As I mentioned in my first post, I've worked at a summer camp in the past. In both 2008 and 2009 I worked as a counsellor at a stay-over private camp up in Maine, set up specifically for teenagers. I have to watch how I phrase things here, because whilst I don't have a single bad thing to say about my time there I'm not so sure whether they'd appreciate me spreading their name around on the blogosphere.
Camp life in Maine is essentially a self-contained world of its own. The kids can stay at camp for 2, 4, 6 or 8 weeks, and the staff were there for about 10 weeks in total. With the nearest decent-sized town with a supermarket about 20 miles away as the crow flies (it took roughly 45 minutes to get there) we are pretty much cut off from the outside world. The camp is big enough to develop a sense of community, and after a few weeks camp is its own little 'bubble', with your trips to the outside world, either with kids on day trips or on your days off, feeling a little alien. You lose track of what day it is (my camp didn't run to a Mon-Fri calendar) and your knowledge of current affairs fades the longer you're there. Not that you care; camp news takes priority over world news, and there's always some kind of story going on at camp, whether it be needless gossip, an issue with a camper, or what's for lunch.
Day-to-day events run to the bell. On top of the camp office is a large-ish bell, and it’s rung throughout the day. It rings to wake people up at 8am, again and 8:30 to tell everyone to go for breakfast, at 9:15 to start the first activity of the day, and every activity throughout the day afterwards. It also rings for lunch, dinner, and to let everyone know that the evening’s entertainment is about to start and it’s also used for fire and storm alarms, of course. In fact the only daily occurrence you won’t hear the bell ring for is to tell everyone it’s time to turn the lights out and go to sleep. Both the staff and the kids live their life at camp by the bell; you always know what you’re meant to be doing and where you’re meant to be, it’s a regimented affair but that’s not necessarily a bad thing when working with kids.
My field of expertise (or at least what I think I'm ok at) is music, and my work at camp revolved around this. I play a handful of stringed instruments, from bass guitar to banjo, and my main daytime role at camp was instrument tuition! Before I went to camp for the first time this sounded like the perfect job, teaching music all day long, passing on my knowledge and experiences to musical rookies and veterans alike. What I didn't realise is this rose-tinted view, whilst very much achievable, actually requires a good deal of prior preparation. I'd never taught properly before, and my teaching theory was going to be 'the open class'. My lessons were to be an open slate - I found out what my students wanted to learn and we worked on that, rather than me laying down the curriculum! And for a class of advanced students in a workshop scenario it would probably have worked a treat, but I wasn't teaching advanced guitarists. I was teaching intermediate guitarists and beginner bass players, kids who needed guidance before freedom, and I was completely stumped. Plan B didn't exist, I had no prior teaching experience, so it was very much a case of improvising as I went along, and doing my best to make sure my students learnt something. Teaching sounds like an enjoyable pursuit, but without any training or past experience of it, it's actually terrifying. Confidence, or at least giving the aura of confidence, is so important in teaching, and when you're bumbling through your lessons like I was you simply don't have said confidence. Come my second year it was completely different, of course. I was experienced at teaching groups of teenagers, confident in myself, and I had material to work on if my students weren't as adventurous as I'd anticipated.
My other role in the daytime was to teach bands. Teach isn’t really the right word for it, it’s more like coaching really. Campers who would like to play in a band are pooled into groups and given 3 weeks to rehearse for a live show, and as part of the music staff I’ll be given one or two of these bands to lead. I might simply be acting in the capacity of a manager, guiding them, helping organize things. Or I could be more of a tutor and coach, motivating and helping them learn their parts, gelling the group together. Sometimes you’d take on a role in the band itself; I’m a bass player first and foremost and as a rule of thumb we’re a rare breed these days, so I was often drafted in to bands who couldn’t find a camper willing to play bass. I don’t mind doing it at all, though it does feel sometimes that it’s not exactly what the kids really want.
In the evenings we would put shows on for the campers, called evening programs. With some good planning and teamwork we could put on pretty much anything, from a movie night, to a disco, to a live music night. My music roles at camp continue in these evening programs as I head one of the two teams of sound engineers, nicknamed the SWAT teams. It’s pretty simple work, just setting up a PA, monitoring it through the show, and putting it away again at the end of the night. It’s one of the few jobs in evening program that needs to be done pretty much every night, though some night’s work are bigger than others. For the SWAT team, the night on which the bands get to perform, called the live dance, is the biggest night of the summer. It’s our chance to show off, to demonstrate what we’ve been doing all summer, just how the theatre department has their stage performances; the art department has their arts show, etc. We do our best to make the show as big as possible; we bring out the biggest speaker rig, dynamic lighting gear, and large stages, so the campers have as much room to strut their stuff as possible. Weather permitting, we’ll even set the show up outside, which produces an atmosphere like no other on the night.
I’ll stop this one here before it gets a bit too long. In my next post I’ll write about the other side of summer camp – the time off.
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