I recently sat down with the director of the camp I have attended as a camper and that I now work at during the summer. John Tilley is the Executive Director of YMCA Camp Coniston. Despite having worked at the camp I have really had no interaction with John and so I was able to sit down with him when he was up at the camp a few days ago and ask him some questions about the importance of summer camp.
Daisy: What is your background in terms of working outdoors and outdoor education and how did you get into working at summer camp?
John: Well the first summer I ever worked at a summer camp was in 1982 and I was actually a canoe instructor at one camp for one year and then I started running trips the next year summer in 1983. I ran trips from the summer of 83 through the summer of 89 in Utah, Kentucky, West Virginia, California, Mexico, Arizona, all of those places. I also started working in year round Environmental Education programs for colleges and high schools at that time in California. Then in 1990 I was doing Environmental Education programs in the school year with inner-city school groups from Philadelphia and working with inner-city children in Philadelphia for the summertime.
D: What kind of Environmental Education programs did you do with the Inner-City kids?
J: So we had a pretty standard environmental ed curriculum-based except fifth grade level that was the primary group that we served.
D: So actually bringing the kids out of the city and into the woods and that environment?
J: Oh yeah, we went out to a 250 acre facility north of the city and it had been funded by a few Quaker families and it was a wonderful, wonderful time. Then we had other STEM-based programs around various concepts like energy flow and compass use, tree estimation, basic geometry, all sorts of things introductory science.
D: So how did you get into working with the YMCA?
J: I mainly went into it for career reasons, which I would be happy to talk to you about at a later time, but I went and worked at a different camp and we did have some Environment Ed programs but it would be farfetched to call it an environmental camp. However it was a family camp and they ended up kind of building this program around me where people would come and visit me and I was just sort of a freelance naturalist there. I had all sorts of groups that would come and visit me but it was more or less to share my specialty because I wandered that mountain for 5 years to I did that from 1995 to 1999. I got really into cataloging plants during that time so I would catalog plants for the Carnegie and a little bit for the Smithsonian. And then I came here [Coniston]! I think the work I do here is crazy important. I think it's important that we connect kids to the outdoors but I don't look at my work as a direct naturalist anymore.
D: In a way you're supporting kids being in an environment that puts them outside and puts them out of their comfort zone that is unlike the environment that they are in at school that is basically industrialized.
J: I think that it is interesting the outcomes and information that I've seen on the impact the longitudinal impact that overnight camping program have over overnight environmental education programs is significant. You know, summer camp is way more impactful from an outcomes perspective.
D: I think the difference the major difference is that it is changing the environment in which kids and how like which kids learn can change their actual development.
J: So you know I was just reading an interesting article this morning that made me start thinking. It was in the Atlantic and I think it's fairly current right now and it was about some research that was coming out of Boston on
Adolescent brain development for economically disadvantaged children verses advantaged kids and how much the sort of toxic stress levels of being poor impeded brain development in a certain level in kids brains and that sort of the implication being should we be providing them with programs that intentionally enable them to start making their brains fire in the cycle that includes small stress then reaching success, knowing the feeling of doing that and then being able to achieve some other types of goals as opposed to being in this environment where their goals are almost always denied. And I started thinking about how camp can play a role into that.
D: So in other words camp is a place where small bouts of stress can actually be beneficial. Is that what you mean?
J: Absolutely. Kids have to sleep in cabins with kids that they don't know until they make friends with them. That's a type of stress but not toxic stress it's actually a very positive stress because a kid learns to get along with other kids and then all of a sudden they feel like it gets this cycle going. It's something that's interesting to think about it's a different side of looking at this.
D: So I spent half my year at Fordham University in the Bronx and I've had campers who are from the city and there are many campers here who are refugees from other countries. What do you think spending two weeks in this environment and exposing them to New Hampshire does for them?
J: It slows them down. I think that there is an aspect to humanity here that they learn the value of sameness that we all have these basic things in common. They also learned the value of while simultaneously learning the value of individuality in the fun and joy that that can bring. In some interesting dichotomy that seems like it's polar opposites but they're actually really linked beautifully together and you know the old saying you can't love others until you love yourself. Maybe we do a little bit more of learning both of those things here than we give ourselves credit for. You learn to love yourself and then when you're feeling good about yourself you can learn to actually love.
D: What do you think of the interactions between the young staff and the campers can do?
J: One of the really meaningful and I think this happens incredibly well in the outdoors.
Developmental stages of Developmental assets that a child needs is to actually have a connection with a young Mentor that would be you, the counselor, and so the fact that you're helping them learn how to be confident it's completely appropriate for both you and them at your developmental stages. That's the magic of Camp. There are so many things that are set up in camp naturally that are both good for the staff and good for the camper. We tend to want to think of this as an either/or, but really it's good for both the counselor and the camper. This is a perfect example of achieving all these developmental milestones for different age groups.
I think it teaches people I think often times it's one of those places where we teach love and gratitude and those are things we don't teach often enough.
D: and those are things that are difficult to teach in a classroom setting
J: You can teach it through this sort of like mutual respect and lessons so you can call them or you could come and dissect each one, but when they are delivered with passion and when people are listening they can be quite impactful. There's value in kids learning how to be thankful daily. There's value in kids learning how to forgive. Everyone need's to be loved.
D: Do you think that's one of biggest things that camp teaches?
J: Love?
D: Yes
J: I hope it is. I really hope it is. So I mean if a child and an adult, in order to be healthy needs to know that they are loved and almost everything they do, scholastically and socially, is aimed at some how trying to figure that out.
Even if it's that they're trying to figure it out because there is a lack of love. I mean that's what, I firmly believe, that's what makes us tick as human beings and I do think that camp teaches people how to love. Interestingly, first themselves and then others. We always talk about camp, we are at friendship camp.
I think people are very comfortable with the word friendship and so we use it fits.
A very wise man who helped guide me through a lot of my career once I moved here, used to jokingly say that words were meant to conceal the true intentions of the heart. So we use the word friendship instead of love cuz I actually think love is too revolutionary, radical. So we talk in terms of friendship but we really saying love.
This interview was a really great experience to talk to someone who has worked through a variety of environmental education programs all the way up to the YMCA. John provided a lot of information on why he thinks camp is beneficially for both camper and staff development and eloquently described some of the powerful lessons from summer camp!
Happy Trails
Daisy
