ACA’s 20/20 Vision

I am carefully watching and monitoring all of the discussions around school ‘transformation’.  I agree, year round learning is imperative.  However, I do not agree with the concept of traditional year round school.  It seems odd to me that at a time when we are candidly discussing the woes of our current, traditional school system - we are also talking about sending kids to school longer.

When I worked in state government, we noticed that  young people who got in trouble  either went into the mental health system or the juvenile justice system.  The choice between the two systems was, more often than not, based on ‘access’.  Access to money and influence sent the young person into the mental health system.  If a young person lacked ‘access’, they went into the juvenile justice system.

I fear the same may happen to young people today.  If a young person has ‘access’, their parents will secure ‘enrichment’ opportunities for them - such as camp.  If not, they will stay in school - year round.  Of course, I know this is a gross assessment of the situation but nonetheless worth consideration. 

Two of our oldest institutions are schools and prisons.  I am not suggesting they are one in the same but both are clearly in need of reform.  Let’s not warehouse children and youth in either institution without understood intentionality.  Human development is progressive with a number of ages and stages each with significant import related to healthy adulthood.  Play is developmental in that it allows one to practice being an adult.  Enrichment programs, such as camp, that have been designed to allow young people to play, practice, explore, and experience new actitivites in a safe environment that is intentional and replete with supportive relationships are critical to human development.  Leadership, environmental stewardship, life skills, health and wellness habits, and experiential education that are designed to support and complement academic achievement are cornerstones of the camp community.  Appreciation of the arts and literature (including song), social skills and contribution, citizenship and community responsiblity, physical and emotional health, as well as opportunities to practice critical thinking are important components of a positive camp experience.  These competencies are still important to the American public.  Kids should have the chance to exercise these rights in environments that have demonstrated success.  If we are going to invest dollars - let’s send more kids to enrichment programs like camp.

Why would more parents want to send their children to camp?  Why would more youth serving professionals want to join ACA?  I believe there are many positive, legtimate responses to those questions.  Let me share one that, for me, has surfaced in the past couple of weeks.  We are a professional community that contributes to the greater good.

Kids ‘gather’.  It is developmental, that is what they do.  In a world that has parents fearful of so many things; child abduction, disease, drugs, and the list goes on and on -  I, as one of those parents, would prefer my child ‘gather’ in a community that has prepared for health and safety issues and is precautionary by design - camp.

For instance, this summer camps, parents, health officicals, and campers are learning important lessons in the management of the ‘influenza-like’ virus.  The awareness and development of positive wellness habits are taking place across the country in camps.  Not only does this illustrate the power of collaborative relationships  dedicated to the health and safety of children but demonstrates our shared belief that  ’kids should still be able to be kids’.  Better yet, this fall millions of campers and parents will be returning to their schools in possession of well understood and practiced wellness habits that will only help manage the spread of the influenza-like virus when the ‘real’ flu season decends upon us.  Value, today and tomorrow.

The camp community is a preparedness community practicing protective behaviors and relationships.  A place of value where professionals want to share and learn best practice and, yes, where kids want to ‘gather’.

I was having an email exchange with an ACA member this week-end about learning and education.  It was noted that it was important to find people who had, in fact, made mistakes and had learned from those mistakes because they would already be 3 steps ahead of the beginner. Not a failure but an advantage.  We realized the camp community does that for campers.  Maybe we are not so much an educational institution but maybe even more importantly we create a learning culture - a community where teaching and learning comes from everyone.  Kirsten Olson the author of Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and STanding Up to Old School Culture has done some interesting writing about the culture of learning.  She talks about encouraging reflection, innovation, and even mistakes.  Those opportunities are abundant at camp.  We, as professionals, should afford the same from one another - acknowledge ’screw ups’ and instead of blaming collaborate on lessons learned and identifying new solutions.  If we would dare to do so we might find we are 3 steps ahead of the next guy.

A Love Letter to Camp,

I have a poster on my wall at work that says, “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”   Webster indicates that a dream can be defined as a “fond hope”.  Many of us spend our life reaching for a vision with the dream it will be realized.  Maybe that is the essence of life.

Many of us in the camp community share a dream that more children will have a camp experience.  To me, that is a worthy dream.  Yet, the journey we must take to realize that dream is invisible to many.

There are warning signs on the road to any vision.  The first warning sign tells us that vision is nothing without execution.  The second warning tells us that a vision is not for the weak of heart.

A worthy vision takes time, sacrifice, patience, persistence, failure, endurance, humility, and did I mention – time?  Oh, and dare I fail to mention, messiness.  And, how we hate messiness.

