In the March/April 2008 edition of Camping Magazine, there was an article entitled “Social Capital and Organized Camping.” If you are an American Camp Association member, you can view the full article here. This piece talks mostly about how the social environment at camps is a great way to teach kids social skills that they would otherwise not receive. The article concentrated on the group living aspect of summer camps.
Reading further, the authors talk about the importance of small group activities. They use the classic example of the Group Juggle as an activity that can start to build community. Here at The Adventure Center, we have been practicing this for a long time. All of our community groups, our residential population, and our summer campers, participate in some forms of this. Specifically, our summer camp is based around a model of Adventure Based Behavior Management (for more info on ABBM visit adventure-center.org).
It was surprising to me that this article needed to be printed. I had assumed that challenge courses, small group activities, and group living were staples of camps. Am I just ignorant on this? Are there camps not doing this kind of thing? How much importance do you place on the social aspect of summer camp? Leave a comment and let me know.
April 7, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The social aspect of camp IS camp. It is the world away from your world. A world you can be whoever you want to be. The social activities allow you to see the behaviours of different people and modify yours to fit what you really want, rather than what’s expected of you in your world.
Summer camp without the social emphasis is an amusement park with smaller rides.