Northwest Arkansas Parent Creates Nerdies Program For Students

FAYETTEVILLE -- Carter McKenzie of Prairie Grove said he wanted a mentor for computer programming and engineering. He even looked online. He found just what he wanted in the new program called Nerdies.

Carter, 12, participated in three weeklong sessions of Mods for Minecraft in June as part of the program. Minecraft is a computer game that acts like digital Legos, said Brad Harvey, founder of Nerdies. The summer and after-school program is based in Fayetteville with a temporary Bentonville location. The program opened in June at 509 W. Spring St. near the Walton Arts Center.

After-school and summer programs are beneficial, because they help students learn life skills in a self-directed and hands-on way, said Laveta Wills-Hale, director of the Arkansas Out of School Network. Students who attend the programs tend to get better grades and have better attendance in school.

The programs also help them improve skills, like motivation, communication, conflict resolution, group work, leadership and problem solving. These skills are important because students will need them when it's time to get jobs or start careers.

Harvey said Nerdies was inspired by his six children. He took his 8-year-old son to Balls-N-Strikes, a baseball and softball training facility in Springdale, for batting lessons. That's when the idea struck him.

"Where's a batting cage for nerds?" he asked.

His children are interested in science, technology, engineering and math, Harvey said. He decided to create a program for students like his children. One of his first challenges was to find a way to make the subjects attractive to young people.

"My goal with Nerdies has always been to make nerds the new jocks, to make nerds cool," he said.

"Nerd" tends to have a negative connotation in today's society, Harvey said. It should have a positive connotation instead, because being a nerd simply means that person has a passion about a certain subject.

He said he uses examples like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to prove that it's good to be smart. He also refers to himself as the "head nerd in charge."

Harvey said he needed to make the sessions attractive, because many children don't naturally gravitate toward subjects that involve math. He said, in his experience, many children have a math teacher around grade four or five who doesn't do a good job teaching the subject. Students tend to think they always will be bad as math as a result.

Harvey said he owned a tutoring company when he was in college. When he was tutoring people in math, he said he spent 90 percent of his time counseling and encouraging, and 10 percent teaching.

Carter said the sessions changed his view on his abilities in engineering and programming. He was interested in the subjects before going to Nerdies, but didn't know how to make the technology do what he wanted it to do.

"I just didn't think I could do it before. I just didn't have anyone to guide me," he said. "I feel like this stuff I'm learning will actually help me in my life."

Students worked in a bright and open room June 27, programming robots to work like traffic lights. Pieces of robots and wires sat on tables around the room.

"The coding's hard," said Kaushks Sampath, 12, of Fayetteville.

"But you understand it right?" asked Kaleb Pitchford, mentor for the week's robotics session.

"Yeah."

"Just because it's hard doesn't mean you can't understand it," Pitchford said. "You can do it."

Each session has at least one full-time mentor, Harvey said.

"We should never be so arrogant to think we'll teach them anything in the first place, because they're so much smarter than us," he said, explaining the use of the term "mentor" as opposed to "teacher."

Harvey spoke about a 10-year-old who wrote a piece of computer programming code that neither he nor the mentors could understand. He referred to the child as a "genius."

"I think the knowledge gap between parents and children right now is the largest in human history because of technology," he said.

Becky Cooper said her son came home from the Nerdies program each day talking about Minecraft and what he was able to learn on the computer. She said she doesn't understand much of what he says when he talks about the technology.

"The Java Script is over my head," she said. "He's so far ahead of me, and this is just another step."

The fact that some students would miss out on the experience because their parents couldn't afford to spend $325 to $425 for a weeklong session, bothered Harvey, he said.

"Quite honestly, I couldn't even afford to send my own kids to my camp if I didn't own it," he said.

In response, he and his wife formed a nonprofit connected to Nerdies called the Foundation For Nerd Advancement, Harvey said. The foundation allowed them to raise money and receive donations, including from Tyson Foods. The money was used to create scholarships for 30 students.

Five sessions will be offered in Bentonville beginning today, Harvey said.

Nerdies will evolve into an after-school program, Harvey said. He said it will probably cost $100 to $150 per month. They could also host home-school groups or school field trips during the day. Signups for the after-school program will probably start in August, and it will most likely open in September.

Students in the summer's sessions are from all over Northwest Arkansas and range in age from 7 to 16, Harvey said. About 270 students have signed up for summer sessions so far, and he expects that number to increase.