We have them on Wednesday because it is Dance Night and all of the counselors are on duty, so almost everyone can attend the meeting.
Today was another delightful day at Camp.
We had two former counselors (from 2003-2006) visit today. They are now both teachers and have not been back for years. They told me that they made a special playlist to listen to on the 5 hour drive, but never listened to a single note, “We just could not stop talking about Camp memories!!” One said that camp enabled her to have the courage to switch schools and make new friends. The other said that teacher has been so much easier because she was a counselor.
Neither were ever campers, but found camp as college-aged counselors.
Both radiated happiness as they walked and remembered.
We get visitors all the time. One recent visitor explained, “I can leave Camp, but Camp never leaves me!” They also usually say that they cannot explain to their friends, colleagues or significant others why they love it so.
“I am going to Camp.”
“That’s nice. Be safe.”
“No, you do not understand. I am going to CAMP!”
“Allll riiight. Have fun!”
The visits are also great for the new counselors and campers. They see the passion and joy in the visitors’ eyes. It lets them know that this is a place that many people love – a place that people return to. In short, it lets everyone know that we are a true community.
Wild Water Creature Wednesday
As I was strolling today (this time with a hat the is a full tiger head), I once again came upon the Outdoors Skills class. They had the youngest girls (mostly 6 and 7) arriving.
It is time for some full disclosure. 6 and 7 year-olds do not really learn a lot of Outdoor Skills. Instead, the counselors see this time as an opportunity to stretch their imagination. As they arrived, the instructors declared (in the spirit of alliteration) that today is Throwback Thursday. As a result, they must travel back in time to yesterday (to Wild Water Creature Wednesday).
The counselor told them to put their “flux capacitors” (they looked like towels to me) over their heads, say “flux capacitor” 3 times and turn in circles. When they had done so, she explained that they were now back to Wednesday. First rule – they must not go where they went yesterday (or is it today?) because their present self must not meet their past self. They then declared that Wild Water Creature Wednesday would happen in the pool.
In the pool, another instructor led them in efforts to act out different creatures, including, dolphins, sharks, sea urchins, and otters. By the way, one of your daughters does a scary-good dolphin imitation. At the end, he also had them create the one thing that even sharks fear: a whirlpool. They huddled together into a circle and swam clockwise. The counselor, who weighs roughly 240 pounds, acted as if he were being knocked about by the midi-induced vortex.
In the Man Cave, we had a delightful chat with the youngest boys. I was delighted by what good listeners and sharers they were. You often do not know what you will get with 6 and 7 year-old boys, but they were funny and engaging. Must be good parents.
Tonight, the boys’ side of camp redeemed itself. Last week, the girls caught more fish than the boys (30-18). Much angst on the boys’ side. Today, they scored a clear victory 56-0!!! Of course, it helps that the girls were not actually fishing tonight!
Rather than fishing, the girls had Miss Champini tonight, which is a big deal. Every girl’s cabin dresses up its counselors as different people, places or themes from camp. The entire event was precious (or so reports Susie Ma’am). While I was not there, I got a report on the winners.
1. Most congeniality - Riggabamboo dressed their counselors as the two new pot-bellied pigs (Napoleon and Notorious P.I.G.).
2. Best costume – Cabin 6 whose counselor came dressed as the Arts and Crafts table. Looking like a Jackson Pollock painting, they think she would have perfectly blended with the actual Arts and Crafts table.
3. Best talent – Cabin 2 with the main character from the beloved camp song “Matalina, Catalina, Hoopsawhatalata, Hooka, Wooka, Pooka was her name”. Her talent was adding new ridiculous lyrics to an already ridiculous song.
4. Miss Champini was (drum roll please), Cabin 8 with the Rainbow Chair Queen. The entire cabin dressed as each of the Rainbow Chairs and she was the queen with songs and a great skit that included all the kids.
The boys had Open Mike night. We used to call it Talent Night. It might be best that “talent” is no longer in the title. I, however, was proud of the 4 campers who sang, the 4 the played instruments and the 3 that told jokes!
Until tomorrow, I hope you had a great day too!
Steve Sir
21st Century Skills and Camp
This last off-season has been a particularly exciting one for me. In fact, there are so many different areas of excitement, I will not attempt to enumerate all of them at once. Just be ye warned, I will be sharing lots of information about improvements at camp, research about children and the new projects.
