We start the year with activities that teach students how to be students in a class that is radically unlike anything they have ever experienced before. The skills aren’t groundbreaking or new - taking good notes, watching videos like a scholar, sustained journaling, listening well, etc.
However, none of those are really the point. The skills are important, but they don’t speak to what is at the heart of the kind of classroom we build. In fact, the most important bootcamp goal is creating a classroom community. It’s also the one where the goalpost keeps moving, and every year, starts in a different stadium.
Certainly, you, and we, want a community that respects the teacher and respects each other. However, there’s a big difference between “I can tolerate these people” and “I have created an actual, functioning learning team.” The difference between those two is the same as the distance between an old-fashioned lecture hall with a talking head and a self-paced flipped mastery classroom. One is easy. And one is almost impossible, or at least, takes a whole lot more skill than standing up and talking for an hour every day.