Campers as Leaders
It can seem like a daunting and risky prospect to encourage your campers to take on leadership roles. In a conversation over email, Dr. Chris Thurber discusses why it’s important and how it can work. 
ACA New England: In your article, “Youth as Objects or Partners?” (Camping, September/October 2009), you talk about ways in which camps can more effectively turn children into leaders by giving them greater ownership over program, activities, events, and even governance. Do you think camp is a better setting for this sort of teaching than school? Why might that be?
Dr. Chris Thurber: I’ve been working in schools nearly as long as I’ve been working in camps and I’d say that both milieus offer young people important leadership opportunities. But camp is a better setting for three reasons: (1) it’s not evaluative in the way most schools are; (2) it doesn’t include the top-heavy and reluctant administration that many schools have; and (3) it’s not competitive in the same ways that most schools are.
Without grades, resistance, and struggles to win or get accepted to that selective college, young people at camp can flex their leadership muscles more creatively and frequently than is typically the case at school. Naturally, there are exceptions, among both schools and camps, but I hold firm to the notion that camp is a uniquely powerful vehicle for positive youth development.
ACA New England: I agree that schools can have reluctant and top-heavy administrations – change often requires negotiating several layers of hierarchy – but I don’t know if I agree that camps are nearly as flexible as you assert. New England is home to lots of camps that have been around for over a century, and many camps were set up with certain missions in mind. I have to imagine that it would be hard for a lot of them to offer something as different as allowing campers substantive leadership opportunities. The idea that ‘It’s worked well this way for so long; why change it?’ must be pretty well-entrenched.
You advocate for campers to be able to, among other things, participate in off-season hiring interviews and budget planning meetings. How would a camp convince its staff and administrators that those wouldn’t just be instances of the inmates running the asylum? Maybe the best way to ask this question is this: where does the idea for greater camper leadership have to start from in order for it to be successful? Does the director have to be on board first, or can it originate from campers or younger staff?
Thurber: Well, careful now. I didn’t say that camps are flexible. I said camps lack the evaluative, competitive, and administratively bulky structure of schools. Camps and schools can both be entrenched in tradition. (Remember that I work at a camp that celebrated its 107th birthday this summer.)
In my article, I reviewed ways in which campers can become involved, but I didn’t advocate any particular practice. That needs to be customized at each camp. What I did advocate is, as you say, allowing campers substantive leadership opportunities. I also advocate that this be done in a developmentally appropriate way.
So, for example, I don’t think inviting the youngest campers to participate in staff hiring is appropriate. That’s something that perhaps only the oldest campers might participate in. However, campers at all ages can evaluate staff. They do anyway, all the time, spontaneously. Why not formalize the process a little by distributing questionnaires to campers, in addition to parents, at the close of a session?
In answer to your closing question, I suggest that the director and the senior staff at a camp begin by asking their different camper groups: “In what ways would you like to become more involved at camp?” then give them various examples. Beginning with that question is a great start.
ACA New England: I didn’t mean to imply that you advocated involving all children across the board in staff hiring; it’s one of the several good ideas suggested for children over the age of twelve in a ‘True Partnership’ between youths and adults in a table in your article. In high school, I was one of a few students who participated in interviews of prospective teachers; while I wasn’t involved in the actual hiring decisions, it gave me a sense of ownership and responsibility just to get to ask questions that might help reveal something about the candidate to the principal.
How do you get campers to know how to answer that question: “In what ways would you like to become more involved at camp?” If they’ve had only token opportunities to lead before, at camp or in school, how does a director prepare them to choose something big and important? And how do you get them to want to do things like evaluation, budgeting, or discipline?
Thurber: I’d start with that question, rather than priming them with examples. Begin this exploration where they are, rather than opening up new ideas at the start. Later in the discussion, you could ask, “How else would you like to participate in the way that camp is run? In the new programs and projects we try?”
ACA New England: If a director or senior staff members really have to be the catalysts for involving campers in decision-making and leadership, how do you convince them of its importance?
Thurber: Most youth development professionals who have focused on youth involvement would say, “Let the campers be the catalysts.” When the ideas and motivation come from the young people themselves, it becomes almost self-sustaining. On the other hand, if directors and senior staff have had to cajole youth into substantive participation, something is wrong with the process. According to some youth development professionals, adults should provide the framework within which youth’s ideas can percolate and come to fruition. In cases like this, very little convincing is necessary.
ACA New England: So if camp professionals want to keep older kids in camp by providing them with leadership opportunities, and those kids are willing to get on board, given a framework, what’s stopping more camps from really moving towards shared decision-making?
Thurber: I’m not sure what’s stopping those camps. At Camp Belknap, where I just completed my 29th summer, there’s been a strong internal leadership development program in place since the mid-60s. The chance to be chosen to return as a junior leader is the primary reason that Belknap has a waiting list each year. Our 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds crave more leadership opportunities.
ACA New England: In your article, you talk about campers as old as 16 or 17 being given leadership opportunities, and you just mentioned the popularity of Belknap’s program for its oldest kids. Where do a camp’s assistant counselors or CITs fit into this notion of camper leadership? Many camps pay them a salary – they’re treated as staff instead of as campers – so these opportunities aren’t geared towards them. How does a camp best support their development when the camp is also nurturing the leadership skills of campers only a shade younger than them?
Thurber: Philosophically, I’m against the “gap summer” idea, whereby graduating senior campers are forced to spend a summer away from camp. That seems like a missed opportunity to teach a young leader. I’m also against the “indentured servant” model, whereby graduating senior campers can return only as helpers in the kitchen. The best model of internal leadership development involves developmentally appropriate opportunities for leadership among the camper ranks, coupled with a careful selection process that culls the most talented senior campers and invites them to return as Junior Leaders or members of a Leaders’ Corps. These camper/leader hybrids pay half tuition and stay for half the summer, living together and participating in activities as apprentice leaders. From this group are selected the next summer’s paid Leaders-In-Training. And from that group are selected the following summer’s full-fledged counselors or cabin leaders.
ACA New England: Can you tell me about your favorite example – from Belknap or elsewhere – of a camper really discovering his or her leadership capacity through the opportunities that his or her camp provided?
Thurber: My favorite example was a 14-year-old boy named Timmy Geisel. He was tiny for his age, but set a tremendous example for his peers by always living our motto of “God First; Others Second; Myself Last.” Because of his small size, no one guessed he would be honored with Senior Recognition, our selection of Leaders’ Corps members from the group of graduating senior campers. The person who least suspected he would receive Senior Recognition was Timmy. But - just like at any excellent camp—we judge character based on how a person treats others, not on size. When Timmy was honored with Senior Recognition, the crowd went wild and Timmy was sobbing with unanticipated joy. He went on, through the next few summers, to become an outstanding leader. Camps should work diligently to recognize the character traits in their campers that best exemplify the camp’s mission and motto. For some campers, it may be the first and only time those traits are identified and celebrated, and it’s life-changing.