[tlug] [OT] Raising a geek (was: Interesting Hans Reiser article in Wired)

["Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com>]

On 14/07/07, Shawn <javajunkie@example.com> wrote:

> I really don't know about Hans and his situation.  In my son's case, he
> was asked to leave the US Embassy preschool in Tokyo.  Of course he was
> bored and causing trouble, they are drawing three dogs to represent the
> number three.  He is teaching himself multiplication and reading books
> that explain fractions.

This is almost eerily similar to my situation as a child. In my case,
I had learned to read before going to public kindergarten (in the US,
you go to "kindergarten"--which is 0th grade, or equivalent to
"preschool" in Europe--at age 5) and was thus bored out of my mind.
Needless to say, I entertained myself by acting out, and was removed
from public school at the end of the year.

> I don't think anyone really set out to discriminate against him but it's
> just that his interests are so different than his peers.

It is very difficult to take care of a special needs child in current
education systems. Your son needs targetted attention from his
teacher(s), and that is just not how teachers are trained these days.

In my case, I was lucky enough that my mother was a certified teacher
who had stopped teaching in public schools just before I was born, so
she simply home-schooled me and my two sisters for the next four
years.

Now, home-schooling has a (well-deserved) bad reputation currently,
mainly because evolution deniers in the US use it as a tool to give
their children a fundamentalist education so they can grow up to hate
gays yet secretly sleep with them[1], all the while screaming about
how immigration will be the downfall of Western (meaning US)
Civilisation.[2]

But my mother, aside from being a certified teacher, is a certified
lover of science. She gave us instruction in maths, science, and the
other two Rs (reading and wRiting) that was uniquely targetted to our
progress and learning style. The result was, when I entered a
prestigious private school in 5th grade, I learned preciously nothing
from the coursework, save from my French class, where I learned to say
"Je suis Americain, mais ne parle pas Anglais." ;)

The classroom had an Apple, and they were teaching us Logo, which
would have been awesome had I not taught myself Applesoft Basic at
home (by that time, I was dabbling in 68000 assember; I would enter
the programs from those magazines, and very occasionally could I find
and fix a simple bug).

So--surprise, surprise--I entertained myself by acting out, this time
against the spoiled rich kids who made fun of my flannel shirts and
jeans with patches in the knees and the fact that my mother had to
work for a living! (She was teaching science at the private school,
which almost covered the cost of tuition for me and my two younger
sisters.) Just before Christmas vacation, one of the kids went too far
and I bloodied his nose and blackened his eye, and that was curtains
for my private school career.

After the break, I entered public school, which was almost as bad as
private school in terms of other kids making fun of me because I was
different, and much worse than private school in terms of the
coursework. It is no exaggeration when I say that I did not learn
anything new or worthwhile until 8th grade, when I had the good
fortune to get put in the "Gifted and Talented" classes (AKA "Classes
for the rich kids who are in public school instead of private"). I had
an excellent history teacher who really engaged us to think about
current events in the context of history and try to understand why
ongoing conflicts are occurring.

But the best thing about public school is that I met a few fellow
geeks: a computer geek (well, he was not then; he just had video
games, but when I introduced him to computers, he was hooked for life
and now owns a company that provides network services to small
businesses and dental clinics) and a D&D geek (his older brother had
written and *published* a role-playing game while at Uni). These two
chaps, along with a classical music / computer geek who I had met at
private school (he is now a professional programmer with interests in
Erlang, functional languages, genetic algorithms, and Perl 6 /
Parrot), are my best friends to this very day.

But don't get me wrong, high school sucked. Luckily, I had the bare
minimum number of teachers who realised my special needs (i.e. the
need to be treated like an intellectual equal, if a 後輩) plus the good
fortune to befriend my computer geek friend's father, who had an
intellectual curiosity surpassed by none since maybe the Royal Society
days, and equalled by few. Had it not been for these handful of people
who were willing to see that the reason I was a pain in the ass (and I
was, don't get me wrong) was that I was bored out of my goddamn mind
in school, I would almost certainly not have gone to uni.

