Latest ACA Blog Posts

This summer, you were accountable for conducting classes, special events, and cabin activities. You were not only a leader, but you instilled leadership, participation, and cooperation in campers and other staff. You encouraged campers and co-workers to express their opinions and participate in self-governing activities.

Questions to think about:
How did you help others problem solve, see patterns, and discern meaning?
In what ways did you learn to inspire and present a positive example to others?
How did you enhance a camper’s ability to work with others?
How did you create environments that encourage a camper’s participation and growth?

Think of yourself in these terms:

Conflict manager: Whenever someone is living with a group of children, conflicts are inevitable. Being able to manage campers in a way that maximizes the campers’ strengths and minimizes...

Final campfires, candle ceremonies, talent shows, and saying goodbye. The end of camp is bittersweet, and each camp celebrates differently. Generations of campers have come to love the rituals, and hate the goodbyes associated with them. In her book, Children’s Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp, Leslie Paris writes:

No time was more nostalgic than the last night of camp, a moment when the community gathered to recall the summer that was coming to an end. Goodbyes, like the initiations that came before them, took place through ritual events designed to secure camp community while acknowledging it’s endpoint.

How do you celebrate the end of camp?
 

At camp, do you realize that you’re learning flexibility and adaptability, while also practicing your creativity? Ask yourself these questions before adding to your camp job description on your resume:

How did I adapt to new roles and responsibilities?
How did I find ways to balance diverse opinions and values?
How did I work to solve conflicts?
How did I adapt to the needs of various campers?
What were some of my most creative moments?

A camp counselor's flexibility, adaptability, and creativity are constantly being tested. Between developing fun cabin night activities, helping campers think of a skit to present to the camp, designing an idea for an activity booth on "Disney Day," or figuring out how to take a three-day camping trip in the pouring rain from a nightmare to an adventure, counselors must use the resources available to them — often on a tight time schedule — to actively engage...

Everyone has skills and abilities. Some are your unique aptitudes and talents that come to you naturally and easily. Other skills and abilities will be added or improved upon through education, training, and experience.

You will need many skills in the 21st century job market.

The experience gained from working a camp is a stepping-stone on your long-term career path. You have the opportunity to acquire and practice critical 21st century job skills at camp that will be transferable to all of your future environments — professional and personal.

Translating these might be as difficult as getting campers to bed each night, but if you can identify the skills you have developed, then you will have those important items that fill a resume and carry you through interviews.

Many human resources managers in lots of different fields find summer...

Color wars have brought team unity and the thrill of competition to camp since the mid-1910s. These fun-spirited meta-games are thought to have started as elaborations of Capture the Flag, which was popular at northeastern boys' camps at the time. In these Capture the Flag games, boys would split into two color teams, "often blue and gray for the Union and Confederate armies of the American Civil War," and would try to sneak onto each other's "territory" without beeing seen.

Color wars allow every camper to shine — whether it's playing sports or checkers, creating the best camp cheer or just cheering the loudest. What's your favorite color war activity?

Information from Leslie Paris' Children's Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp, pp. 120–121.

They say the brain is innately social and collaborative . . . which means it must be very happy at camp! Let’s start a “Feed the Brain Campaign.”

Feed the brain in a safe camp environment with steady doses of:

• Challenges with low threats
• Opportunities to talk and listen
• Places to make friends and new acquaintances
• Chances for variety and innovation
• Time to problem solve and make decisions
• Events that support resiliency

If you think these things are not important, consider whether you would hire someone who did not have a well-nourished brain — these factors can, in fact, tip the scale!
 

If we think our efforts to teach campers how to resolve conflicts, solve problems, and collaborate with others for the good of the camp community are not important — just look at Congress. These are critical competencies that our campers will need in the future as we attempt to solve the world's problems against a backdrop of competing priorities and agendas. Your work is so important!

To that end, I asked the camp community to be ever diligent about safety. We shared resources to help you talk to campers about violence and terrorism. But I was reminded that maybe our most important job is doing what we do best — providing opportunities where we can learn, share, and grow together. Fostering peaceful humanity; learning about one's self and others. The camp experience is about self, the environment, and learning . . . engagement at its best...