Yesterday Patrick McConlogue’s post on medium.com made waves in the virtual world. He blogged about how he wanted to help the homeless guy that he saw on his way. He didn’t want to just give him money and then forget about it. He wanted to teach the 28-year-old man skills that will last forever. But, he wrote that he did not want to insult him so he will offer two options – his words –The idea is simple. Without disrespecting him, I will offer two options:
- I will come back tomorrow and give you $100 in cash.
- I will come back tomorrow and give you three JavaScript books, (beginner-advanced-expert) and a super cheap basic laptop. I will then come an hour early from work each day—when he feels prepared—and teach him to code.
The homeless guy –Leo accepted the offer to learn coding today!
His next steps as updated on medium.com
First, per our agreement, for the next two months I will come to work and hour earlier and meet with him for a coding session. I am overnighting this gear:
- Samsung Chromebook with 3G (access to code academy etc).
- Beginner: “JavaScript for Beginners”
- Intermediate: “Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja”
- Advanced: “Javascript the Good Parts”
- Solar charger for the laptop.
- Something to hide the laptop in. (Anyone have ideas? Email me: pmcconlogue[at]gmail.com)
It will be interesting to watch how this will unfold…