By Noah Stein
Of all of the things I’m grateful for about life at camp, one thing I sometimes overlook is the short morning commute. A 25 second walk from the Little House– where I live at camp– to the Caretaker Shop for our daily facilities meeting each morning allows me to wake up promptly at 7:00 AM for the 7:20 AM meeting. Well, maybe sometimes I roll out of bed at 7:17 AM and scramble hastily to the Shop arriving with an inside-out shirt, much to the amusement of the Caretakers… but that’s beside the point!
While the commute is short, it isn’t without entertainment. The Hill, home to our youngest campers, the Swampers and Loggers, is a sight to behold before the 8:00AM bell each morning. Well before official wakeup, the Hill comes to life. Dazed campers rise from their sleep, tip toe out of their cabins, and roam the grounds. It’s a bit surreal, to be honest! On my commute I pass campers in varied states of awake-ness: some peacefully drifting aimlessly as if still dreaming, others meandering in groups or sitting quietly at picnic tables or in the Big House living room reading books and writing letters.
With no official program, no agenda, no place to be, the world is their oyster during those ethereal post-dawn hours. They wake up each morning to the smell of pines and independence. But independence isn’t anarchy. They know where they’re allowed to go, what they’re allowed to do, and that we trust them to act responsibly within those limits.
And they do act responsibly. In fact, this summer we had six new friends join us at camp… Chickens! Every morning campers ambled down the Hill to C-1 (the coop) to let the hens out of their cage. They collected the eggs, and carried the eggs up to the MOCA kitchen where they’d leave them on the counter for use during project periods. All on their own.
On one commute– a commute that didn’t involve me sprinting disheveled up the Hill– it hit me. Those apparently dazed Swampers sauntering through their village weren’t actually still dreaming. They were as awake as ever (or at least more awake than me on a 7:17 AM day), reveling in the kind of unmitigated freedom you don’t find in many schools, or honestly, anywhere.
Equipped with choices and trust, Nebagamon campers don’t need their days planned out for them minute by minute. They find intrinsic motivation…motivation that comes from within. We provide the structure, support, and belief that campers will make decisions that are right for them, and the next thing you know we have fresh eggs on the MOCA counter. No reminders needed.
Of course the fresh eggs are more a byproduct than an outcome of that independence, and there’s more to a morning on the Hill than entertainment for the Camp Director… in fact, if campers paid attention they’d find that watching me bolt from the Little House to the Caretaker Shop, like a chicken out of the coop, is the real morning entertainment.
Every day on my way up the Hill I walked past campers feeling stress-free and confident as they basked in the joy that they’d woken up in their favorite place in the world. That’s the real outcome.
Does anyone have a better morning commute?