Something I’m excited about, but haven’t had much chance to talk about (because my sister and brother are arriving in a week! yee-haw), is Not-Back-To-School Camp.
I’m working there this year (again). I’ll be an advisor, which is like being a camp counselor, except that this camp is unlike any camp you’ve ever seen. Unless you dream big dreams about 100+ unschooled and homeschooled kids getting together in the woods and coming up with their own idea of “camp” with benevolent adults looking on to keep things safe. It’s an amazing place where much spontaneous fun and personal growth happens. It’s all fueled by organic vegetarian food cooked on the premises. I’ll be there for two weeks and Christian will get to be a camp kid as Bella once was.
Each advisor gets to choose what workshops he or she’d like to teach over the course of two weeks. Normally, you’d choose an area of expertise or personal interest – since I imagine most of these kids aren’t going to be interested in teaching a forest kindergarten – I’ve decided to teach mostly crafty workshops this year: knitting socks, embroidery, plant-dying, and the like. As a nod to my teacher background, I’ll lead one workshop on writing a persuasive essay following the California English Language Arts standards.
My contribution to the camp Bliss Book will be a page entitled, Jeannie’s Unsolicited Advice for Teenagers. It is presently un-written, but I have lots of ideas and I think it will be modeled after Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, which I am reading for the second time.
For those of you who are interested in camp, a former camper made this terrific little video.
Not Back to School Camp: A Glance Within from Allen Ellis on Vimeo.