I always have been fascinated about how much this world can offer and how hard it is to find exactly what you need.
Here is a real life example for you:
I am a web developer; I am quite good at what I do. However, it haven’t been like that forever. In fact road towards my profession was hard and full of obstacles.
After I got kicked out of university (yeah, you heard it right, I got kicked out of Russian provincial university. It’s amazing how not smart I am), I was struggling to feel my time with something meaningful. And since I always were hanging around tech nerds on the internet, it felt like everybody around me knew some form of programming. Everybody except me. Therefore, I decided to give it a try.
Attempt to learn coding number first:
Since I had not a slightest idea what to learn and where to start, I went to forums and asked some questions. Here is the best response:
“Well, dude, you need to learn html, CSS and JavaScript. Html and CSS are easy, but JS is the most important one. Take ‘JavaScript the definitive guide’ and study it from cover to cover.”
And indeed I did acquire said book and began to study it.
Do you know what “JS the definitive guide” is? It’s a reference book. 1000 pages of text about internal workings of programming language. It is used by professionals with 10+ years of experience to keep their knowledge fresh. It’s not meant for learning.
Nevertheless, I did not know that at the time. Like a good boy I studied it carefully. A few days later (boring long ass days, may I add) I finished fifth chapter. And I had the strongest grip on idea that I have no idea what am I learning.
Since I am not very bright, but very stubborn I decided to give it another try. This time I made my own research.
Well first off I had to dig through tons of commercial BS. Ya know: “with this amazing 3 day course you will become the best web developer ever! You will also became C++ ninja! And you will learn to drive a tank along the way. Only 99.99$ per hour, tax not included.”
Anyhow, after sometime I found pretty good resources, awesome lessons and great explanations. I learned a lot, and even could create something simple.
The problem I stumbled upon was much unexpected. I simply did not know what to do with this information. I wanted to learn coding - I learned some of it. Now what?
This might not seem like a real issue, but time has passed and question had no answer. Then some more time passed. Then more. In a blink of an eye few months has passed, and not only I had no idea what to do next, I don’t think I remembered anything I had previously learn!
This sound unbelievable, but do not forget: I am not a smart man.
Anyhow slowly but surely I started realizing. I need something to build in order to understand this skill better. I googled some beautiful free website designs, started building them. One thing land to another, I began to do freelance work, applied to some interviews, and only after a year I got my first job offer as a professional web developer.
Currently I work at cyber.fund. And it’s great. I have much better salary than 80% of folks in my area. Everyday I do what I have become passionate about. I work from home. I have complete freedom of what to do. Nobody tells me when I can and cannot go to take a piss.
For real, working as a retail salesman sucked donkey’s left nut.
It’s like a dream job dude. I bought myself monthly supply of Doritos and hot pockets, and I never leave my place. It’s like sociopaths wet dream. So good.
However, I could never stop thinking about transition to that state. Difference between unhappy, uneducated, not laid and me being happy, educated (and still not laid) is so big and transition curve was so troublesome it hurts me to this day. Problem is: it shouldn’t be that way, it does not have to be.
I mean it’s really is unfair. For example, in my professional years I have been introduced to all kinds of great educational content. Amazing interactive courses, funny and interesting teachers, explanations which could even a 5 years old understand. It’s not fair that I learned about all of this exactly when I stopped needing it. I already learned everything the hard way.
“You merely adopted the shitty tutorials. I was born in them, molded by them. I didn’t hear a proper explanation until I was already a man.”
I kept thinking that if I could go back in time to teach myself it would be so amazing. Instead of unknowing, misguidance and failure, I would have guidance, success and endless love. (I would smooch myself so hard, dude)
And then it struck me. I need to make a website to solve this exact kind of problems. I mean, millions of people learn a particular skill everyday (programming, for example) and hundreds of thousands people already achieved that task. So why not create a place where one can share his experience and knowledge to another?
Here is my vision:
Life is all about learning. It does not matter if you believe it or not, but it’s a part of human nature to keep pushing forward and to constantly desire new things. Maybe not today, but tomorrow you might want to learn to be a better cook, to learn karate, to weld, to speak Japanese, to become an investor or entrepreneur.
What if instead of recreating a wheel, instead of pushing through paths, which millions already pushed through, you could go to a single website, type the name of the skill and have all the information you would ever need: which paths to take, where to go and where not to, what caveats will be waiting for you and how to avoid them.
This is my dream. And this is what I am going to build.
But, of course, there is a problem. This idea is not new and unique. People probably tried to create such service and even if they not failed why am I not aware of single one? Why are they not popular?
It’s funny, but I already knew the answer. I read somewhere that Michael Jordan was one of the worst basketball coaches ever. Yes, you heard it right. Best player in the history of basketball is the worst teacher of said sport. And the reason is: experts are not necessary a good teachers
Why Experts Make Bad Teachers. Check this article if you wish. Here is Too Long, Didn’t Read: experts see their subject differently than new comers. Things what experts try to pass down to students make no sense for them for the same reason: they see things differently.
To create a solution one needs to teach teachers how to teach. So here is my idea:
1) Gather people with science of learning knowledge. Psychologists, teachers, educational experts - anyone who has useful relevant knowledge.
2) Make them write a guide on how to properly, in most useful and efficient way to teach people. Note: the guide cannot be too long and complicated. TLDR would be a real issue.
3) Create environment which will force experts to use said guide to create best “how to learn X” tutorials.
4) ?????
5)
PS: yes, my English is terribad, sorry about it