Yet, with time, deliberate or not, intentional or not, change does come.  Sometimes it is revolutionary.  Hmm, note the relationship between revolt and revolution.  But, let’s not go there.  Other times, change is an evolution often unseen over time.  Then there is transformative change.  Transformative change is often related to survival.  Regardless, change is a part of life.

LA Times writer Rosa Parks said, “Somehow we’ve managed to turn childhood into one long, hard slog”.  What kind of change is she describing?  I would suggest it has been unseen, overtime – an evolution.  As a result, many parents are unaware of how radical the change in childhood.

If true, what did we forget that allowed this change in childhood to take place?

Did we forget that for generations we grew up outside.  We walked to school.  We rode our bikes all over town.  We splashed in creeks.  We ran barefoot.  We played in the dirt.  We collected bugs.  We shared childhood characteristics such as; innocence, energy, wonder, and laughter.  (Did you know that children laugh 4 times more than adults?)  We even thought that the notion of being cooped up all day inside was a form of punishment.  Yet, today, kids spend 44.5 hours in front of a screen – with minimal movement.  The world has 22 million children under the age of 5 who are obese.  The term ‘globesity’ has been coined to define the problem.   We no longer grow up outside.

What else have we forgotten? I believe we have abandoned childhood and the appreciation of the fact that play is legitimate and developmental.  In fact, it is critical to positive child/youth development.  The American Academy of Pediatrics has declared that play is essential to the development of cognitive, physical, social, and emotional health.”  Yet, as a parent, I no longer feel I have permission to view play as a positive use of my child’s time.  Play has become a bad 4 letter word.

Doesn’t the loss of play present a threat?  Experts across the country talk about the fact that we are ‘retreating indoors’.  I fear, we are losing opportunities to create memories.  Memories of fishing, swimming, hiking, and exploring.  We may be forgetting that our best computer is our brain and our memory is the storage bin for knowledge and experiences.

David Elkind calls what is happening the ‘criminalization of childhood’.  Look at the number of schools that have eliminated recess, physical education, art, and music.  Consider the number of national campaigns that are teaching fear instead of responsible safety.

All of this impacts the camp community.  Retreating indoors, lack of appreciation for play and its developmental value, and our general, unspoken fear of one another is the antithesis of the camp community. As a result, the camp experience risks becoming  something to fear, the unknown, and the unfamiliar.  We are faced with a shrinking population with the ‘memory’ of camp.  As a society we are altering our DNA, our genetic code for the camp experience.

Yet, I understand.  Parents are raising their children in a very complex world.  Children and youth are trying to navigate a different world than the one in which their parents grew up.  Of course, this has always been true except today the speed of change is causing continuous modifications of the landscape.  It is not easy.

All of this said, it is also true that there is no better time than now to actualize our vision, our dream, and our preferred future – more children having better camp experiences.  The camp community may well, in fact, offer greater value to the lives of children, youth, and adults than ever before in our history.

Consider the fact that we are leaving our children the legacy of saving the planet.  Yet, we are doing so without giving them firsthand knowledge of the intrinsic value and beauty of the natural world.  We are also becoming a global community with disappearing boundaries where the ability to negotiate conflicts and differences will be paramount.  At the same time we are diminishing opportunities where children can learn how to establish authentic relationships,  practice and learn to ‘get along’ with others, communicate in order to enhance understanding, and learn to listen.

Daniel Pink who wrote A Whole New Mind says that IQ only accounts for between 4% and 10% of one’s success in the world.  His book suggests we are entering a conceptual age where humor, storytelling, the ability to synthesize disparate pieces of information and knowledge in order to see the ‘bigger picture’, relationships and empathy, and meaning based on purpose and spirituality are going to be critical competencies for this generation and the next.  This describes a quality camp experience.

So, what do you do as camp professionals?  First, understand that you are the “Field Guide to Childhood”.  You know how to do this work.  Learn to clearly articulate and translate the value of the camp experience in order to illustrate how it adds value to the success of individuals, communities, and the world.  Adopt a philosophy of abundance.  We are not operating from a deficit model or one of prevention or intervention.  Instead, we are operating from a position of promotion – promotion of an individual’s strengths and assets.  As parents, trust your intuition and give yourself permission to support childhood. Be prepared to actively participate in a transformative change in how our culture views childhood, play, and the camp experience!

I often feel a level of discontent, even on a good day.  Then, I question, but am I destitute? Is there a difference?  Yes.  We can feel discontented about any of the brutal facts or realities of our past and/or what we face today and still not be destitute.  We can feel a level of discontent while, at the same time,  recognize irresitible opportunities and potentialities for the future.  That combination does not define ‘destitute’.  Instead, I believe it illustrates great power.  Often, people ask me to convince them of the need to change based on logic, reasonableness, and facts - to eliminate all  their fears and unknowns.  People ask for  proof of future success like one could possess a crystal ball.  However, I do believe our path  becomes less opaque when facts and faith share the same space.    But it is when you add passion to facts and faith that you can begin to truly evoke a sense of purpose and worth.  When I envision more children and youth going to camp, I see that being accomplished using passion, faith, and facts.

