During my summers, I work at a computer camp called TIC Summer Camp (it stands for Throwing Incendiary Coconuts – no, not really, but that’s what I tell the kids), teaching Java and Python to campers ages 7-15. I already teach during the school year, so why would I spend my entire summer vacation doing yet more teaching? Because campers and students are fundamentally different.
The sole concern of a camper is to have fun.
When I’m teaching school, the students have all sorts of goals and expectations flitting around in their minds. To catch the eye of their crush. To maintain an established social persona. To meet their parents’ academic expectations. To meet their own academic expectations. To get into college, or else. To psych up for their big lacrosse match after school. To take good notes. To use my class to frantically study for the test they’ve got next period. To sprint headlong into adulthood.
But summer camp induces something magical. When a kid goes from being a student to being a camper, his entire mindset changes. His goal is to have fun, period. His expectation is to have fun. He is entitled to have fun. Every action he performs will go towards the goal of having fun. He’s not in school, no longer a slave to the social image he has meticulously groomed for the benefit of his classmates. It matters much less if he gets in trouble, or goofs off, or doesn’t retain information — he is not getting graded, and nothing goes on his “permanent record.” There are no tests he has to ace. There is still, at many camps, pressure to perform, but that comes from mostly intrinsic motivation: the child’s own competitive spirit allowed to flourish outside of the breakneck, cutthroat academic rat race, the camper wanting to perform in a way he can be proud of, the camper wanting to be creative because creativity is fun. There is no massive, life-altering consequence for not performing. The only consequence for not performing is boredom.
And in this glorious environment, I get to teach! The mind of the average camper is so much more receptive than that of the average student! My campers do not dread camp, the way some may dread school, or at least approach school with anxiety and trepidation. They come to camp willingly. They look forward to it every morning and go home every evening grinning. They are completely open to learning everything I have to teach them, because they believe it will be fun. They share my excitement about the material… I don’t have to give them that excitement; they come in with it already.
Do reluctant and difficult campers exist? Of course they do! I’ve definitely worked with my share of campers who cannot sit still, and would rather run around the room or play games or goof off than learn programming or work on their projects. I’ve worked with campers whose fun-having style is to antagonize the authority figure (me) in every effective way they can discover. But on some level, every camper realizes that I’m not just another teacher, parent, adult. They are at a Fun-Having Facility, and I am their designated Fun-Having Guide. On some level, every camper is at least open to the possibility that I might have some fun to offer them. That I might, in fact, be able to teach them how to have fun more effectively. Even if I have to spend the entire camp session corralling and wrangling a particular camper, telling him over and over again that what he’s doing is not the best idea, begging and pleading with him to sit down and write some code, at the end of the session, to my amazement, he still reports having enjoyed his experience, reports liking me, and wants to come back next summer and have me as his counselor again. If you’re a teacher, and you can’t convince a student to study and pay attention and learn, you haven’t done your job. But as a camp counselor, even if there’s nothing you can do to control the behavior of a hyperactive and disinterested camper, that inevitable grin on his face at the end of the day still says “Thank you. You are a positive influence in my life. I may not remember how to write a ‘for each’ loop, but I will remember to associate programming… with you… with fun.”
This is why I love camp. And this is why I will happily allow campers to do anything they want to my face with a marker.
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