Today, I want to focus on 21st Century Skills. OK, l admit, that sounds MIGHTY DRY. I'll give you a moment to wonder why your camp director is writing about something that sounds so non-campy.
Here you go. . .
OK, your time of contemplation is over.
Actually, this is very relevant to your children and their future success.
About 5 years ago, a group of forward-thinking companies and educational non-profits commissioned a study to determine what skills will be most important in careers in this century. They understood that we live in a very different world than the past.
200 years ago, if you could plow, plant and reap, you could farm.
75 years ago, trade skills like engine repair would provide viable employment.
Now, I could teach a Sophomore everything about the hardware and software of an iPhone and the technology would be outdated by graduation.
Specifically, they noted the following:
� *Market is global
� *Competition is fierce
� *Businesses innovate
� *Technology advances
� * Workplaces adapt
� *Individuals create and participate
� *Jobs and lives change rapidly
So they went to multiple organizations and surveyed, studied and formulated. The organizations include Apple, Sesame Street, Dell, Corporation of Public Broadcasting, Intel, Discovery Channel, Microsoft, American Associates of School Librarians, Cisco, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Ford and many more.
There is a LOT in the study, but I want to give you some of the key points.
First, they look at skills in 2 categories: Basic Skills and Applied Skills. Basic Skills are what we get in school and are best known as the 3 R's (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic). Applied Skills refer to "those skills that enable new entrants to use the basic knowledge that have acquired in school to perform in the workplace . Rather than 3 R's, the Applied Skills refer to the 4 C's: critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.
Here is where it gets interesting. They then ranked the skills in order of importance in the workplace and the success of the individual. Here are the Top 5 for workers with a four-year diploma:
1. Oral Communications
2. Teamwork/Collaboration
3. Professionalism/Work Ethic
4. Written Communication
5. Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
Notice that these are essentially all Applied Skills. Where are the classic school-related skills? Writing in English is #6, Information Technology is #11, Math is #15.
Also, the area rated as having the greatest deficiency among workers is Leadership . Leadership is #10 on the list, but it is the area that companies would like to see the most improvement.
Singapore is adopting this model as a core to their education system. Different states in the US are doing the same, but with little real reform.
The frustration is that our schools tend to focus on those skills that are easy to measure. Math scores are easier to evaluate than teamwork skills, so teachers are rated on the former rather than the latter.
Where might a child develop and refine these skills that will enable success?
Camp Champions.
Communication, collaboration, creativity are infused into everyday. Cleaning a cabin for inspection requires all of these aspects (cleaning is only part of the job; amusing the inspector has become a tradition as well).
Campers are placed in a group of unfamiliar people and then develop their own rules, norms and traditions. This happens through oral communication and teamwork.
Counselors model superior work ethics. Remember, they are on 7 days a week with 2 lunches and 2 evenings off in a non-air conditioned environment. Few work harder than a summer camp counselor.
Critical thinking is also a big part of camp especially for Senior Campers (high schoolers) and counselors. Imagine planning every detail of an evening event and then learning of an approaching rainstorm. You now have one hour to find a way to amuse 10-50 9 year-old children GO! Solving problems and adapting rapidly to change are part of every day at camp.
I passionately believe in the power of the summer camp experience in general and the Camp Champions experience in particular, but have been searching for the right ways to articulate it and prove it. As you know, we are partnering with Shawn Achor to study how camp affects optimism, positive social connections and resilience. I am also almost giddy about this framework because it focuses attention on skills that are not readily provided through traditional schools, but ARE readily provided in a quality summer camp experience.
Your child is getting these skills and they will be better for it.
Steve Sir
PS I know that it is a long time before your children have to think about all of this, but isn't it nice to know you are doing things today that set them up for success later?
Tags: General
Today, our oldest daughter (and third oldest child) turned 13. That means we now have 3 teenagers at the same time.
Tags: General
At our first day of Man Cave, I heard a wonderful tale. Before I go further, let me say that Man Cave (and its close cousin Friendship Games) are our daily efforts to spend time getting to know every cabin. I will describe more about the history of Man Cave/Friendship Games in soon-to-be-written blog.
On to the story.
Finding the Inner Batman
We have a camper who is here in for his third summer. Frankly, he was very late to sign up this year (luckily, he is male and so we had a some openings on the boys' side) and we wondered why he did not sign up earlier with his sibling.
