The Spiral & The Script:
Why I Built The Guild

In 1983, I sat down in front of a VIC-20 microcomputer. It didn't have a login screen. It didn't have ads. It booted straight into a blinking cursor that waited for a command in BASIC.

The immediacy was intoxicating. I typed a line of code, hit enter, and the machine obeyed. I wasn't "learning computer science." I was making stuff happen.

Somewhere along the way, education lost that immediacy.

We started teaching kids "Computer Science" as a branch of mathematics. We forced them to memorize abstract sorting algorithms before letting them build a button that does something cool. We put the prerequisites before the motivation.

The Spiral vs. The Line

Traditional schools teach linearly: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3. If you miss Step 1, you aren't allowed to see Step 3.

I believe knowledge develops in a spiral. Sometimes, the motivation—the "why"—is the only prerequisite that matters. A student who wants to cheat in a video game will learn complex memory management concepts that would bore them to tears in a classroom, simply because they have a goal.

At Sonora Socratic, we don't teach "coding." We teach Leverage.

Why Automation?

Right now, the closest feeling to that 1983 VIC-20 is writing a Userscript or a Google Apps Script.

These tools allow you to "hack" the software you use every day. Too many clicks to turn in homework?Script it. Need to extract data from 100 websites? Automate it.

"I teach ambitious teens to build things that solve real-world problems and end up with a marketable skill for which they can bill $50/hour."

This isn't just theory. In my day job as a teacher managing 800+ students, I use these exact scripts to grade homework and manage communications. I am teaching the tools I use to survive.

The Invitation

I am looking for a specific type of student for the Winter 2026 Cohort.

I don't care about your GPA. I care about your impatience. If you are the kind of person who gets annoyed doing the same task twice, you have the mindset of an engineer.

We will use modern tools—Javascript, APIs, and yes, Large Language Models (AI)—to build workflows that function in the real world. Our program is mostly asynchronous, respecting your time and your flow, but with mandatory live sessions to ensure we all stay on the same page.

If you want to learn to code, buy a textbook. If you want to learn to build, join the Guild.