The Educational Philosophy of DevBootCamp

Educational Philosophy - a statement that tells how you or your school plans to teach others

In the video <a href=https://vimeo.com/85001014>”Fireside Chat with Shereef: Kitchen vs. Table”</a>, Shereef details the educational philosophy of DevBootCamp. DevBootCamp does not want people to simply regurgitate knowledge that is handed to them by teachers. Instead, DevBootCamp wants students to become self-motivated and thereby “own” their own education.

The hope is that students would conceive themselves not as passive consumers of their educational experience (only using the product to get a “better job” and then placing said product back onto the shelf), but instead as active creators (the ones making the products), hoping to show their talents to the general public and impress not only their teachers, but themselves in the process. Sherfeef claims that once students learn how to be active creators, they will then be able to perform effectively in the workplace and improve their skills after graduation from DevBootCamp. Sherfeef also wants to encourage students to work with each other and learn from each other.

Sherfeef also stated that DevBootCamp does not believe in the idea of a single right answer. This idea was repeated in the Phase 0 Handbook (there are only two type of answers: answers that work, and answers that need work). But Sherfeef also attempted to describe coding as a “craft” where you are building something, and everyone is working together to improve on it. There’s no one “right” answer for building a program, and there’s multiple different approaches you can take. Therefore, this is a field that encourages creativity and free-thinking instead of thinking inside the box.

This speech was very useful for me because I did not actually view DevBootCamp in that fashion before. Before, I just thought of DevBootCamp as a place where you receive lessons from the teachers, and then you fufill said lessons. I knew that I was expected to do my own “research” and learn outside of DevBootCamp, but I did not realize that DevBootCamp’s main goal is reduce the role of the teacher to that of a facilitator (a person who will provide support and the underlining objectives for the students to accomplish, but will avoid lecturing to students and telling them what to do).

I am both nervous and excited. I am nervous because I am afraid I would not get the support I need to be able to survive, both from the community and the teachers. I will need that support, because I am not confident in my ability to create something workable on my own. But I am also excited because I am self-motivated, I do like creating stuff, and I do like the idea of there not being a single 100% correct answer to a problem. My impression of DBC had changed after Shereef’s speech, and this speech gave me a better sense of the culture within DBC.

Now that I know the culture, I can be better able to adapt to it and be able to more effectively deal with the challenges that DBC throws at me.