Memories of the mountains and lake are already beginning to fade. Closed-toed shoes are taking the place of flip-flops. The smell of sunscreen is dissipating. Yes, school is around the corner, and many of our kids have waxed a bit melancholy. What is it about summer camp that our kids love so much, and what can we learn from that to inform our transition into the school year?
When weI talk to kids and parents about what makes camp so great, one of the most common responses weI hear is a Braveheart-inspired, “Freedom!” However, when weI investigate, weI find that, in fact, the programs at camp are incredibly rigorous and scheduled. So freedom is probably not the reason kids love camp. There are other things that make camp great, and weI believe that these can be translated into life back in the “real world” to make the school experience more engaging and enjoyable.
One obvious difference between camp and school is the amount of movement our kids do. In camp, movement dominates the day, from sports, to swimming, to dance, to simply walking from activity to activity across a sprawling campus. In school, our kids get 15 minutes of recess a few times a day, at best, and some PE time thrown in for good measure. They spend a tiny percentage of their week outdoors, and walk no more than a few steps from class to class. How can sSchools where incorporate regular movement is incorporated into the classroom and the daily routine to capture some of that camp magic?.
Another difference has to do with how each institution approaches friendship. Camp is all about friends, and most camps honor and nurture friendship in tangible and real ways. Friends are put in the same bunk, they get to sit and explore/work together during activities, and they play on the same teams. In school, teachers tend to separate friends so that the they children don’t socialize and can stay focused on their work. What would be different if instead of shackling it, schools harnessed the power of friendship to improve student learning?
Homework plays a big part in the battle for kids’ affection, too. Although some kids at certain camps are busy work hard during their camp free time rehearsing for a play, learning the Torah reading for Shabbos, or preparing for another activity, this is work children have chosen. They’ve identified the goals for themselves, and have the internal drive/motivation to spend their free hours working towards thoseon goalswork. Other most kids, especially those in day camps, come home in the evening with nothing hanging over their heads. A colleague of mine referred to theThe “relentlessness of obligation” in schools that emerges around homework and tests, and how this leads to stress and disengagement. We’reI’m not arguing that homework is all-bad or that it should never be assigned, but we areI am advocating thatfor schools to be more attentive to assigning homework that enriches and expands thinking, (that responds to students’ passions instead of snuffing them out) and that theyo give less of it, especially in the older older (yes, older) grades.
A prominent distinction between camp and school is that camp is very low stakes relative to expected outcomes for our children. PMost parents, when their kids come home from camp, ask some form of the question, “Did you have fun in camp today/this summer?” Rarely, in our experience, do parents ask their kids the same question about school. The most common question asked from September to June is, “What did you do in school today?” to which the answer is usually, “Nuthin’.” Other common questions include, “Whereat’s your homework?” and “Don’t you have a test coming up tomorrow?” By asking these questions, we raise the stakes for our kids and focus their attention on academic achievement in the form of marks and grades rather than inquiry and learning.
WeI don’t mean to suggest that learning should be low stakes. On the contrary, there is little in this world that weI value more than learning. Rather, weI mean to suggest that our focus on grades and report cards feeds into the dread that many of our children feel in one form or another when we take them shopping for notebooks, pencils, and calculators.
Schools have a responsibility to look closely at camps as a model for what the school day might look like. Schools should ask the question, “What would need to be true for us to include more movement during the day, honor friendship better, and give our kids their evenings and weekends back?” Parents have a responsibility to learn from their own behavior during the summer, too. They should ask, “What would it look like if my focus were on my child’s learning, growth, and happinessenjoyment instead of my child’s grades?”
It would be appropriate at this point to question ourmy implication that a more enjoyable school experience is necessarily a better one. Numerous research studies suggest that school enjoyment is closely linked, as might seem obvious, to school performance as well as school behavior. In addition, school enjoyment has been shown to lead to a reduction in at-risk behavior and an increase in motivation and achievement outside of school. It follows, therefore, that having a better time at school is better for our kids.
Rabbi Maccabee Avishur is the Associate Director for Teaching and Learning at Yeshiva University’s Institute for University-School Partnership. He can be reached at avishur_yu.edu.
Shira Heller is a Program Manager at YU’s Institute for University-School Partnership and an Educator at Manhattan Jewish Experience. She can be reached at seheller_yu.edu.
By Rabbi Maccabee Avishur and Shira Heller
