This last week, we had a group of high school students that stretched our resources to the max. On average, our services comfortably support around 80 middle school students. This was 130 high school students. Big difference. We had a group of girls sleeping in a large tent at the base of the climbing wall and we threw spare mattresses and cots anywhere we could fit them. It was madness and mayhem the entire week. I'm going to use my congratulatory letter I wrote to the staff as a way of summarizing my experience. 2 hours after the high school group left, a group of 70 4th and 5th graders showed up and most of the instructors (myself excluded) taught them today while the rest of us were cleaning. I also taught an archaeology class earlier in the week that explored an abandoned homestead, which was really cool! I hope you enjoy.
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I just finished cleaning up from our big week and I was with my own thoughts for a while, which gave me time to reflect and appreciate what just happened.
We did something unthinkable. Looking at this week from afar, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was extremely nervous about the prospect of 130 high-schoolers pouring out of all corners of camp. This was a task that had any of a number of different ways to fail tremendously.
I think it would have failed tremendously had it not been for such a dedicated, persevering and intelligent group of employees. Each and everyone one of us stepped up to the task and worked together to make a beautiful week for a tough group of kids whose demographic we do not have a lot of experience with. [new guy 1 and new guy 2] worked their asses off to figure out how to teach material they maybe had never even thought about before. It was like a dance we all did the whole week to steer clear of each other on the trails, in teaching spaces, in [the dining hall], and my goodness, was it an elegant dance.
I did not spend a lot of my time in the kitchen directly, but from my observations of the way the meals went, there was plenty of delicious food for every meal in spite of the fact that even with the volunteers, the shifts being worked by the cooks were even longer than they normally are and were endured without complaints.
There was a moment today when I was cleaning and I was watching [names] leading their tours of 4th and 5th graders around camp just about 2 hours after our group of high-schoolers left. Your vocabulary, your speech patterns, your general demeanor switched flawlessly back into elementary school mode, keeping these excited little faces and bodies engaged on the tour. [boss2] was enthusiastically leading her teachers and chaperones around on their own tour after two days of KP/ programming coordinator! [boss1] was hard at work in the kitchen making hamburger buns from scratch on top of everything else she does and [names]and myself were moving mattresses and heavy boxes all around camp, yet EVERYONE IS STILL ABLE TO SMILE!!
Maybe it's just that I haven't been doing all this quite as long the rest of you, but this is remarkable. This job we do I solemnly believe is something most people do not have the mental and physical strength to endure, not to mention intelligence, quick-thinking and passion that is evident in each and every one of you. I don't think we were able to congratulate each other quite as much as we should because of the other school group coming in today, but we really ought to stand to back and look at what we were able to accomplish as a team.
I don't know where I'm going to be in the next stage of my life, but I am just so honored and proud to be a part of this team because we really are making a difference in the world. Thank you all for everything. There's a lot of love here.
Affectionately yours,
[me]
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