What Life Should Be

The following is a happy parent's assessment of his son's summer camp - Yeshivas Kayitz experience:

"My son is having a BLAST!!! Learning and having FUN!!! That's what summer and life, for that matter should be!"

Hmmm.  That got me thinking. 

I take note of which words are in capital letters followed by exclamation marks: BLAST and FUN, and which is not in capital letters: learning.

I observe a parent's understanding of what not only a summer vacation but what life should be.

I wonder, did I miss a critical lesson (or two or three) when we were taught what life is about? I simply do not recall learning, reading or hearing that life is about having a BLAST and FUN.

I thought it's about Love and Fear of G-d.  About Torah, Avoda, Gemilus Chasadim.  About Ahavas Yisrael, Olam Haba, Yemos Ha'Moshiach.

What kind of students and children do we produce when we think that life should be about fun as opposed to Serving G-d?

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Now I'll take the other side.  What the parent meant is that a Jewish life should be full of exuberance and simcha.  That is true!

But in the statement, learning and fun are separate.  It's not that the learning is geshmak (though perhaps it is).  It sounds like they do their learning (get it over with?) and then move on to what they're really interested in: having A BLAST and FUN.

Campers' Expectations

In an article about summer camps in the Catskills, the director of Camp Aguda-Bnos and the director of Camp Hedvah both said that they must adjust to new expectations from their campers.  Meir Frischman said, "Our learning groups have been held in these gazebos for decades.  Nowadays, the campers expect air conditioning in their gazebos.  Each of the past three years we've enclosed a few gazebos; this year, we're enclosing three more."

I would like to know where these expectations came from. Surely it was hot in camp for all those decades.  Presumably some campers moaned about the heat all along.  So what made him decide to accede to the campers' wishes for air conditioning? Was it the campers who exerted the pressure or their parents? Did parents say, "We are paying plenty of money and we would like our children to be able to learn comfortably"? What would happen if he said, "We have never had air conditioning and what worked in the past will continue to work"? Would he lose many campers to other camps?

R' Levi: "Comfortable accomodations and standard on-site activities just don't do it anymore.  Girls expect many more trips and special days.  My wife and the head counselor hold weekly meetings beginning in December to organize a fun schedule."

Going away to camp is not good enough.  You have to go off camp grounds in order to have fun.  Having activities on camp grounds is booooring.  The change of scenery from city to camp is not enough.  Why do the girls expect many more trips and special days? Is this about spoiled kids or is it about competition between camps - if one camp puts in a go-kart track, then other camps do the same.  If one camp takes its campers to Hershey Park, ice skating, bowling etc. then other camps follow because otherwise their camp won't be patronized.

Day camps are joining the manic activity frenzy. Someone told me she wanted to keep her 7 yr. old home from a day camp trip, a full day trip to a big amusement park followed by a BBQ.  There was an extra charge involved though this wasn't the main or only reason to be opposed to it.  If this is what is provided a 7 year old, what will you give a jaded 10 year old who has been everywhere and done everything? And how should parents handle it when they are opposed to these extravagant outings for chinuch and other reasons? Should they complain to the director (who will tell them they have the option of not sending their child on the trip)? How should they explain their views to their child?

According to an article in Mishpacha's Family First women's section about sending nosh to kids in camp, "Today's campers aren't as easily impressed as we were when we were kids." The article goes on to describe just how to overcome this challenge with package themes etc. rather than DECRY the situation and offer suggestions on how to properly mechanech children.

Seems to me like a topic that ought to be discussed at conventions and addressed by mechanchim.  Perhaps we need to put forth our chinuch expectations so that there is another message being heard by camp directors.

The Goal: Having a Blast!

I think it's time to revisit and rethink the role of crafts, activities, performances - in other words, the non-text based learning, that we do both at home and in school.

Let's take crafts for starters - what is the purpose of the arts and crafts a 2-3-4 year old makes for the parsha or yomtov? I've wondered, when seeing an outline of a chicken with feathers pasted on, for a Kapporos craft for nursery, whether the child can relate this craft to an actual chicken (which they may never have seen) and the kapporos ritual. I don't think they can! Ditto for most parsha-yomim tovim crafts. 
So I think that step one ought to be answering the question - what is the purpose of this activity?

I strongly suspect that with the youngest children, 4 and under, the goal is to keep them occupied, and chinuch plays a minimal role in the choice of activity.  Since these tiny tots are being sent out of the home for large chunks of the day and just having them do "free play" all day doesn't seem right, the time has to be filled and one way to fill that time is with what is billed as "experiential" or "hands-on" activity.  The activity is connected to the parsha or Yom Tov and that makes parents think they paid for more than babysitting.

A graduation from pre-1A, a Chanuka or Purim play, a Purim carnival, acting out the makkos, color-war - what are the educational goals? Is it to have fun because you can't learn out of a book all day, day in and day out? Is it to impress Torah ideas on the children?

In days gone by, (I bet the arts-and-craft idea in the sense we're talking about it has been around not much more than 50 years in frum schools) whether in Eastern Europe or North African countries, children did not do arts and crafts projects for the parsha and yomim tovim, they listened to stories! If hands-on activities impress a lesson on children, why is it a recent innovation in our schools? Were the teachers of yesteryear unable to come up with activities that reinforced their lessons?

 Many years ago, I asked "Uncle Yossi" (Rabbi Yossi Goldstein, principal of Bais Yaakov of Boro Park) about early childhood education and he said that the educational goal for preschoolers is to instill middos tovos and to tell them a lot of stories. 

I wonder whether many educators no longer think about what the educational goal is and merely do what teachers before them have done.  In discussing this with a longtime morah, she had this to say:

"A lot of these activities don't really give the kids a real perception of what it was all about.  I remember how I perceived the parsha stories as a kid and wouldn't want unreal images to ruin that for me.  When teaching parsha I sometimes draw things on an experience chart (wells and camels etc.).  More often I don't draw anything.

"My students often ask me 'draw pictures, draw pictures.'  I tell them that I won't because I want them to imagine their own image in their mind's eye. It's scary how many of them tell me they don't know how to imagine!  Sometimes I practice with them, telling them to think of a tree, their mother, etc. and many of them can't.  I know different people are more or less visual than others, but I also think that overindulging kids with images sometimes takes away from the serene perceptions they get from just hearing a story."

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So too, regarding camp activities. There are things that are done because that's what you do in camp. Maybe they were useful forty years ago, maybe not, but isn't it time to re-examine every aspect of camp life and school life to see what might be done out of habit and is really pointless or worse? Like is "Lazy Day" a good chinuch message for kids in camp? What is the purpose of "Topsy Turvy Day"? What is the goal in "Hat Day"?  Is "having a blast" a legitimate goal for frum children?

I am certainly not opposed to crafts, and certain activities are nice like taking a pre-bar mitzva boy to see how his tefillin are made, but wonder what the purpose of a "Shabbos party" in a frum school is when the children will have a real Shabbos that night at home.