Mastery doesn’t come from rote recitation. It comes from falling in love with something. It comes from hard work, sure, but only when the hard work is aligned with a passionate love of a subject or a craft or a field. Forget credentialing; give them something to sink their teeth into! As Paul Graham wrote: If I had to choose between my kids getting good grades and working on ambitious projects of their own, I’d pick the projects. And not because I’m an indulgent parent, but because I’ve been on the other end and I know which has more predictive value. When I was picking startups for Y Combinator, I didn’t care about applicants’ grades. But if they’d worked on projects of their own, I wanted to hear all about those.
If you want a kid who has real skills and real passion in this world, you’d be well served to do the same.