Experiences in mentoring a young offender

Yoomme (http://www.yoomee.com/blog) came up with this amazing social outreach scheme hiring a young offender and help training him up with the help of volunteers. I was privileged to be one of these volunteers very early on and these are my experiences going though the process.

Transcript

1. Eva Barabas ! Front-end vs server-side EXPERIENCES IN MENTORING/TRAINING A YOUNG OFFENDER
2. 1. The initiative YOOMEE ๏ Andy Mayer from Yoomee, a digital agency focused on communities, offered a one year placement to a young offender with the purpose to learn how to code.
3. 1. The initiative THE OUTREACH ๏ Andy tweeted asking for volunteers to teach Tom. And I found out about it through the Ruby community in Sheffield.
4. 2. The action MOTIVATION ๏ I immediately decided that I would get involved as this sounded amazing, and I missed out on huge change of helping my brother get into IT, him dropping out of Uni doing CS and turning to banking instead.
5. 2. The action MOTIVATION 2 ๏ I also had a neighbour, of my brother's age who dropped out of school and got into trouble all the time and was wondering if I could have done anything (even though I was at University at this point and it was out of my hands)
6. 3. The premise PROJECT STARTS ๏ Andy met with the volunteers and we had a skill check. ๏ I decided to teach Ruby, while the other three volunteers were more focused on front-end.
7. 3. The premise THE PLAN ๏ 6 weeks of volunteering to teaching Tom for 1/2 day a week during his working day. ๏ Working project at the end, with often status check ins. ๏ A way of checking what works and what doesn’t.
8. 4. The reasoning MY EXPERIENCE ๏ Spent 2 years training (4 to 6 weeks a year) and mentoring Genesys students (4th year and MSc students) during my last role. ๏ Did my teacher training when I was a student in Romania - couple of hours a week teaching CS to pupils (17 - 18 year olds) at a great high school.
9. 5. The execution THE CHALLENGE ๏ All this experience didn't prepare me to teaching Tom, a 19 year old bright kid, who left traditional schooling at 14 and who is an avid consumer of electronics but when it comes to how they work, he was mainly oblivious.
10. 5. The execution THE PROGRESS ๏ First two weeks we worked on Dictionary app for Tom’s new programming vocabulary while also looking at resources from CodeSchool and other online tools.
11. 5. The execution THE TECHNIQUE ๏ Traditional ways of teaching fell flat pretty much in the first session. ๏ Giving homework to someone who works doesn’t necessarily work.
12. 5. The execution THE DIFFERENCES ๏ It wasn't obvious at the beginning, but it was because I was trying to teach him Ruby … and he liked front-end more. ๏ I am not a hacker, I required rigorous and disciplined study to get to the level I am today, so I was under the impression that other people are the same.
13. 5. The execution REALITY CHECK ๏ Obviously I was mistaken. ๏ I forgot the one thing that motivates people do things on a regular basis, that is to do something FUN and personal!
14. 5. The execution THE “PIVOT” ๏ At this point decided to pivot my teaching techniques and asked Andy to advise me on a project which was more close to Tom’s heart.
15. 6. The pivot JELLY BEANS PROJECT
16. 5. The pivot JELLY BEANS PROJECT 2 ๏ Check out the video: http://bit.ly/jellybeans_timeline
17. 7. The conclusion THE REALISATION ๏ This turned out to be fun, until he had a deadline and wanted me to help on his website on the front-end side. ๏ And then I realised how he worked, he tinkered, he played and he had fun. ๏ I can attest that introducing him to Ruby this early on was not the best of ideas.
18. 7. The conclusion FUTURE HOPES ๏ In the end he might just be a front end dev. He is giving Ruby another go now, with his next mentor. ๏ I hope that he will find out about some of the limitations of front-end or find the right problem to solve on the server side and he will take to Ruby then.
19. 7. The conclusion LEARNINGS ๏ I have experience in teaching people from a more academic background but found it quite challenging to teach a tinkerer. ๏ Did I make a impact, I hope so. Could I have been better? Definitely. I am working in applying my recent hackathon experiences towards teaching thinkers given the opportunity.
20. The awesome ๏ For more info : http://bit.ly/teaching_ruby
21. The awesome THANKS FOR LISTENING ๏ If you would like to get involved please contact Andy Mayer on twitter @yoomeehq or www.yoomee.co.uk ๏ Have some suggestions for me? Chat to me on twitter @b_seven_e ๏ Any suggestions or questions?