“I have a conviction that a few weeks spent in a well organized summer camp may be of more value educationally than a whole year of formal school work.”

-Charles Eliot, the 21st president of Harvard University

 

Imagine my surprise when I found out that the first time I would be blogging would be about summer camps! Needless to say I was pretty excited. Summer camps have made me the person who I am today. I owe my family, my career and the majority of my friends to summer camp. Every value that you want a young child to develop I have gotten from camp. I know that you are probably thinking that the camps I have been a part of since I was two years old (never missing a summer in the past 33 years), and the camps that Mr. Khan has been a part of, are very different. And if you define camps by looking at the brochure, I will agree with you. However, camps are more than a brochure. What Charles Eliot is speaking about in the quote above is not the games you play or the robots that you build. What he is talking about is the lesson that you learn and what you take away from your summer experiences. I do not keep going back to camp summer after summer because I run a cool sports program. I keep going back to camp because of the impact that it has on the campers, something that I saw first hand with Joie this summer. The power of camp is real; she still talks about her counselors, group mates and other directors. However, I feel that Khan missed the real connection between his program and camp. The fact that students/campers are given more than what meets the eye. Banner Day Camp (where I work) meets the eye test. You walk around and see the beautiful grounds and you see the cool actives, and the campers and counselors engaged with each other having a fun time. However, just by walking around you do see the true impact camp has on everybody who is a part of it. I can tell you a million stories of camp success, as simple as a girl who when down the water slide from the first time, or as complex as the girl who’s Dad fought for custody over his ex-wife because he realized that his daughter was being mentally abused and neglected. She came to camp on day 1 very shy and timid, not wanting to make friends or trust the female staff. That same girl was in tears clinging to her counselor on the last day of camp not wanting to leave her or her new friends. She left camp that summer an outgoing, fun loving girl, who was able to enjoy life and trusted the people around her. That was 7 years ago, I still see her Dad and he still thanks me for “giving him his little girl back”. Camp makes an impact on people to try new things, leave their comfort zones. Speaking for myself, just writing this blog is facing a fear. Growing up with dyslexia and other learning disabilities I am not a confident writer. I have no problem lip singing, “Let it go” or rewriting the words to “Sorry” for an overnighter commercial to perform in front of 1,000 people. But writing an email to 40 adults scares me, but I am able to put my head down, write a post (proof read a little) because of the lessons I have learned at camp, that you won’t get better at something unless you try. And that is a lesson I try to teach our students every day. We might not be doing something in class that is your strong suit, but that is not a reason to give in, or not try something you might enjoy.

 

Khan used his camps as an experiment for his ideas, I feel that he missed out on the real experiment of camp and the connections to academics. He tends to talk about the effect that it had on his academy. At the end of the chapter, he says “I was keenly aware that if Khan academy was to be seen as a legitimate option for classroom education, it would have to prove its value as part of a formal curriculum during the academic school year.” (p152) That is not a reason to have fun at camp. I think the true connections are what he says earlier in the chapter “learning by doing. Learning by having productive, mind-expanding fun.” (pg.149-150). That is a true camp experience. And that is what students are looking for and want from their education. They want to do and create. They want to guide their own learning. They want to find new and exciting ways to educate themselves. The world around them is moving at an alarmingly fast rate, information is literally in the palm of their hands. Students today are sounded by new and exciting. As educators we need to keep up. We need to set the bar, not struggle to live up to it. As educators we get stuck in our ways. At camp we are never satisfied about where we are. We are always trying to figure out what can we improve on, and not for next summer, for after lunch. If something isn’t right at camp, we fix it, right there on the spot. That is the camp mentality and it would work great on school setting. Which is to give our campers the best experience we can give them at that moment.

 

In conclusion, camp is a place where you learn about yourself. Leaving your comfort zone, exploring new ideas and realizing who you are. He was able to help create a special place where those campers got more than just what was written on the brochure. Khan said it earlier in the book, “Formal education must change. It needs to be brought into closer alignment with the world as it actually is; in closer harmony with the way human beings actually learn and thrive.” (p 11). Camps have been making a positive influence on children forever, teaching them lessons that they will be able to use for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t matter if that camper is three years old at camp for the first time or a 35 year old director finishing his 20 year as a staff member, camp is a full of positive life changing/ life challenges that will help define who you are.