Why most AI education is backwards

After teaching 150+ high school students through Lucid Academy, I've noticed a fundamental problem with how most AI education works: it starts with theory and ends with practice, when it should be the opposite.

Students don't need to understand backpropagation before they can build something cool. They need to see what's possible first, then dive into the details when they're motivated to understand how it works.

Our approach at Lucid Academy was simple: Week 1, you're building a working AI project. Week 2, we explain why it works. This "build first, understand later" approach led to a 95%+ completion rate - far higher than typical online courses.