My Annual Life Changing Moment - Part 2

Warning:  Long Post
In my last post, I gave a rundown of what happens during the week at RFKC, but it would have been a really long post if I had also told you why these activities add up to life changing moments for both the campers and the adult volunteers.  In fact, it isn't really possible to convey all of its meaning; you just have to experience it.  I will describe some of the things that stand out most in my mind.

Meal Times
I'm starting with meal times because it recently hit me that it was particularly special at this camp.  First of all, kids can choose whatever they want.  If they want to eat a plate with nothing but bread, that's fine.  If they want to eat yogurt at every meal, we take along enough for that to happen (and also make Wal-Mart runs if needed).  I once had a camper who wanted a "salad."  When asked what she wanted, she said bacon bits and cheese.  Mind you, this wasn't a salad topped with bacon bits and cheese.  It was just a bowl of bacon bits and cheese.  This may sound insane to you; but for these kids, it may be the only choice they get to make about their food.

At this branch of RFKC, we have the best cooks ever - I mean ever.  At the last camp I was at, the food was fine.  It was camp food, made by state park staff.  At this particular camp, however, it is some of the best homemade food I have ever eaten.  It didn't strike me how spectacular that was until this summer.  These kids are getting a home cooked meal, made with great love, three meals a day, for a week.  Our kitchen staff doesn't get to interact with the kids as much as the rest of us, but they may be responsible for what the kids will remember the most.

One more thing that is important about meal times.  We talk while we eat.  We talk a lot.  It is the most important relationship building time we have at camp.  Counselors and staff ask the campers questions about their favorite food, favorite camp activity, favorite story of the day.  At breakfast, we ask what they are most looking forward to.  At dinner, we ask them what was the most fun.  We ask questions, and we listen to their answers.  Kids in general feel like they aren't listened to, and I would imagine that is even more true of kids in the foster care system.  These meal time conversations are truly important.

Overcoming Obstacles
I mentioned briefly in the last post that we have activities designed to help the kids overcome obstacles.  In my regular life, I recognize the value of competition and kids learning lessons from losing a game.  At camp, we turn this totally on its head.  These kids have already learned a lot of those lessons.  They already know that life isn't fair.  They don't need even more of that at camp.  We want them to realize that they are capable of overcoming challenges and doing great things.  For that reason, activities are planned that allow for this.  Almost every year, we have a rock climbing wall at carnival, and you wouldn't believe what a great opportunity this is for courage building.  We usually have one event with a large inflatable slide.  Some of the younger kids might be a little scared or need their counselor to do it with them; but by the end of the evening, most of them are doing it on their own.  We have archery and darts, which provide opportunities for improvement with each shot.  We have horses, which also provide the opportunity overcome fear.  Two of the horses are capable of carrying two riders; so if a kid needs their counselor to ride with them in order to overcome their fear, that is doable.  This year, one girl had a hard time mounting, even with their counselor on the first day.  She had to have a long talk with the horse to make sure he liked her before she would get one.  The next day, she rode it by herself.  The pool (to which they go every day) is another great time for this.  Two years ago, I had a six year old girl who couldn't swim when she got to camp.  Our coach patiently taught her what to do.  As she practiced, I held my arm under waist or legs.  She got a little less scared each day.  The next year, she showed up ready for the pool and was in the 9 foot deep end by the end of the week.

