The Classroom Curmudgeon: Summer Camp Part IV

A month after the experience, here are my final “wrap-up” thoughts on the summer camp program for the boys and girls of the tribe. What were the benefits of the program?

The program encouraged the children toward a greater belief in themselves and their ability to learn. Certainly I saw willingness among at least a few of the children to take risk and speak English to me and before their classmates. In one instance a young boy was filled with the pride of being asked to serve as translator, a communications go-between for his classmate and me.

The entire experience should instill them with self-pride, for there was no teacher to rebuke them for factual mistakes, and no competition for high scores and teacher satisfaction. Their own skills were encouraged and respected, as can be seen from the video items in the previous posting of this topic. Nobody discouraged them from creativity with admonishments about “wasted time that would be better spent studying.”

The children also learned new computer skills, as “Teacher Phil” taught them to use the Microsoft video editing software for the creation of home-made video products. They now have a knowledge that can be put to use, a first step perhaps, in the making of video materials that may benefit the full community. I’m thinking of children advancing down a path toward video documentation and activism.

Finally, these children had an opportunity to see that people from outside of the circles of family and community are able to take an interest in them, to care about them. They saw their summer camp teachers as new friends, but friends who would be taking to the road and leaving them behind.

And that is the most painful aspect of this camp. We come in from the outside, we stay for a very few short days, and then we are gone. We move on. Do the children feel abandoned? Do they fear being forgotten?

I close here with another question. Did these children perform so well in this summer camp project because they were already a solid group of friends, or did they become friends because of the camp? And what was their relationship with the many children of the community who did not join in the program? What were their relationships with the other children of their school? Did they engage so actively and proudly with learning in their regular classrooms?