Riding Very Fast: Extreme Summer Camp, Take 1

On my first day at Mount Holyoke, I received a binder with the words “If you jump in, you may ride very fast.” The words were exciting, but it took years for me to truly understand why it is the perfect quote with which to begin any new venture, academic or otherwise. Throughout my three years of college (that’s how fast I rode-I graduated a year early), I jumped into all sorts of things: classes, theatre, spoken word, blogging, weight training, waitressing, child care, history, intergroup dialogues, volunteering, crappy Chinese takeout, archival research, bus rides to nowhere in particular. In the six years since, I’ve tried keeping up the momentum, but find that my enthusiasm for many things is rarely shared by the people I work with. My 2016 resolution was to recapture the joy I used to find in meaningful work-and how the universe has cooperated. Today, we wrapped up our first ever summer camp at VLC and my god, did we ever jump in with both feet!

Real play, like real life, is messy and imperfect. Respectful child care combined with real play means there are bound to be imperfections. There will be disagreements, last minute crises, scraped knees and calloused fingers. There will be uncertainty and doubt and sometimes, tears. There will be worry that we should be doing more, doing less, doing better. Play is life and at VLC, we’re trying to teach life, not just to children, but to ourselves. I’ve always heard nice things about how teachers learn more from their students than the other way round, but never truly experienced it. Sure, I’ve loved all my history students and I’ve learned interesting things from them here and there, but I’m pretty sure I spent most of the last few years talking about the Russian Revolution and Paris Peace Treaties and checking essays against mark schemes. We’re only three weeks into the summer and I can safely say every member of the team has learned more about themselves and each other than they expected they would. Here is a list of reflections, partly because I love lists, mostly because I am dead beat after a full day of Real Play and cannot do eloquent paragraphs.

1. Bring some spirit and half the job is done. In previous jobs, I learned a version of this lesson: teaching is 50% theatre. But if teaching high schoolers is about being 50% cool enough and 50% actually knowledgable about my subject, then teaching preschoolers is about being completely comfortable with being a huge dork. I have never been less cool in my life. I’ve worn silly hats, sung Mr Knickerbocker in a Barney voice, wiggled my behind to the Hokey Pokey with ten parents watching. I’ve done storytime as Tullu the Ullu and high fived people for tying their shoelaces. Enthusiasm is infectious and it’s important.
2. Quiet and calm are underrated-and difficult to achieve. In my quest to help create the most over the top, crazy fun experience children have ever had (or “extreme summer camp” as we called it), I let my imagination run wild. This translated into a fast and furious whirlwind of kid-approved activities-108 in all. Let that sink in for a moment. A hundred. And. Eight. Some of the kids thrived in this environment. Others loved it for a while but eventually withdrew, gravitating towards the quiet pretend play areas away from the chaos. Some kids got more and more wound up and consequently, louder with every passing moment. It was through observing my own child at home, after camp, that it hit me that maybe this approach was just a little too MUCH. I’ve always found it incredibly difficult to stop Doing and in spite of practicing yoga, find Just Being overrated. My primary school teachers were sure I had ADHD, with my constant wiggling around, nonstop questions, complete inability to sit quietly and complete a worksheet. Karma has brought things full circle now that I have a toddler who is exactly like I was. I can channel my energy now into cerebral activities-my brain is hard to switch off even now-but he doesn’t know how. A summer camp designed by a mother who is just like him was sometimes too explosive a combination. It inspired me to add a wind-down yoga and mindfulness routine for the kids, to carefully consider how I can keep our preschool days slow-paced and calm and most of all, to acknowledge the ants in my pants may need a little calming down themselves.
3. Preparation is everything, but so is improvisation. I am endlessly impressed by one of my colleagues’ capacity for working and working and working on something until it is exactly the way it should be, no cutting corners. That is everything. But I’ve also learned I’m pretty good at thinking on my feet and coming up with alternative actvities, games, yoga routines, stories, conversations, when things don’t go as expected. Moral of the story? Do your homework, but go with the flow.
4. It’s human nature to be drawn to the kids who are chirpy, confident, fully engaged in the activity of the day, but it is not our job to enjoy those children while ignoring the introverted ones scattered around the room. It is also not our job to drag them into the activity we may have designed with a great deal of love. It is difficult to find a balance between giving kids space and encouraging them to join the class at a pace they are comfortable with. It is difficult setting limits that make kids feel safe while respecting their need for exploration. It is difficult catering to kids with vastly different temperaments, abilities and interests all at the same time. But hey, nobody said it would be easy.
5. Kids can do amazing things when you respect them enough to leave them alone. The more you trust them, the more trustworthy they become. I’ve had several opportunities to observe how this works in the past couple of weeks. In our first week, I was watching a free play session when a seven year old came up to me complaining that somebody had taken her instruments without asking. I asked her if she had tried talking to the kid who did it and she just blinked at me, expecting me to jump in and direct that he return the toys. “You must be frustrated. Why don’t you go tell him how you feel and work out a solution?” I suggested, half expecting that my feeble, well intentioned attempt would be laughed at. She disappeared. I saw a conversation happen. They worked it out and ten minutes later I had a couple of beaming kids who had just learned something about conflict management. On other occasions, this was a messier process. I saw a couple of two year olds battling over a single bucket of colored water. Unsure about who got there first, I had to restrain myself from breaking up the fight. It escalated into squeals and looked like one would yank the other’s hair. I called out something about using quiet hands and kind words, which they predictably ignored. But much to my surprise, in a couple of minutes that felt terribly long to me (itching as I was to intervene), one was holding the bucket and the other was pouring water into it. Unencumbered by adults yelling at them to share, they had figured out how to share. Our entire camp was an exercise in letting kids explore their own abilities. There were times when we failed. There were kids who slipped through the cracks-literally, kids wandering out of rooms to do their own thing until a volunteer spotted and engaged them. There were times when teachers, conditioned by years of living in a society that treats children like performing monkeys, implored them to join in, or worse, OBEY. I cringed at those moments, but teachers, like kids, need to figure things out for themselves. A few heart checks and a conversation is usually all it takes to get adults back on track, thankfully.

I have a treasure trove of anecdotes, memories and lessons from this camp, but it’s these five lessons that will carry us through our July session stronger, smarter and better prepared. I would like to say carry us through slower, because good God, am I tired, but it’s too late. I’ve jumped in, and I am riding very fast.