As it was, I took a year off after high school and worked at a PC
repair shop. It was a great experience, as I learned (and quickly!)
how to act maturely and deal with office politics. But more than
anything, it made me want to go to college, as I saw how people who
did not were discriminated against and people who did were treated
with respect. I was offered a job as a Visual Basic programmer (!) by
that firm, and my supervisor in the PC repair section said that I was,
at age 17, the best technician he had. But I knew I needed the Piece
of Paper, so I applied to The College of William and Mary in Virginia.
And I was damned lucky that my mother was an alumnus, because I am not
sure if my spotty high school grades would have gotten me in (luckily,
I had aced the SAT[3]--I can still do much better on standardised
tests than I deserve, just because of my voracious reading) without
the legacy boost.

And it was there at uni that I finally found what I was looking for:
unlimited access to information and truly great minds. Strangely
enough, I was extremely well-liked by my professors in uni (where I
was most certainly *not* liked by the crushing majority of my high
school teachers) because I was very interested in what they were
selling, and I always engaged them outside class hours with questions
on their subject matter. For example, when I was writing an Asteroids
clone (in Visual Basic 6.0--IIRC) and I could not figure out an
elegant equation for tracking a certain point on my triangular ship, I
asked my Algorithms and Data Structures professor--who was one of the
mathematicians that founded the Computer Science department at my
university--how to do it. Not only did he tell me, he encouraged me to
take his graphics class the next semester, skipping a pre-requisite
course, so I could grab more cool maths.

And I think this is the key to raising a geek: provide him with
information! Your son is lucky enough to grow up in the age of the
Internet, where Wikipedia can give him an overview of almost any topic
in just a few minutes. Show him the good stuff on the Internet (can he
read yet?) and teach him how to check sources and question orthodoxy
from the start.

I have thought a lot about this since I recently became a father
myself, and I pray that I have this problem with him in a few years.
:)

The other thing that I would recommend is being very honest with him
about how the world works. If he asks "why is the sky blue?", don't
give him some bullshit answer, tell him about ROYGBIV and how the BIV
colours get scattered more by the atmosphere. And for heaven's sake,
if he asked you a question to which you do not know the answer,
respond, "I don't know. Let's look it up and learn together!"

> In Japanese preschool, we got called in yesterday to explain his
> differences in front of all the other parents.  He doesn't interact like
> other kids.

Yeah, well the Japanese education system is broken, not your kid. Tell
him as much as soon as you feel it is appropriate. He needs to know
that he is special, but that the world is designed for average people,
and he will always have to play their games to some extent.

I wish someone had told me, when I was five years old, that life was a
game that I had to play so that I could win, i.e. get what I wanted
out of life, which is simply access to knowledge.

> I remember the day he realized he was different.  He hid under a blanket
> and covered his eyes and kept saying "I'm different, I'm different".  I
> put on a Thomas (the tank engine) episode where Thomas ridicules a
> tractor for having caterpillar tracks and not proper wheels.  Of course,
> the tractor later pulls Thomas out of the snow.

I hope he got the point, but I would advise you to try to explain this
to him directly. Tell him that being different is a wonderful thing,
and that other kids who are not themselves different are jealous of
his intelligence.

> Maybe though you wouldn't say my son is a geek.  Maybe you would say he
> is a mutant.  He likes Gnome very very much too if that tells you
> anything.

I would say that your son is a treasure, and if humanity is to live
long and prosper, we need to cultivate and revere such treasures.

> I don't know Hans' story so much even after reading the whole article.
> There is no justification for harming others even if he faced a
> difficult life.  Still, sometimes I honestly can't believe how painfully
> difficult and problematic it is for people who are different by their
> nature.

I think that understanding parents can make all the difference in the
world. Look at Hans's situation: his father was absent from his life
until somewhat recently. His father is a conspiracy theorist who finds
it likely that Hans is under surveillance by the KGB.

