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by Stephen Wallace, M.S.
Ed.
Eight years ago, Harvard University Professor
Robert Putnam published a book, Bowling Alone,
chronicling the demise of connection in modern-day
American society and warning that the precipitous
decline in "social capital" (the
collective value of all social networks and the
inclinations that arise from these networks to
do things for each other) impoverishes our lives
and communities. As evidence, Putnam cites plummeting
rates of membership in PTAs, unions, and clubs
of all kinds; long-term declines in blood donations,
card games, and charity; and drops of 40-60 percent
in dinner parties, civic meetings, family suppers,
picnics . . . and league bowling.
More recently, in a column in Time magazine,
Putnam highlighted a study by sociologists that
compared surveys of Americans from 1985 and 2004,
revealing a significant decline in the number
of people with whom we say we can discuss important
matters.
Putnam poses the question: "Why?
Is it two-career families? The Internet? Suburban
sprawl?" And, perhaps more important, he
asks, "Does it really matter?" Many
studies say, "Yes!"
With social isolation
comes rising crime, political coarseness, and
shriveling generosity. People fail to connect
and, more to the point, children fail to thrive.
Could summer camps soon go the way of other,
perhaps less integrated, social institutions
of our time? Given the connectedness, consistency,
and contributions of the camp experience, probably
not.
Connected Communities
Putnam's Saguaro
Seminar at Harvard promotes civic engagement,
long a hallmark of the summer camp experience,
as the antidote to the disconnected. Such engagement,
they say, is "the new hybrid health club
for the 21st century," pointing out that
there's no cost to join and highlighting
the pervasive individual and collective benefits
of the work performed and the social ties established.
Sounds like summer camp to me.
Doing some back-of-the-envelope
qualitative research for a camp alumni banquet
speech, I traveled far and wide, from the tennis
courts nestled against the sand dunes of Cape
Cod Bay to the archery range hugging the main
thoroughfare of Route 6A in Brewster, Massachusetts — covering
the swimming pool, aerobics class, and the woodworking
shop in between. To scores of campers, I asked
a carefully constructed question, "In one
word, tell me what camp means to you." Here's
what they had to say: family, community, friends,
pride, love, compassion, adaptability, trust,
camaraderie, reminiscence, diversity, and . .
. connectedness!
Connectedness at camp is achieved
or attained not through some laborious or even
time-intensive process but rather by simply coming
together to form a community inextricably linked
to the social construct of civic engagement through
collective play and work, weaving a tapestry
of volunteerism, mutual respect, trust, and fulfillment
along the way. It can happen almost in an instant
and transcend any particular length of stay:
a week, a month, a summer . . . or ten. It takes
place against a backdrop of sailboats on the
water at sunset; the rustling of the pines at
bedtime; or the fog lifting slowly off the playing
fields at sunrise; the laughter at assemblies
when children dare to perform that which would
never see the light of day at school; the satisfaction
that comes with that first bull's-eye;
the elation at winning the tennis tournament
or the pride of just being able to compete; the
completed art or woodworking project; morning
reveille and evening "Taps." It is
the magic of growing up at camp.
Growing Up at
Camp
Perhaps unlike other places in our fastpaced,
high-tech world, growing up at camp means not
so much leaving behind the sheer joy of childhood
as it does the embracing of companionship, of
imagination, of excitement, of lessons to be
learned, lakes to be swum, balls to be batted,
pictures to be painted, and targets to be shredded.
Growing up at camp is not about relinquishing
"childish things" but rather learning which of
those childish things to cherish, to nurture,
to carry forward, and to share with somebody
else.
Growing up at camp means learning to "live
in the moment" — extracting from the experience,
and the people within the experience, the impetus
to become more selfconfident, more understanding,
more accommodating, more loving, more human.
Michael Eisner, former chief executive officer
of The Walt Disney Company, shares some conclusions
about the experience in his book, Camp. "I've
spent nearly as much time trying to understand
the strange appeal of summer camp as I have the
appeal of a talking mouse who favors red shorts.
Quite frankly, I'm still stumped about
the mouse. But, I think I've figured out
the amazing allure of summer camp . . . . When
all is said and done, people of all ages want
to be a part of something bigger and more important
than themselves. More than anything else, this
is the value that camp teaches kids. It offers
them a perspective and provides them with a headstart
on the road to becoming fully human."
Isolation
Versus Connection
In his bestselling book, Loving
Each Other, Dr. Leo Buscaglia also wrote of our
increasingly detached society, its cynicism,
and the isolation it breeds. "If you love,
you are considered naïve. If happy, you
are considered frivolous and simple. If generous
and altruistic, you are considered suspect. If
forgiving, you are considered weak. If trusting,
you are considered a fool. If you try to be all
of these things, people are sure you are phony." He
offers deeper connections as an antithetical
approach, citing scientific literature that highlights
the physical and psychological value of relationships
and intimacy.
