your child, as the interface and all it entails can take a little getting used to.
If you need any assistance, or have questions, feel free to reach out to me.
Please share any comments you have regarding how to make the most of MOOCs as part of K-12 education.
I will have future posts about ways to learning coding, as my son and I have stumbled onto other since enrolling him in the NYU course.
Lastly, as I repeatedly point out in my posts, I have the highest respect for the school my kids attend, the teachers and administrators who work there, the taxpayers who make public education possible, etc., etc., etc.
At the same time, I am undaunted in believing we parents can augment it all by tapping into the modern world’s ever evolving and expanding resources.