Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers

  • From: Jared Wright <wright.jaredm@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:01:35 -0400

Ah, now I think we're heading in a positive direction.
On 4/8/2011 9:58 AM, Ken Perry wrote:
Nod I think my last email might have agreed with you.  I don't think we need
something like a full time school what we need is maybe a class to augment
the learning curve.  I will say though I have found that if a person can't
struggle through learning to code with their disability without a class then
sometimes they should not be a coder.  There has been a few on this list
that have turned out exactly that way.  They spend all their time trying to
get people to do the work for them when in truth if you're going to make it
in this field you have to learn to fish for yourself.  I spend a good
percentage of my time keeping up with technology coding is only part of the
job.

Now with that all said my last email mentioned things like camps, or online
classes that are directed at getting people started or, giving people an
idea of all the possibilities for accessibility in different areas of the
field.  I think trying to just teach programming though is counterproductive
because the classes in college do that rather well.  I guess teaching people
to use tools might be a better goal then teaching coding.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill Cox
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 9:44 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind
programmers

Hi, Ken.  I think you were the first person to help me on my own road
towards dealing with loss of central vision.  As I recall, you had
some good advice and also introduced me to Sina, who as luck would
have it, lives near me, and knows a huge amount about coding with
vision impairments.

So, I think that is an example of coders with vision impairments
helping each other.  That seems to be what this list is for.  I fully
agree with your point about studying along side people without vision
impairments.  Maybe the idea of making this a college that would
replace what a student would do otherwise is a mistake.  A set of
programming and technical courses is not a substitute for a
traditional college experience.

Still, it seems to me that its difficult to find on-line programming
courses for the blind and vision impaired.  Something like only 1 in 5
blind people in the US have full time jobs.  And, while this list is
great and there are many talented blind coders here, it seems to me
that the numbers are far too low, especially since programming is
career for a blind person.  It seems to me that a social entrepreneur
might have an opportunity here to help make the world a better place,
so long as they consider their pay-off primarily in terms of helping
people rather than getting rich.

So, I'm tempted to suggest that such a venture should not attempt to
work through traditional education channels, nor try to offer a
recognized degree.  Instead, it should measure its success in terms of
decent jobs found for it's students.

The nature of so many posts I see over in Vinux land make be believe
that there are in fact many blind people out there who want to learn
to code, and that some subset of these people have the potential to
become good coders with good careers coding.  Is it possible to form
an on-line teaching organization of people with vision impairments to
fill this need, without side-tracking the blind into skipping the
whole normal college experience?

Bill

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Ken Perry<whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
I have to say this even though I think there is a place for what you're
thinking of.

I hate sepertive schools.  One of the things that made me a good
programmer
was competing against the people I would be competing against in the work
world In the academic world.

The salt Lake community college had a class run by novel that taught blind
people to code for Novel OS but I found the students that came out of
their
knew a single thing and not very well.

Now with that said if the standards are high enough a school like this
could
be a good benefit but you have to be careful not to dumb down both the
speed
of learning or quality thereof.  Of course that is true for all schools.

One last thing though that the regular schools taught me.  That is part of
life as a blind coder is finding ways to cope with problems that you run
into.  If you have things handed to you, you might not be as affective
when
you get out in the work world.

Ken

Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill Cox
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 12:03 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind
programmers

This is still in the dumb-idea phase, and I don't have any funding
lined up to get this started.  That said...

I have not been able to find any on-line school for teaching blind
people to become professional programmers.  I feel the world needs
such an organization.  I am not able to start such a school myself,
but I would be interested in assisting social entrepreneurs in
starting such a venture.  I it would best be implemented as a
for-profit social entrepreneurial venture.  You can read about social
entrepreneurs here:

http://www.ashoka.org/social_entrepreneur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship

I'm thinking it could be a Low Profit Corporation (LPC) founded to run
the school for a profit.  Everyone hired in teaching or management
would be vision impaired or blind.  Students would attend classes
on-line, and could be anywhere in the world.  Classes would not be
free (maybe $1,000 per 1-semester course?).  Students who are too poor
to pay would be expected to do well in their courses and make up their
fees by assisting teaching of those courses in later semesters.  They
might also be required to work for an associated consulting company to
earn tuition.  Students would be encouraged to help mentor each other
in any case.

Associated with the school could be a software consulting services
company.  The company would only hire vision impaired programmers, and
students wanting to work for the company could take classes designed
to train them in the skills they'll need.  The company might encourage
it's employees to spend one day a week on FOSS projects of their
interest, which hopefully would include improving accessibility.

Rough numbers to back up the idea:  There are around 15 million people
with "severe" vision impairments in the US.  Roughly half of those
people are too old.  Half of the rest may have other impairments that
would prevent them from becoming programmers.  In the general
population, there are 1 programmer out of every 500 people in the US.
I would expect a ratio at least that high among the blind, or about
7,500 professional programmers in the US alone.  If we took 20 years
to train that many, it'd be 375 new students per year, and assuming a
two year program, we'd have 750 students.  If only half paid the class
fees, but took three classes at a time (a full load), that'd be
$3,000*750*2 = $4.5 million per year.  My kids go to a school which
happens to have about 750 students and a budget of just over $4
million per year, and that includes paying for a school.  So, that
math seems to work out, but we're not talking about anyone making a
billion dollars in this effort.  This is not a VC-fundable idea, but
it might attract funding from groups that invest in socially
beneficial startups.

I know a couple of good candidates to start this school, and one might
be interested in actually doing it.  Are there any good blind or
vision impaired people you guys could recommend for me to talk to?  I
think the key would be finding the right couple of guys.

Thanks,
Bill
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