So far, I have a glowing impression of Dev Bootcamp. DBC's values seem to sync up nicely with mine. And as a former teacher, I heard good things from Fireside Chat with Shereef. DBC's pedagogy aligns with everything I've learned in grad school. Specifically, Shereef's Restaurant and Kitchen mindsets are brilliantly prosaic analogies for two contrasting philosophies of public education: banking education and Constructivism. Theory aside, it basically boils down to treating students as passive learners or active learners. I'm definitely with Dev Bootcamp and the school of thought where teachers are more facilitators while the students themselves actively construct their own knowledge.
I'm going to seem neurotic here, but I am a bit anxious about this environment of empathy and compassion. Don't get me wrong I embrace both values: I'm a big fan of Buddha and Gandhi and I teared up at the end of Ian McEwan's Atonement. But it's one thing to have embraced both these qualities in a world that's usually short on them, it's another to be immersed in an environment that promotes and expects it. This nurturing and supportive culture that's all for kindness, empathy, and compassion is kiiiiiiiiind of oppressive! I say that tongue-in-cheek, of course, but I do worry about being short with someone, or lacking patience, or something. It's just so much easier to be a casual asshole than it is to be empathic and caring. This reminds me of when I watched the 80's TV mini-series Shogun as a kid. It gave me nightmares. Not because people's heads were routinely lopped off for small indiscretions by sword-wielding samurais, but because I didn't think I could live up to feudal Japan's strict and intricate etiquette and manners. (I was maybe a strange kid.) The nightmares felt like being trapped in a small room with claustrophobia. But, okay, I don't think I'm a mean-spirited person; I'm nice to strangers, animals, and waiters; I'm usually quick to apologize when I fuck up. I'll do my best to live up to DBC's agreement of integrity, kindness, and whole self. But damn it, that's a pretty high bar they've set! Which is not the worse thing you can say about a school or company.