posted
As some of you know, I spent the summer working as a camp counsellor. I had an amazing time and my head is still swimming from all the new experiences and exciting moments the summer had to offer. My life has changed in so many ways that I can't even beging to describe them... but I'll try.
In mid-March, I started dating a great girl named Julie. She and I got on really well, and life was grand. I soon came to realize, however, that she was going to be leaving for the summer. She had spent the past three summers working at a summercamp as a counsellor. I didn't want our relationship to be put on hold, so I had her contact her boss and send me some information about working at his camp.
The more and more Julie and I discussed the upcoming summer, the more and more excited I became about working there. I reflected on my Mother's stories on being a counsellor, and Julie kept me up late with crazy camp stories. I was more than sure that I wanted to do this, and I applied for the position.
Jeff, the camp director, came down and personally interviewed me at the local Baker's Square (I had Strawberry-Rhubarb pie.) He gave me a frank and honest picture of what camp would be like. He also ran me through a lot of real-life scenarios albiet the extreme version of each) and I did my best in those (one was next to unanswerable.) He took a shining to me, and I was hired on the spot.
June 5th eventually rolled around, and I arrived at camp. Everything was really weird at first. I had no idea where anything was nor did I know anyone apart from Julie. This is pretty much where my problems with her started. See, I really needed her company (I hadn't seen her it two weeks,) but she felt more inclined to either spend time with her friends or to hide away for massive I-time (I=introvert, which she is in the extreme.) So, I had to make my own way with the large group of strangers around me.
Slowly, people started to arrive and I felt less and less alone in being the new guy. About half of the summer's staff were returning from the previous year. The camp also gets a bunch of staff every year from Camp Counsellors USA. CCUSA recruits internationals from many different countries to come and work for the summer at a camp in the US. We ended up getting two Russians, a Pole, three New Zealanders (including a Maori,) an Aussie and two South Africans. They all had their weird quirks and the like, but we came to love all of them (even the Aussie .)
So, after the first day, we had 10 days of intensive staff training. The director wanted to do his best to equip us for the difficult task of being Mom and Dad to eight young strangers for six, consecutive 24-hour periods. We also had to learn different saftey rules for the kitchen and maintenance areas because we'd be working there while we weren't counselling.
So, the first week of summer camp, the camp is taken over by the Muscular-Dystrophe Association for their annual summer camp. The kids are great, but MDA gets their own counsellors. These young people have their priorities totally screwed up. It seems to me that a lot of them were there to have camp-type fun and not to help their kids have camp-type fun. Also, a bunch of them seemed more interested in picking up members of the opposite sex than in keeping watch over their campers. So, those of us who have a vested interest in being good counsellors had to sit quietly while we watched them break every camp rule and do everything wrong.
Anyways, the week after MDA, we started up regular, Pilgrim Center-style camp. I didn't get to counsel that week, but I had plenty of time to watch everyone else interact with their kids and make some observations.
The week that followed was my first week as a counsellor. I had a pretty good group of kids, and I got to know all of them. They were Juniors, or 11-12 year-olds. However, I had one kid who nearly drove me insane. It wasn't that he was stubborn or anything like that. It was the unpredictability of his behaviour that drove me nuts. One minute he'd be cooperative and talkative and he'd be adding a lot to the dynamic of our group. Then he'd start cutting himself with scissors and hitting himself in the head and refusing to eat- it was almost more than I could handle. The thing that I learned that week was to give the problematic kids the attention they're seeking, but to not ignore the good kids. I made sure to reinforce their good behaviour and to spend time talking with them and getting to know them too. It made it a much better week overall. I don't think my boss knows how much trouble that camper could have been compared to how he was. The only time that Jeff saw this particular camper was after he hit a couple of boys and once when he absolutely refused to do something and I couldn't get him to budge even after an hour of discussion. I still had a great week, though.
After that week, camp shifted into high gear for me. I counselled three more camps before everything ended. One camp was a Junior camp like the first. I had the dream camper that week. He was one of the sweetest and well-behaved children I have ever met. He's definitely counsellor-material. I then had a Junior High camp that was rife with purple-ing (boys=blue girl=red red+blue=purple.) I had a girl who let another camper feel her up right in front of everyone while the counselling staff was having a meeting with the volunteer JH camp director. That same girl also ran through my cabin while I wasn't there several times. Oy! The last camp I had was intermediates- who are 9-10 year-olds. They were great kids, but so damn stubborn. They were also really really loud, but I had a lot of fun with them.
The last three days of camp were spent cleaining pretty much everything. I was on Team Floor. We had the duty of cleaning the floors of every building on camp with the floor scrubber and then moving all the furniture back in. We were a great team and everyone got along well and worked really hard. The floor scrubber is a scary piece of equipment, but the two guys on the crew (myself and Jeff Y.) were really confident in it's use and were able to get the girls, who were, sadly, completely afraid of the machine, to operate it and operate it out of their own desire to scrub. Those were probably the quickest 3 days of solid cleaning I've ever been through.
That's all I can really think of to say at this point. I'm full of all kinds of anecdotes that will probably crop up later. I also learned a lot about acceptance, patience and how to deal with children this summer. Those aren't lessons I'm going to forget anytime soon.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
I've heard that people who go to camp have an extremely strong association with it for the rest of their lives. On talk radio one guy said, "It's like the world is divided into two different kinds of people: those who went to camp, and those who didn't."
Sounds like you were a good councelor, Glynn. Going next year?
Posts: 7600 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Although I cannot commit to going again, I have every intention of doing so. I loved my experience and want to repeat it. It's just that it's 9 months away and I have no idea where I will be in that time. I may be in Colorado, living with my parents.
posted
Oh, and I learned how to sail this summer. After that experience, I'll never look at a speed boat with lust again.
Now a Hobie Cat... <drool>
I think I'll probably go out on Lake Michigan a couple of times before summer runs out. I just need to find a place that will let me use a good boat for a few hours.
What was the purpose of your post? Are you saying that you'd rather give your kids over to completely untrained college students with little to no idea what to expect and how to behave with children?
Did I mention that the training covered such incredibly important topics as the proper way to discipline problematic children within the confines of a teacher-student relationship (which is how our role is really defined) or, because we have high school students and really young college students and it's not unknown for people to be attracted to very young children <shivers>, where to draw the line in romantic relationships with campers- which is, you aren't supposed to have any.
The training was very important but very dull. If we ran the camp that way for the children, we would never get campers back.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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