I have spent several days responding to the H1N1 issue.  It occurs to me that having a collective, professional voice is an asset.  Our ability to have partners such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Camp Nurses is an asset. The ability to tell parents that if they have chosen an ACA accredited camp that they can be assured that camp has established screening procedures for illness, injury, and communicable diseases  - is an asset.  We have developed these assets, and more,  for nearly a 100 years.  It is situations like this one that can only suggest to us that it is very important that ACA, as an associaton, does what it needs to do in order to remain strong and relevant.

When I was a kid, like  most kids, I spent a great deal of time wishing for things.  Wish I had new shoes.  Wish I had a new bike.  Wish I was as pretty, popular, or  smart as the person I was jealous of on that particular day.  My mom used to respond, “Wishing won’t make it so.”  She’d always tell me hard work, scarifice,  and a dose of good luck would get me a lot closer to all of my wishes.

Here I am, an adult, still wishing.  I wish more people recognized the value of the camp experience.  I wish more parents sent their children to camp.  I wish more donors would think of the camp experience and ACA when writing checks.  And, my mom is still whispering in my ear, “Wishing won’t make it so.”

So, what kind of hard work and scarifice will help us facilitate the change needed to bring the camp community transformative value in the next century?  There are so many challenges.  There are obstacles that will be difficult for us to directly influence:  the economy, the changing marketplace, and societal values.  That said we can most certainly address those challenges from a position of intentionality and well-articulated strength.  Yet, directly impacting a significant change in those areas is limited, if not impossible.  On the other hand, one of our challenges is the unintended consequences that some of our dated structure and processes have on our unrealized and undervalued potential.  I do believe we can have a direct and significant impact on that challenge.  And, as mom says, “with a good dose of luck” who knows what we can achieve?

At the end of the day,  it is all about more and better.  We use so many words that attempt to define our structure, processes, bureacracies, services, members, etc.  And, it is true, I love words.  Words are great building blocks for learning.  But when you stack blocks far too high they often topple over.  Often, lofty goals are described with simplicity so they don’t crumble under their own weight.  Hence, more and better.  More kids and better camps.  Yikes, again the motto on the ACA fireplace - Better camping for all. 

So, in this light, I was talking to several staff members today about how many kids have a camp experience today.  Well, so many questions full of ‘words’.  Well do we mean traditional camps or the plethora of camps parents send their children today?  Are we talking ‘quality’ experiences - or not?  Are we talking kids or does the diversity of the campers matter?  Are we already at 20 million kids if it is just about more?  Suddenly, the purpose of the 2020 vision, the movement, and cause of more and better was crumbling under the weight of the literal translations.  I wondered if the math was more important than the cause?  I wondered if the call to action - the name - 2020 vision - was more important than the cause itself.  Is it important, or not, to see that more children receive better camp experiences today and tomorrow? Okay, fine - we will call it 2020 squared, if we find it necessary.

I was ‘re-scanning’ the book, The World is Flat.  I do that from time to time - go back and revisit books I have enjoyed.  Every time I do so, I find another gem or something that speaks to me in a way it had not previously.

So, I am looking at the book and found this paragraph. “Therefore, thinking about how we stimulate positive imaginations is of the utmost importance.  As Irving Wladawsky-Berger, the IBM computer scientist, put it to me: We need to think more seriously htan ever about how we encourage people to focus on productive outcomes that advance and unit civiliation - peaceful imaginations that seek to “minimize alienation and celebrate interdependence rather than self-sufficiency, inclusion rather than exclusion,” openness, opportunity, and hope rather than limits, suspicion, and grievance.”

Wow, does that speak to ACA’s current angst, or not, with 2020?  Not easy, just not easy.  It demands we work from a philosophy of abundance rather than scarcity during very difficult times. The character of our human imagination will be tested.

I was driving home last night and, as I so often do, i found myself composing thoughts.  I started thinking about how important, critical the emerging camp professional is to ACA and future campers.  We so need their leadership, energy, and MOJO.  They are the ones with true 2020 vision.  They have already eliminated barriers, boundaries, borders, and baggage.  They have already moved beyond culture, class, and color.  We need their insights and guidance - maybe my old eyes don’t see things as clearly as a young set of eyes.  Sure, I have experience to offer but without clear vision there are limitations even with a dream.  I believe their vision can provice a sapce for us to create affinities, alliances, and networks that are bound by shared values and purpose.  I believe combined with experience, they can help us build a fabric so strong that it can edure our own wear and tear.