Of course, it is difficult to fathom the mind of elementary school boys. In fact, whatever reason a child gives for why he or she is reluctant to come back to camp is (in my extensive experience) not the real reason. A camper that says that the activities were boring often turns out to be risk averse and shy about attempting new activities dislike a particular cabinmate. Another camper that says he had a mean counselor might have wet his bed the previous summer and attempted to deflect his embarrassment (incredibly common, by the way). We've seen that awkward age with our own children. They've lost the openness of early childhood and become self-conscious. They're acutely aware of their own perceived inadequacies and hide this from the people with whom they previously shared everything.
In the case of this camper, I think his reluctance stemmed from a fear of deep water. We had known he had this fear in the previous summers. We would either allow him to stay in the shallow areas or wear a life jacket. I suspect that as he got older, the fear remained, but his desire to wear a life jacket diminished, thus creating a potentially embarrassing situation.
Nevertheless, he did decide to return and that is where our story takes us.
Two days ago, he was at Instructional Swim (as the sign at the swim bay reminds us - "you can't find a better sport to save your life") and he swam with a kickboard to the deep end of the pool escorted by two counselors.
At the end of the pool, they talked about him swimming back without the kickboard, but still with the escort.
This was a long discussion. The best estimate is that the three people (the boy, and the counselors) hung on the end of the pool for about 15 minutes. They saw that he wanted to try. They also saw his fear.
Inspiration strikes at the oddest times. It paid a visit to the counselors then.
They asked the boy about his favorite heroes.
"I love Batman."
"Do you know the story of Batman's origin?"
"I think so, but please tell me."
"Before he was Batman, Bruce Wayne had a crippling fear of bats. Once he decided to fight crime, he knew that he had to conquer his fear before he could conquer the bad guys. He chose to become a bat - to face his fears. When he did this, he became strong and brave."
After a moment of thought, he released himself from the end of the pool and swam back.
He then swam two more full laps.
He might not have been fighting crime, but he is a hero in my book!
Learning More Than Bargained For
This morning, the oldest boys' cabin was at the Outdoor Cooking Pavilion. In class, they learned how to make macaroni and cheese. They learned how to boil and strain pasta. They tried different types of cheeses. They also experimented with various toppings like potato chips, shallots and croutons.
They are older, more decisive and faster eaters. As a result, they finished 15 minutes early. The instructors (all college-aged woman) asked the 14 year-old boys what they would like to learn about before class ends. She suggested food safety, diet tips, cooking techniques.
They simply said "girls".
Let me start by saying that this story could go several ways at this point. I am delighted that it took the best possible direction. The women running the class are mature and caring. They are also really patient. The questions and comments came fast and furious:
"How the heck do I break out of the 'friend zone'?"
"They only like my sweet dance moves. If its not the Wednesday dance, they're not interested."
"When do you call? When do you text? When do you do neither?"
"How do I avoid getting stuck in stupid text conversations like 'what r u up 2?', 'nada', 'how bout u?', 'nada'?"
"How can I tell a girl its OK to hang up if we have nothing to talk about?"
"If I like a girl, why do her friends all suddenly think everything about me is fair game? I'm not dating them!"
"Why are girls so confusing?"
I will not bore you with all the answers, but I will tell you that the advice was solid. Here are the main points that the guys remembered later.
"False compliments do not help. Avoid at all costs."
"You will not ever understand teenage girls. Teenage girls do not understand teenage girls."
"Be kind and genuine. Eventually that is what the girls will value when they become women."
All that and a serving of Mac and Cheese sounds like a great hour to me!
Steve Sir
Every August after camp ends, we spend several days brainstorming ideas to improve camp. We read the parent surveys, share comments from our staff and make our own observations.
We then create a list of potential projects. From there, we call colleagues from other camps to ask about their summers. We read articles and we call experts.
After all of this, we come up with a final project list.
This year, it was ridiculous. Most of you already know about the physical improvements. I will not go into detail, but let me briefly outline them:
Whew! We have never taken on this many projects in one year. As you might imagine, we have been busy. During January, we had 5 different crews working at camp. We called it the Camp Champions’ Stimulus Program.
Tomorrow, I will tell you about a scheduling change we made this year that is making for a lot of happy campers!!!
Steve Sir
