⏳ 2015 – 2017

My experience of the potential of what education can be through working at Unlimited radicalised me to the point where I didn’t think I would ever work in an educational institution again.

Precursor

After leaving teaching for the first time, I went to art school, and happened to come into contact with some nerds also hacking on community in a different way (Enspiral). As a summer experiment, Josh Vial mentored a group of people in how to code. (This may have been the alpha cohort foreshadowing Dev Academy.)

I left art school, joined Loomio, and extended my radical (i.e. anarchist) teaching skills into the space of collective organising, facilitation, and agile development. I did a range of contracts through a collective called CraftWorks (also part of Enspiral).

Teaching Programming

Having validated an opportunity for a different sort of tertiary eduction around programming, Josh Vial and Rohan Wakefield launched Dev Academy. The format was something like a remote prep course, follow by a 9-week long in person intensive course.

I was invited to do mentoring for the early cohorts, and ultimately moved into full time teaching. The teaching team in our era ran somewhat autonomously - we created and evolved curriculum, hired our own staff, and coordinated with the rest of the organisation.

“Teaching” at Dev Academy was similar and different to Unlimited. Everyone on the course had explicitly chosen and opted in to this very specific pathway. It was incredibly intense - the amount of ground we covered over 9 weeks was… quite like being thrown in the deep end, relentless. However we coupled the technicalities of the conceptual code learning with an strong structure of personal support - teaching personal reflection, interpersonal communication tools, and providing close mentoring and counselling.

So… once again seeing the humans holistically, treating learning as a deeply personal journey (not just an exercise in content) - of relationship with yourself and with others.

Legacy

It was at Dev Academy that I met Piet Geursen. We formed and enduring relationship through teaching and leading together, and went on to found a cooperative together - Protozoa.

I supported several friends into careers programming through Dev Academy. Some of them are now coop members too! Āhau + Mātou’s are also projects that were founded by several Dev Academy graduates.