All of our educational methods are built around simulations and constrained, simplified problems. We don't ask first-year undergraduates to go out and start working on real-world projects immediately. Some of them can manage with sink-or-swim methods, but there's a lot of benefit to be had from a trivial context - it's like the difference between learning to trade stocks on paper(risk-free intellectual challenge) and putting real money out there(psychological stress, real world consequences). If you raise the stakes immediately, you may defeat the learning process.

And most of the people doing these kinds of things, are, unsurprisingly, around college age.