Catch the Dream of Camping - trio of speakers will discuss the future of camps at conference

Camping Magazine, Jan, 2000 by Marla Coleman

Albuquerque keynoters share insight into the future of camping

Three keynote speakers will converge in Albuquerque next month where, in the spirit of the Lakota legend of the dream catcher, they will spin a web of insight into the future of the camp experience. The "Past and Future" theme and the image of the dream catcher symbolize the intricate and interwoven threads that we weave as we celebrate past traditions, integrate present trends, and anticipate operating our camps in the next millennium.

As the spiritual leader lktomi decreed, "The web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center ... the web will catch your good dreams and ideas and the bad ones will go through the hole. Use the web to help yourself and your people to reach your goals and make good use of your people's ideas, dreams, and visions."

Environmentalist Bill McKibben, child development expert Cynthia Tobias, and futurist Ira Blumenthal will share their visions so we can sift our own outlooks. Collectively, they will spin a dream catcher for camp directors by sharing their passions, their perspectives, and their wisdoms, shaping a dream net for tomorrow that is built upon by the traditions of yesterday.

Environmentalist Bill McKibben

In sharp contrast to the rituals of Native American lore, today we live in the first moment when humans receive more of their information secondhand than first. While the elder leaders passed on their ancient stories face to face, depending principally on contact with each other, "we rely primarily on the pre-chewed, on someone else's experience," remarks Bill McKibben, author of The Age of Missing Information and The End of Nature who will talk at the ACA National Conference about "Welcoming Kids to the Real World."

What does that message have to do with camp? "Camp is sublime... weeks in the summer when kids are free of most of the negative forces of the culture... weeks when they can't buy anything!" McKibben says. Citing his own daughter's camp experiences, McKibben adds that during camp, children "spend their lives in contact with each other and with the natural world. learning the pleasures of living more simply and more directly than they do at home."

The environmentalist insists that the work of introducing children to the outdoors is the most important responsibility an educator has today. He says, "In a world dominated by secondhand experience - a world where kids spend most of their time in front of screens of various kinds - there is something deeply powerful about showing them the world as it really is."

Camp provides an arena for city, suburban, and even rural children - who according to McKibben often live their "mental lives in the generic nowhere that flows through the tube ... in the climate-controlled world of the car and the mall" - to be grounded in the natural world. He explains that children today are growing up in a consumer culture with the idea that they are the center of the universe - an unhealthy and incorrect message. At camp, children can develop an appreciation of their place in a much larger world, where they are a contributing member with responsibilities and accountability, and a respect for all living things.

The speaker provides us with a compelling reason to reaffirm a connection with the world around us. "There has never been a period with more skilled and committed outdoor educators, people able to help kids have deep, sustained, rich experiences with the natural world," McKibben says. He suggests that kids thrive on the challenges: tough climbs, cold or hot weather, situations where they can test themselves.

Indeed, Bill McKibben sees camp as a unique and ideal environment for children to take healthy risks with the guidance of trained, caring counselors in a hands-on setting where they can reinvent themselves. In this technosphere, the importance of a camp experience is underscored. We, as camp professionals, can plant the seeds of caring, of nurturing, of sharing - helping children develop values, rooted in the outdoors, that will guide them to a lifetime of harmony and peace.

This keynoter's advice to camp directors is to model pleasure. He says, "Show kids that it is more fun to live in a direct, primary, real way. In a world where you can have anything, the only way to be subversive is to have more fun than someone else."

Educator Cynthia Tobias

Cynthia Tobias, an educator and author, focuses on learning styles as the key to teaching children about the world around them. It is important to understand how we learn and to recognize that we each learn differently.

The author of titles such as The Way They Learn: How to Discover and Teach to Your Child's Strengths and Every Child Can Succeed: Making the Most of Your Child's Learning Style examines environmental preferences, cognitive and mind styles, and different modalities.

Tobias points out that we can have great lessons to impart to others, but if we do not take into account the best way for them to receive this information and apply it, our lessons are lost. If we wish to build upon the heritage of the past to be better prepared for the future, we must develop critical thinking skills to solve problems and to work with others. The community of camp, which caters to helping children practice growing up, becomes the ideal platform for personalizing instruction and for framing learning opportunities.