Indeed, last April, Mental Health
America (MHA), a leading nonprofit dedicated
to helping people live mentally healthier lives,
challenged us to make positive and lifefulfilling
connections, arguing that social networks can
reduce stress and promote overall health by providing
a sense of belonging, self-worth, and security.
Among the steps MHA advocates in its "Mental
Health Connection Challenge" are these:
- Connect
to Family and Friends — Loved ones are
an important source of support and encouragement.
Talk to them when you need extra help, allow
them to provide guidance, and be prepared to
help them when they need you.
- Connect
to Community Members — Shifting from your
own issues to the needs of others can be a healthy
change of pace.
- Connect to Yourself — Taking
time for yourself can decrease stress and improve
health and relationships.
Summer camp seems to
be a breeding ground for just the type of relationships
and connectivity that Dr. Buscaglia and MHA are
talking about. In fact, a four-year study of
more than 5,000 families from American Camp Association
(ACA)-Accredited® camps found that parents,
staff, and children reported positive outcomes
from their summer camp experiences, including
significant growth in social comfort, friendship
skills, and peer relationships.
Breadth and Depth
of Camp Connections
What makes connections at
camp so different and so special? If you listen
to the kids, breadth and depth seem to be key.
Reflecting on her camp friendships, sixteen-year-old
Kelsey says, "Although camp seems like
a place to simply spend your summers, it is truly
so much more. Besides the wonderful learning
experience, I have forged many friendships that
will last a lifetime. Friends you get from camp
are not just those you spend the summer with,
they are your escape. The fact that they can
be so unbelievably secure in your friendship
that they expose their darkest secrets to you
inspires others to be honest with themselves.
Not only have I grown up with these kids, I grew
with them."
Matt, eighteen, adds, "Many
of the best friends I have ever had are from
camp. We learn to work together and live like
a family, setting aside our differences to make
our experiences greater. Nobody holds grudges
because people realize that camp is too short
to be mad at anybody and that they should figure
out their differences and go back to being friends.
Camp is amazing for the friendship and problem-solving
skills you learn."
And fifteen-year-old
Julia offers, "The friends you make at
camp, at least for me, are the ones that are
always there for me and I know I can depend on.
They don't judge you like some people might
at school because you all have something in common:
you love camp."
Consistent Communities
Adding to the sense of connectedness at camp
is the allure of its consistency. Grounded in
tradition — and perhaps repetition — summer
camp offers a nesting place for children and
young adults caught up in the frantic, competitive,
ever-changing social fabric that is America in
the 21st century.
In his book Cabin Pressure:
One Man's Desperate Attempt to Recapture
His Youth as a Camp Counselor, author Josh Wolk
refers to camp as a "reliable touchstone." Reflecting
on returning to his boyhood home, he writes,
"I didn't have to worry about getting to the
archery range and finding incredulous kids saying, ‘Wait,
you had to aim the bow and arrow yourself?' Everything
was so constant, so consistent, that the more
I saw around the quiet camp, the more logical
it felt that soon a bugler would blow reveille
and my old friends would tumble blearily out
of their cabins, scratching their bedheads, scuffing
down the steps in their worn Teva sandals striped
with dirt, while wearing stained college T-shirts
inside out and backward, a Hanes Beefy-T tag
flapping under their chin. The woodshop had the
same band saw, the sports lawn had the same soccer
nets, the same kickboards were stacked at the
swimming dock, so why shouldn't the same
friends be lined up on their bunks?"
In
their address at the alumni event I was keynoting,
sixteen-year-olds Dana and Mark spoke of a similar
sentiment, noting, "Camp serves as a balancing
point and a source of stability and comfort in
comparison to the school year and just our everyday
lives. It is the one place we can go where we
know that everything will always be the same.
Each summer we come back to camp and know that
our friends here are true; we can start again
like it was yesterday. The unique thing about
these friendships is how strong they are and
how long they last, even though we only see each
other during the summers. It's almost like
we have to live our entire year with these people
in just two months. We all joke that each day at
camp is equivalent to a week at home because of
our limited time."
Contributing Communities
Those of us in the camp
business hear almost daily testimonials to the
enduring legacy of the work that we do — often
expressed most simply in the form of happiness,
a worthwhile goal according to Project Happiness,
whose mission is to inspire and empower people
to create greater happiness within themselves
and others and which, among other things, advocates
for young people to be the leaders in a new,
interconnected world.
We've got
a good head start.
According to Teens Today research
from SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions),
young people who have attended summer camp are
significantly more likely than those who have
not to report that they feel happy almost every
day and to say they perceive themselves as friendly,
confident, outgoing, liked by others, and looked
up to by kids their age.
