Lessons from Camp

My son just returned from four days at a camp called Author Quest, run by renowned thriller author Johnathan Rand. It was, as he put it, "the best thing I've ever done in my life". We were apprehensive, as most parents would be, to send our young son away to camp in the woods for four days with people we didn't really know. Nevertheless, it could not have been a better experience. From this opportunity, both he and his parents learned some valuable lessons that I think are applicable to schools.

When we dropped our son off, and when we picked him up, one of the things that struck me was the "openness" of the other campers and the counselors. These kids were remarkably willing to put themselves "out there" in ways that are uncommon in many classrooms today. Certainly a level of trust is involved, and one of the campers in attendance filmed a segment for the camp's website in which he said he loved being around other kids who were just like him. He didn't mean kids who were the same age, height, ethnicity or religion - I think he meant kids who were creative, intellectually curious, willing to take risks, and excited to learn.

In the development of American schools, there has long been an argument on the pros and cons of "tracking" or segregating by ability. Most current achievement gap research suggests that such segregation is detrimental to overall success of schools, and for the most part, my personal experiences verify that belief. High performing students may perform exceptionally well in segregated, tracked classrooms, but low performing students need model students and positive peer examples to be successful. I have read research that indicates high performing students can also benefit by being in classrooms with students of lesser ability if the classes are well structured. Peer mentoring and tutoring allows high performing students the opportunity to reinforce that which they know by assisting in the learning process of others. The adage that one doesn't really know something until he or she has taught it certainly has some truth.

Which brings us back to my son's fellow camper who loved being where the kids were "like him"...

The clear lesson I took from this camper's comments, my son's experiences, and my observations was that the trait that was shared by the kids at Author Quest that made them immediately drawn to one another is that they were all enthusiastic and intellectually curious. So often today, educators face the challenge of apathy. Students are apathetic, and sometimes parents are equally so. The art of teaching in today's Twitterized world is really engagement as much as instruction. Teachers face greater and greater challenges in engaging students than ever before, and unless students are engaged, they will not be active learners. We have to cultivate classroom experiences that somehow make all the students feel that their peers are "like them" in their enthusiasm for learning.

Our focus has to continue to be inquiry and project based learning that taps into student interests to engage them in a learning process that tweaks their intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm to learn. Author Quest was a great reminder that when kids are engaged in something, there can be some amazing moments both for the learners and the instructors.

Finally, one of the things that I noticed when picking up my son was the parent support for these kids. All of the parents appeared, at least outwardly, genuinely invested in their child's work and experiences. There is no doubt that parental guidance and support played a part in cultivating the spirit of these young writers, as it plays a part in the success or failure of each student in our school.

Our two main areas of focus this school year at North are to cultivate parent involvement in our school and our students' learning process, and to emphasize inquiry and project based learning that engages our students' natural intellectual curiosity. Hopefully, at the end of the year, we will have some students say they loved their experience at North because they like being around other kids (and teachers) with the same interest in learning.