Camp Chaos

When my son was little I found and created all sorts of work to keep the lights on and buy myself time to write. I house-sat, child-sat, pet-sat. Summertimes, for many years, I hosted camps for kids. Initially these sessions were writing focused. Campers wrote and performed skits, made magazines, and composed poetry. 

I don’t remember when I got the bright idea to introduce Fashion Camp, but I do remember how well it went and how fun it was. Yes, it’s pretty hilarious to imagine me dipping my toes into fashion, seeing as my personal style usually finds me dressed either totally butch or in some ensemble that appears to have been chosen by a drunk toddler. 

But I knew I could do it. Because my job wasn’t to impose my own questionable sartorial choices on attendees. My job was to provide the environment, supplies, and enthusiasm so that the kids could make their own decisions. My secret weapon came in the form of my son’s friends—teenagers at the time—who knew how to sew. We’d spend a week thinking up, sketching and actualizing designs, and by Friday afternoon the campers were ready to put on a show for friends and family with live DJ action provided by Henry and still more of his talented friends. 

One year, on Day Two of Fashion Camp, I got a call from a mother whose two daughters had not shown up that morning. This woman has a very recognizable name—her father was a local celebrity—which I would love to share with y’all, but I’m striving to be super nice this year so I won’t do that. She told me that the camp was not a fit for the girls, which did not ring true based on the fun they seemed to have the day before. Still, I told her I would refund her money. I did not argue with her or push back in any way. By that point I had learned enough about asshole parents to know when to cut my losses and move on. 

Within an hour of this call, before I had time to move money into my checking account and send her money back, I discovered she had put a stop on the check she paid with. This wreaked havoc on my bank account, so very slim were my margins then. Worse, her underhanded action suggested she did not believe my honest promise of a refund. Furious, I called her to ask why she had done that. She blurted something so ridiculous, so false, and so utterly stupid—not to mention unrelated to my question— that, unfortunately, I have not been able to forget her words.

”Your camp is too religious!”

Seeing as I’m nontheistic, and that there was nothing remotely religious in any of my clearly secular offerings, I asked her what the fuck she was talking about. She pointed out that I ran my camp out of a classroom I rented from…wait for it…the Unitarian Universalist Church. Do y’all know the UU church? They worship, like, poetry and hugging. Anyway, even that didn’t matter as I was merely renting space from them and my camp was not affiliated with their mission (though I do love poetry and am not opposed to properly executed hugging).

I understood pretty quickly the real issue this lying mother had with my camp. Where the kids and I saw endless potential in all those heaps of thrift store fabric, she saw unacceptable disorder. My best guess is that she had expected pre-designed clothing samples that the kids would strive to emulate, stitch for stitch. 

Instead I cut them loose and let them use their imaginations. Consequently the fashion shows featured many delightful offerings from evening gowns made of pillowcases to accessories created from duct tape. 

I understand this isn’t the best environment for all kids and that some need more structure to feel safe and productive. I honor that. But I also know from experience there is a very legitimate place for supervised chaos. Many parents grokked this and sent their kids to me again and again. Still, there were always those who demanded to know what concrete academic skills I would drill into their school-weary kids. You know the type, the ones who expect their children to land in the Ivy League, and start working toward this goal prior to giving birth, adamant that any childhood activity directly ties into these projected aspirations.

I’ve been thinking about those summer camp days lately as I read Temple Grandin’s latest book, Visual Thinking. If you’re not familiar with Grandin, she is a brilliant professor with autism. She sees the world differently than a lot of us and I find a good deal of resonance in her observations. She is a big advocate for bringing back hands-on learning classes that have been cut out of curriculum—auto shop, wood shop, home ec, sewing, music, art—in favor of rote-learning taught for the purpose of producing “better test results.” 

The gist of her message is that there are many different ways to think and learn and that too often kids who struggle within the confines of current standard academic practices are shuffled off into special ed where they languish, instead of being given opportunities to find areas beyond book learning in which they would thrive. She points to other cultures where following a vocational path instead of an academic path is not considered less than. She illustrates how many kids more readily grasp contextual learning over abstract learning.

I think back with great pity for the daughters of the mom who yanked them out of my camp because she could not see the value in letting her children have a chance to experiment and explore, to have fun and learn hands-on skills. I imagine her continuing to micromanage their adult lives and the resentment they surely feel towards her for this. 

Looking back at how I chose to spend much of my time during lockdown, I see a pattern I did not notice at the time. Nearly every avenue I pursued to occupy myself featured two components: physical and visual. I wrote far less and found sustained reading—a lifelong passion—impossible. Instead, I spent far more time making ceramics, teaching myself to paint, learning silversmithing and upping my already excellent baking skills. I beaded, embroidered, and knitted.

I understand now that I needed to spend less time in my head, thinking about how scary the world was (is), and more time using my hands, producing objects, experiencing a small sense of control (Hello pinch pots! Bonjour croissants!) in an out of control world. I derived immense satisfaction from even my least aesthetically pleasing creations. 

I see, too, how all of these activities very naturally took me away from doom-scrolling, giving my mind much needed breaks from checking the latest death tolls, political insanity and other bad news. In short, though not consciously, I created for myself a years-long art camp. The benefits remain and my world is much broader now thanks to these pursuits. Though I have resumed with zeal my lifelong passions for reading and writing, studying and reflecting, I continue to spend a good deal of time working with my hands—knitting, cooking, painting, crafting—and I delight in how all of these activities actually involve applied science, math, chemistry and engineering.

I follow reports of the severe—some suggest irreparable—damage that lockdown visited on education. I understand there are other challenges for kids these days, too, addiction to screens and constant social media being very high on the list. I’m grateful I got to do some parenting before screens became ubiquitous. I’m relieved I did not try to force my passion for book learning on my son, who showed far greater interest in music and visual arts, at which he very naturally excelled. I love that he grew up to be a visual artist and that his artwork is critically acclaimed. I love even more that he doesn’t make art for this acclaim, but because it is his true calling, the thing that brings him the most satisfaction. I love that, when he attended school, creative electives were still readily available, allowing him options that these days often must be pursued through private avenues out of the financial reach of many. 

I’ve been fantasizing about bringing back summer camp. I don’t think I’ll do it. But if I did, I would call it Analog Camp and I would offer more chaos, not less, than I did in days gone by. Screens would be banned, no exception. The room would be packed with arts and crafts supplies set out randomly. There would be lots of little spaces set up for the introverts to read, write or simply daydream for hours on end. There would be no pressure to create parent-pleasing takeaways. Just opportunities to explore, try stuff out, have fun, and maybe spark some heretofore undiscovered passion. 

You know I love a good conversation—I’m eager to hear about your experiences with learning and, if you have kids, with their learning experiences. Did lockdown reveal to you hidden talents and passions? Did you lose your shit when school was exclusively online? Do you think it’s important that every activity you/your kids pursue must have some quantifiable results? Do you think academic pursuits are more laudable thank vocational work? Hit me with it.

NOTES:

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Thanks for reading y’all. I appreciate you.

Love,

Uncle Spike