Woodworking is getting its own paragraph because it is my favorite.  The first year I went to camp, I had a much different image in my mind.  I pictured the little snap together kits you get at Lowe's with maybe some tiny nails and girl hammers.  Was I ever wrong.  Woodworking takes more supplies and electricity than any other camp activity.  You wouldn't want to walk near it with a headache because you hear dozens of hammers, drills, and power screwdrivers.  Kids build bird houses, bug boxes, treasure boxes, and chairs.  You read that right; they build their own chairs that they can actually sit in.  Why is woodworking so valuable?  Because it is so tangible.  When a kid goes home with a chair they built themselves, they have evidence that they can do something bigger than they thought.  When they take home a treasure box, they have a place for THEIR stuff.  That's big for kids who sometimes have to take their stuff from place to place (some of these guys might live in three or four places within a year).  The other reason this is important is that building things is therapeutic.  Do you know how good it feels to hammer a nail?  You can feed all your frustrations into that hammer.  A few years ago, I had a girl who was not feeling camp yet.  She was sitting at woodworking, but she didn't want to build anything.  Our wise woodworking instructor gave her a block of wood, a hammer, and a handful of nails.  She started pounding them randomly into the wood.  After four or five nails, she was smiling.  After a few more, she practiced getting them in straight.  After a few more, she was ready to build something.  The following year, she came with a list of things she wanted to build.  Talk about a moment that changed everything.  That woodworking instructor met her exactly where she was.

Scripture Teaching
While this is a compassionate ministry and not an evangelistic one (an important legal difference), we are able to teach as much scripture as we want.  If you grew up in church, think of our program times as VBS on steroids.  We have object lessons, drama productions, scripture verse break down, teaching time, and lots and lots of singing.  The importance of this is pretty obvious, but there is one story I want to share from this year.  It actually goes back to last year.  One of our teachers told the kids that the best way to learn a scripture was to read it every day.  Our theme that year was the Good Shepherd, so we had spent quite a lot of time in the 23rd Psalm.  This year, a seven year old boy approached the teacher and said, I can say the whole thing.  I've read it every day since last year.  He stood up in front of everyone and quoted the entire thing without stumbling or stopping to think at all.  There was no one at home to tell him to do it; he just did it.  God is doing work through His word.

Pictures
As you know, I spend most of year taking pictures.  Because our kids are wards of the state, I was never allowed to take any at camp.  There is a camp photographer, and that is the only person allowed to take pictures.  As a counselor, I had to be content with taking "mental pictures."  The kids go home with a book of photos, but adults do not.  This year, I began my transition into the role of camp photographer.  This not only gave me a broader view of all the parts of camp, but it cemented the importance of the kids having the pictures.  We have some campers who are siblings, but their circumstances prevent them from living together.  We take a picture of them together and give each of them a copy.  During the year, they have at least that picture of each other when they can't see each other.  They also get a picture of themselves.  We all took for granted that we had school pictures (you know, the ones your parents ordered and sent to grandparents or hung on the wall), but the instability of our campers lives means they may have few or none of those.  If they come from age 7 to 12, that means they get six years of pictures for themselves.  They also get photos taken with grandma and grandpa, their counselor, and their cabin mates.  These are important relationships, so it is valuable to take home reminders of those people.  They also get ten or twelve pictures of themselves doing the things I have talked about already - riding horses, climbing rock walls, swimming in the pool, etc.  Like woodworking projects, these pictures provide them with tangible reminders of all the experiences they have had.  For a camp whose goal is to create life changing moments and positive memories, these pictures provide permanence to those memories.  Former campers who are now adults have said that they still have all their camp photo albums.

I know this post has been crazy long (to be fair, I did warn you).  It doesn't scratch the surface of all things that keep people coming back to camp year after year.  Once it is in your blood, you can't imagine a summer without it.  If you want to know more or donate, visit the RFKC website.

My Annual Life Changing Moment - Part 1

I didn't post last week because I was at camp and out of contact with the outside world.  It's not just any camp; it is Royal Family Kids Camp, which exclusively serves children who are or have been in the foster care system.  Their mission is to "create life changing moments" for kids who have been victims of abuse or neglect.  Of course, the reality is that it also creates life changing moments for the adults who volunteer.  This post is going to be a nuts and bolts kind of post because it will be too long if I also comment on the meaning of everything.  I will post later about what it all means and what keeps unpaid adults doing this year after year.

When you first attend training, you come to realize that this is not like other camps.  There are, in fact, more adults than the number of kids we will take.  That is because of a rule called "the two deep rule," requiring the presence of two adults any time there are kids around but also because it takes an awful lot of people to pull of the scale of what we do at camp.

Sunday - We arrive on Sunday and begin setting up.  Counselors deck out their cabins and prepare their camper gifts so that the kids will know they have been prepared for.  They make signs with the camper names, the meaning of their names, and scripture they can associate with their own name.   Ladies from the sponsoring church have made quilts for the kids, and those are ready for them when they get there (A boy one year told us that he loved his quilt because it felt like security and love).  Other staff members get the dining hall ready (more on food in another post), get the program area ready with a full theater set and sound system, get the pool prepared, get the hundreds of activity boxes ready.  We take about sixty-five adults, and it takes everyone from lunch time until bed time to get camp prepared.  We meet and pray.

Monday - In spite of getting "everything" ready on Sunday, there is more to do on Monday morning.  The nurse, a couple of staff members, and Grandma and Grandpa are taken to the place where the kids are registered and checked in.  The counselors finish their welcome signs.  From the minute the kids arrive at camp, we want them to know how much love and thought has gone into preparing for them.

The kids arrive on a bus or several buses, and every adult is gathered, waiting for them, hooting and hollering like crazy people.  Counselors hold up their signs so that their campers can find them.  Returning kids find the people they remember from the year before and give them safe side hugs.  Connections from a year earlier are re-established instantaneously.  Counselors take their kids to their cabins while staff members carry their stuff.  We have a quick introduce everybody meeting and have lunch.  Then, camp really starts because the girls head for the pool, and the boys head for activity time.  With the exception of the kids who are hydrophobic, if you ask ANY kid at camp what their favorite thing is, they will say the pool.  They swim EVERY day and twice on Tuesday.  Our lifeguard is a newly retired PE teacher and swim coach, and I have watched her teach many frightened children how to swim.  It is very cool to watch her help them overcome their fear and have a life skill in just a few days.  Those same kids come back the next year ready to jump in the pool.  Activities are widely varied - everything from spin art to serious woodworking (like building a chair with power tools), from fuse beads to fishing, from archery to sand art, from horses to bracelet making.  There are a few dozen more activities, and any kid can choose to do any one of them.  One of the parts of our camp culture is giving the kids choices, and the activities are intentionally set up for that.

Tuesday - Tuesday starts early.  We take the kids to the pool BEFORE breakfast for the annual tradition called "The Polar Bear Swim."  It is the only time everyone is at the pool together at the same time.  It is called Polar Bear because we pour bags of ice into the water.  I can tell you as a physics teacher that the change in water temperature wouldn't be measurable, but the kids believe that the water is cold.  They earn a certificate for completing this, even if they only put in one foot (remember, some kids haven't learned to swim yet).  You wouldn't think this piece of paper would be motivating, but there were kids this year who were telling the new campers that they would get a certificate for doing it, and they were very excited.  The remainder of the day is a "normal" camp day, meaning meals, VBS style teaching and songs, more pool time and activity time, and an hour rest after lunch.  We often also have a serious tea party for the girls on Tuesday, which they come to in dress up clothes, sit at tables with table cloths and candles, have great tea party food - it is seriously grown up.  This year, we had five princesses (Snow White, Aurora, Anna, Elsa, and Tiana) attend.  Don't fear - the boys had their thing too.  Reps came out from the Bow Hunters Association and gave the boys real archery lessons.  There is some kind of evening activity.  This year it was water games, which was great because Tuesday was a scorching hot day this year.

Wednesday - Wednesday starts normal (i.e. breakfast rather than the pool),  and the day is reasonably normal until the evening activity.  This is when we have our "Big Event."  About 30 more adults come down from the sponsoring church to help with this event.  It is always carnival like, but this year's theme called for a medieval style Royal Faire, with face painting and cotton candy.  From "jousting" to bocce to an inflatable gauntlet - from a trebuchet to mini-golf to a 24ft rock climbing wall - the games are specifically chosen to give the kids challenges to overcome rather than an opponent to beat.  Watching a kid make multiple attempts to climb a wall and finally make it to the bell is awe inspiring.

Thursday - Thursday is EVERYONE's Birthday.  When I first started doing camp, the birthday party happened only in the evening; last year, it began with breakfast.  I think we hit the best distribution today by starting it with lunch.  The kids each got a big cookie of their own to decorate after their pizza lunch.  We sang to them and had them stand for each month of the year.  They got their presents after dinner, and the evening activity was playing with their presents.  Boys were out playing catch with the counselors, using their brand new footballs.  Girls were stringing bead jewelry with their counselors.  We have campers who have never had birthday parties or gifts (one even said that his mom told him at 5 that he had become too old for birthdays), so a birthday for everyone is a critical part of every RFKC.   Because of this (and because it is the final night), Thursday night can be a little emotional and is the most difficult night to get them into bed.

After the kids go to bed on Thursday, a lot of the stuff that went up on Sunday has to start coming down.  The staff packs up the activities and woodworking, counselors take down SOME of the cabin decorations (I used to stick them in their luggage to find when they got home).  Some of the set is taken down, and some of the dining hall.  We don't want them to wake up to a bare campground, but there isn't time in the morning to pack up everything.

Friday - Friday morning brings the wrap up of all the Bible stories and drama.  We send them to the pool one more time while we pack our stuff.  Then, we help them pack their stuff.  We meet one last time to watch a camp video and have a little "graduation ceremony" for our kids who are aging out.  Every camper goes  home with a photo album that has at least twenty photos from the week.  This is when there are a lot of tears, from both campers and adults.

We take them back to the church they left from and do a little presentation for their foster families.  We watch the video again and get them all checked out.  There are usually quite a few tears associated with this time as well.  Then, we go home and have a welcome home dinner, watch the video one last time (we won't ever get to see it again, so this is not too many times even though it may seem that way).   We share stories and pin people who have completed their first, fifth, tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth year (and yes, there are people who have done that).

I called this post My Annual Life Changing Moment for a reason.  There is a reason that I have done this 8 years, and some have done it for 20 years.  It matters.  This post would be extremely long if I shared all of that, so I will save that for my next post.

To All The Teachers

We have just completed the second week of July, which means that teachers will begin preparing for the next school year.  It is only a few weeks away.  Here's a little thought for all the teachers.

To the teacher about to begin your first year:
Sleep for the next few weeks.  Start setting your clock a little earlier.  Be prepared to be tired for about ten months.  It’s going to be a tiring year, but it will also be a great one if you dive in.  Learn everything you can, and let go of the small stuff. 

If you have started having dreams (or nightmares) about school, don’t worry.  That is normal . . . and they ALMOST NEVER come true.  I’ve been teaching 16 years, and I still have strange school dreams during the last few weeks of summer.  (My favorite was the one where I had to teach outside because we ran out of classrooms.  That one is right up there with the one where I taught high school after lunch and 2nd grade in the mornings.)


To the teacher about to begin your second year:
If you woke up this morning worried that you have forgotten how to teach during the summer, don’t worry.  That is normal . . . and you didn’t.  I’ve been teaching 16 years, and I still have that thought about this time of year.  You will only get better this year, but don’t expect to be comfortable until next year.


To the teacher about to begin your third year:
This is the year it will all start clicking.  You know your material well enough to focus on your kids.  You were able to replace some of the things that didn’t work your first year last year, and you have reasons for the things you do.  Parents won’t view you as “new” any more, which will automatically give you a little less stress.  Have confidence, but don’t get so cocky that you think you have nothing else to learn.


To the teacher about to begin your fourth (or higher) year:
Remember what it was like to be in your first or second year, and help the poor teacher down the hall.  You have knowledge to share, so pay forward what was given to you in those early years.  Remember what Harry Wong said, “Great teachers aren’t born; they are made by the teacher next door.”  Get good ideas from those younger teachers, and be inspired by their energy.  Let’s all keep learning together.

E-mail and Lollipops

So far this summer, I have walked 332 miles.  In the past, I have listened to music, but I knew this was going to get repetitive.  I have friends who use podcasts, but I always figured the lack of rhythm would slow me down.  I tested it on a round trip to church by doing music on the way there and podcasts on the way back, I found only 2 minutes difference across 5.4 miles.  Since then, I have listened to hundreds of podcasts.  Some time, I'll blog a recommendation list because I have eclectic listening habits, but that's not the point of this post. 

One of the podcasts I listen to most is the TED Radio Hour from NPR.  Last week, I hit a particular favorite called Everyday Leadership by Drew Dudley.  I'll summarize the important here, but you really should watch the entire talk.  He discusses why most of us don't think of ourselves as leaders because we think leadership is something bigger than us that is only on a world changing scale.  He believes we de-value the everyday things we do that have impact.  As an illustration, he tells this story of girl who was going to leave college during registration.  She met Drew when he was raising money for a charity by handing out lollipops to people in line.  He gave one to the boy standing next to her, telling him that he needed to give this lollipop to beautiful woman standing next to him.  The boy did, and then Drew made a joke to her parents about taking candy from strangers.  As a result of this interaction, she decided to stay in college.  She dated that boy for four years.  She related this story to Drew on his last day at the school and then sent him a wedding invitation a year later. 

One of the reasons Drew shares this story on the TED stage is that he has no memory of this happening.  It completely changed the life of this girl, but it was such a normal part of his day that his brain didn't bother recording it.  He says this in his talk: "And that was such an eye-opening, transformative moment for me to think that maybe the biggest impact I'd ever had on anyone's life, a moment that had a woman walk up to a stranger four years later and say, "You've been an incredibly important person in my life," was a moment that I didn't even remember."  He then asks the audience to consider their own lollipop moments, when something simple fundamentally made their lives better.  Many hands were raised because most of us have that moment.  He then asks if they have ever told the person who did that.  Very few people people raised their hands. "Why not? We celebrate birthdays, where all you have to do is not die for 365 days and yet we let people who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it. And every single one of you, every single one of you has been the catalyst for a lollipop moment. You have made someone's life better by something that you said or that you did, and if you think you haven't, think about all the hands that didn't go back up when I asked that question. You're just one of the people who hasn't been told."

I have a small version of a story that is not as life changing.  My school requires that we contact parents if their kids are going to fail for a quarter or semester, so they will not be surprised when the report card comes.  Because I teach older students, I often e-mail the student as well.  Two years ago, I had a boy in physics who had JUST squeaked by with a 69.8% for the quarter.  I didn't e-mail his mom because he did pass, but I e-mailed the boy.  I told him that he did pass, but I knew he could do so much better than just squeak by.  As an aside, I said, "Think about it; do you want to be the kind of man who just squeaks by?"  Three days later, I got an e-mail from his mom, telling me that he had vacuumed their living room without prompting.  When she asked him why, he told him that he had been thinking about the kind of man he wanted to be.  When I had typed that e-mail, it was a simple question.  I had not thought it would be a changing moment for him; I might not even remember it if I hadn't gotten this e-mail from his mom.  When that boy graduated, he was a different kid.  It was not just because of this one sentence.   A lot of people poured themselves into this guy's life.  It was, however, the cumulative effect of a thousand lollipop moments and e-mails. 

   

When you send an e-mail or make a silly joke, when you make eye contact and smile, you may be what that person needed at that moment.  Keep in mind that it works the other direction as well.  If the question I asked him in the e-mail had been belittling, it could have had a powerful negative impact (and I am sure I have had many of those moments as well).  You can destroy the poor guy who answers the phone at customer service.  As you go through your day, consider the small moments as times when you can have an impact.  You may never know because they may never tell you.  This message is for everyone, but it is especially poignant for us as teachers.  We have more opportunities than most people and certainly more people in our lives who respond to what we do.