A kaleidoscope of opportunity: teaching life skills

Camping Magazine, Jan-Feb, 1999 by Mary Ellen Waltemire

Camp professionals know that camp provides the opportunity to teach life-long skills, such as creative thinking, decision making, and getting along with others. By developing goals for your program and anticipated outcomes for your campers, you can ensure that your camp program will give kids a world of good.

The seven life skills that follow have been identified by the 4-H program as being essential for productive and happy lives. Consider how these life skills might have a place in your camp program.

Creative Thinking

Many children today are not challenged to look at things differently, to find the second right answer. By teaching creative thinking you challenge campers to think in alternative ways through speculating, imagining, visualizing, investigating, and synthesizing untried directions.

Creative thinking is often the most fun skill to program for with both teens and youth because the opportunities are unlimited. Staff can easily work with youth to develop creative thinking skills through arts and craft classes, drama workshops, and other small and large group activities. Perhaps the best way to encourage creative thinking is to engage young people in team-building and initiative programs. Campers' creative juices really start to flow when faced with a challenge of limited resources and having to cross an imaginary quicksand pit with alligators on either side.

During staff training, prepare teen leaders for their leadership role at camp by discussing possible scenarios. For example, it's the third rainy day in a row, and campers are getting restless. Challenge the teens to create activities that involve campers in an exciting experience. Consider other exercises that require counselors to think outside the box and get creative juices flowing, such as asking them to bring new and creative program ideas to each training session. Another exercise involves giving teen leaders a sheet of thirty or so circles and asking them to come up with ideas that use all thirty circles.

Decision Making

As a youth development specialist, you realize the importance of helping young people learn and put into practice sound decision-making skills. The reaction you get when you take a group of campers through the formal decision-making process and relate it to the choices they have at camp is interesting. At camp, the choices and decisions campers make are endless - from selecting beds in the cabin to which activities to take to what to eat at meal time. With the help of caring teen and adult staff, your campers not only learn and practice the decisionmaking process but also learn to accept responsibility for their decisions. For some youth this last aspect, accepting responsibility, is the hardest part of the process. They come to recognize quickly how their personal values influence their decisions and those of others.

Teen leaders can play an important role in the development of this skill by helping campers identify all the available options throughout the program and then systematically working through the benefits of each in a cabin setting. Teens can gain volumes of experience themselves by helping and guiding campers through decisions to be made during their time at camp.

Acquiring Knowledge

The ability to gain knowledge and skills and apply them to new situations is an important step toward self-directed living. As youth build upon and extend their knowledge and skills, they develop a commitment to life-long learning. In a camp situation, it is imperative to give campers the opportunity to learn new skills, practice those skills, and process the information for both immediate and future use. Many camp classes provide an opportunity for learning new information that can be used in a variety of ways. Some camp classes provide an awareness of new subject matter, while other classes that youth participate in offer the opportunity to gain some in-depth knowledge in a particular area. Flexibility and variety in camp programs and opportunity for campers to experience something they would not in the home environment are indications of a camp's commitment to youth development.

For teens working in leadership roles in camp, the skill of acquiring knowledge not only applies to learning leadership skills but also to learning other skills that are offered in the subject matter sessions that are planned for and offered to them. Classes that are designed for specific age groups can be more effective and easier to conduct than those that include a variety of ages. Specialized instruction tailored to specific age groups makes camp easier to manage and heightens the interest of the campers involved. Teens serving in leadership roles can learn much through co-teaching classes and working with young campers who are learning new skills.

Responsibility

Responsibility means accepting a task, consistently working toward completing the task, being reliable in meeting obligations associated with the task, and being accountable for the results. There's no better instance to teach this skill than in a group living situation with other campers.