Other good news can
be found in the survey of more than 2,700 middle
and high school students: camp kids are significantly
more likely than noncamp kids to feel good about
their personal development, including their relationships
with peers, and, just as important, to take positive
risks, such as volunteering for community service.
Indeed, camp provides the very type of interconnectedness,
shared values, and common goals that nurture
fulfillment, encourage leadership, and embrace
contribution to others and community. And those
community contributions often extend far beyond
summer camp, transferring the positive presence
of youth from campgrounds to school yards, from
the United States to South America, and to young
and old alike. As seventeen-year-old Lauren,
a community- service volunteer, says, "The
positive atmosphere camp provides is reflected
in my decisions. The camp environment, including
my camp friends, defines who I am."
Who They
Are
Despite our society's tendency to sometimes
view youth, particularly adolescents, as more
of a problem than a solution, there exists ample
evidence of an alternate, credible, conclusion.
For example, in his book The
Good Teen, Tufts
University Professor Richard M. Lerner reveals
that his study of about 4,000 adolescents found
the existence among young people of what he calls
the "five Cs": competence, confidence, connection,
character, and caring. These may coalesce, says
Lerner, in a sixth C, contribution. And contribution
is what civic engagement, wherever it takes place,
is all about.
Thus, perhaps it's no surprise
that young people seem to be less self-absorbed
and more other-oriented than they are given credit
for — a fact supported by data from Youth
Service America, which reports that millions
of young people are engaging in disaster relief,
registering new voters, educating their communities
about good nutrition, and distributing HIV/ AIDs
prevention materials, for example.
At my camp,
we have embraced a reciprocal approach to community
service, or service-learning, mirroring the route
of many schools — offering
credit toward prescribed achievement goals for
service rendered outside of, as opposed to within,
the camp environment. As a result, many of our
campers have been motivated — perhaps even
inspired — to engage in youth coaching,
peer counseling and tutoring, and assisting the
homeless and elderly.
In a very important way,
camps serve as a training ground for the very
type of values that promote a sense of civic
responsibility and a true desire to "give something
back," such as the ones developed by members
of my camp community . . . kindness, pride, acceptance,
open-mindedness, sportsmanship, honesty, friendship,
and empathy. Dana and Mark, the sixteen-year-old
alumni banquet speakers, said, "That's the great
thing about camp: we hold the same core values.
These shared values are the most essential part
of what holds us together."
Better Together In
its final report Better
Together, the Saguaro
Seminar states, "Social capital is built through
hundreds of little and big actions we take every
day." Among the 150 suggestions of "what
you can do" to add to the building are some
that sound very familiar: "Say hello to strangers;
ask a new person to join a group for a dinner
or an evening; exercise together or take walks
with friends; organize a neighborhood pickup — with
lawn games afterwards; join in to help carry
something heavy; fix it even if you didn't break
it; pick it up even if you didn't drop it; start
a tradition; make gifts of time . . . and take
pottery classes."
In the end, better together
is clearly better than being apart. And while
bowling alone seems practical, camping alone,
fortunately, does not.
References
Buscaglia, Leo. (1984). Loving
Each Other. New York: Fawcett Columbine Books;
Ballantine Books.
Eisner, Michael D. (2005).
Camp. New York: Time Warner Book Group.
Lerner,
Richard M. Ph. D. (2007). The Good Teen: Rescuing
Adolescence From the Myths of the Storm and Stress
Years. New York: Crown Publishers; Random House.
Mental Health America (formerly National Mental
Health Association). (2008). www.nmha.org (29
May 2008). National Conference on Citizenship.
National Conference on Citizenship Announces
New Leadership Team. February 4, 2008. www.ncoc.
net (29 May 2008).
Project Happiness. (2007).
www.projecthappiness. com/tv/en/aboutWelcome.jsp
(29 May 2008).
Putnam, Robert. You Gotta Have
Friends. Time. June 25, 2006. www.time.com/time/magazine/
article/0,9171,1207822,00.html (29 May 2008).
Putnam, Robert. (2000). The Collapse and Revival
of the American Community. New York: Simon and
Schuster.
Putnam, Robert D. and Feldstein, Louis.
(2003). Better Together: Restoring the American
Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. www.bettertogether.org
(29 May 2008).
SADD, Inc. (2004). Positive Risk-Taking
Cuts Alcohol and Drug Use Among Teens — National
Study Links Adolescent Risk Profiles to Substance
Use, Academic Performance, and Mental Health; Teens
Shatter "Myth of Risk." Teens Today
2004. www.sadd.org/teenstoday/ survey04.htm (29
May 2008).
Wolk, Josh. (2007). Cabin Pressure:
One Man's Desperate Attempt to Recapture
His Youth as a Camp Counselor. New York: Hyperion
Books.
Youth Service America. (2008). www.ysa.org
(29 May 2008).
Originally published
in the 2008 September/October issue of Camping Magazine.
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