If you and your wife provide a loving environment for your children,
they will almost certainly turn out fine. If you can go beyond this
and provide them with knowledge and support, they will almost
certainly succeed in any endeavours they undertake in life. If you can
go beyond that and provide a kindred geeky spirit... the sky is the
limit.

I mean seriously, your son could be the next Feynman or Hawking! [4]

Please note the reason that I singled out these two as examples: they
are brilliant men who are also great communicators and successful
socially. True geeks should not settle for success in their field,
they should be challenged to succeed socially as well, which means
whatever they want it to mean. For me, it means friends and family, as
well as being respected and liked by my peers. Other geeks respect me
for my abilities, but mundanes like me because I am friendly and treat
them with respect. I treat people I despise with respect and courtesy,
because a) it is never good to make enemies, and b) I could be wrong
about them. Remember my D&D geek friend? We *hated* each other in 7th
grade, due to being on opposite sides of a mock trial (I was, I am
happy to report, on the winning side!). In fact, the story is brief
and amusing, so I will recount it here (this email could not be
further off the original topic anyway!).

In my seventh grade government class, we were studying the US justice
system, and had a mock trial to illustrate it. The trial was an
oldie-but-a-goodie: The State vs. Goldilocks[6], on the charge of
breaking and entering. I was Baby Bear, star witness for the
prosecution. Unfortunately for the prosecutor (my D&D geek friend,
Adam), Goldilocks was played by a girl that I liked. The girl
approached me at lunch and convinced me to change my testimony, which
I did, resulting in a mistrial and her freedom. Adam hated me (and
rightly so, according to the Code of Man: "bros before hos"[7][8]) for
the rest of the year behind this treachery.

Anyway, to return to my original point, Stallman[9] and Newton[10], as
brilliant as they are, are not good role models for geeks. They do/did
not Play Well with Others, to the detriment of their ideas.

> Other kids draw animals and people.  Mine does train maps of Tokyo.

Awesome! Please make sure he gets some of those wonderful train models
that they sell here!

The reason that geeks love trains is because it is a network that they
can comprehend at a young age. I still love train and airline route
maps!

> Other kids can sense when they should follow the rules (kids are kids
> and need reminding).  Mine will point out every time he sees someone
> breaking a rule and use that as justification for his own behavior.  He
> just lacks a sense of people's intentions and when he can get away with
> it.

Then teach him why following rules is important (so that the System
lets him alone to hack), and the corollary: which rules are vital
(i.e. safety / ethics / "Bros before Hos") and which may be ignored if
no-one is watching.

When I first went to work for Mauro, he said something very incisive:
"The Japanese guys I have are great, but they just blindly follow the
rules. A good sysadmin needs to identify the rules that are broken so
he can come up with a better solution." And I think that geeks are
good at this (and luckily, the American culture rewards people who
break the rules and profit; this has a dark side--Enron--but it is
more nurturing to the geek than the "nail that sticks up is pounded
down" bullshit in Japan).

We were just discussing this at work yesterday in the context of the
difference between the geek and the おたく. Without any urging from me,
my Japanese colleagues (who were non-technical) identified me as a
"geek" because I enjoy football and literature, whereas another
co-worker was labelled an おたく because "he never leaves the house
except to go to work".

I think that Feynman and Hawking (which I just misspelled as
"Hacking", much to my amusement) are geeks, whereas Stallman and
Newton are おたく.

Anyway, this post has gone on long enough. :)

Shawn, please read this in the spirit that it was intended, namely my
musings on how to raise a geek kid, largely informed by my own
childhood. I am certainly not telling you how to raise your kid, I am
just hoping that some of these thoughts are helpful, even if they are
only useful in the sense of getting you to consider my points and
dismiss them out of hand. ;)

--
Cheers,
Josh

[ 1 ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard
[ 2 ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson
[ 3 ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT
[ 4 ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
[ 5 ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking
[ 6 ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks
[ 7 ] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BXpXLQK6FU&NR=1
[ 8 ] http://www.cafepress.com/zombiedonkey/989682
[ 9 ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton