Pack up, it’s time for summer camp

There are a dime a dozen summer camps in the city. Just turn around and you’ll find one. But what should a good summer camp be like? Creative, fun, engaging, thought-provoking, original are some adjectives that fit the bill. Trupti Hattangady, camp co-ordinator, Super Camp, and Meeta Baphna, mother of three, discuss the virtues of an ideal summer camp

Camps have become more professional

The new-age summer camps
Today, the premium for summer camps is high. Parents need to understand why they are priced so high. These days, parents expect a lot from children. If they are paying a higher premium, they expect the child to learn more. They forget that it’s all about the experience. I often recommend that parents attend programmes to understand how difficult it is for the child to produce sterling results. On the other hand, those who run summer camps must also focus on the overall experience they are exposing the children to. At the same time, camps should not hold back on providing quality services. With the coming of many international programme-directors, many camps have woken up to the paradigm shift involved in the whole process. Today, there’s need for high professionalism by those running summer camps.

Camps are an arduous challenge
The traditional concept of a summer camp has been something that is fun and entertains your kids for a few hours during the day. But over the years, things have drastically changed. Camp organisers are increasingly looking at the learning objectives. A lot of thought and planning goes into running summer camps — define your target audience, what are you going to teach at the camp, how will it be different from what someone else is offering? No housewife can put up a board today saying ‘summer camp’. You need experts to deal with kids. Parents cross-question you about the benefits and the takeaways from the camp. They look for feedback about their children as well.

Never let children get bored
It is difficult to keep children engaged. It’s not the parent who makes the choice today — it’s the child. If you don’t keep him interested, he will get bored within a couple of minutes. For people who conduct summer camps, this is actually becoming a challenge. The moment you think the child is losing interest, you have to quickly bring him back to the topic on hand. Single children need more attention and it’s a challenge to make them join the group.

Keep technology at bay
Children are exposed to technology so much on a daily basis that at least in a summer camp, they should stay away from modern gadgets. We use karaoke for performances, a computer to download data and use the Internet to show them exotic places. But I don’t think there should be overuse of technology because the aim is to get children away from it. Even otherwise, their lives are so well connected to the Internet. At least during a summer camp you have to pull them away from it. Technology should be used only to empower and facilitate the process and add quality to learning.

We need to learn from POGO
I think programmes like MAD on POGO channel are liberating. They are beautifully edited and presented making every child feel it’s really simple. The activities can be done single-handedly without the requirement of a teacher. Children are resourceful and use materials that are easily available to teach children by showing them, not just telling them. It has prompted children to think differently and creatively. The best part is there’s nobody to judge them.

Kids must focus on acquiring life skills

8Learn in a different way
Summer camps should be a complete departure from academics. The camps that are really successful are the ones that are creative where there’s a lot of learning involved. They emphasise learning in a different way. For instance, my son has enrolled in a camp where they do nature walks, which he would never get to do in a school. It is creative and more focused on the arts, and about environmental awareness. So the children come back the next day thrilled, and full of information. They are also eager to learn more and share.

8Camps must focus on holistic learning
Summer camps can reinvent themselves if they focus on teaching the children what they don’t already know from school. They should be less academic and more about how to deal with life. It should give them opportunities to act, or speak in front of an audience. If camps would focus on skills like photography, theatre, creative writing, public speaking, they would do really well. Kids are yearning for an outlet for creativity, for they go through this nine-month tough curriculum and at home, they are exposed to TV, Internet and the onslaught of technology. My daughter went for a camp where she was taught salsa, and that’s wonderful. Now camps focus a lot on adventure sports, which is beneficial. Children need holistic learning, that’s why we need these camps.

Give parents constructive feedback
Parents are looking for constructive feedback from those who organise these camps. The child should be exposed to something new. Parents want to know what the outcome of the camp is and what their child is getting out of it. If I am paying good money, there should be some kind of skill-acquirement at the end of it. It should equip them with life skills, and give them an outlet for creativity. Camps must acquaint children with arts, creative writing and so on.

8Depart from day-to-day environment
For a child, a departure from the everyday environment is so exciting that it would invoke learning. Automatically, a different location, even if it is from Whitefield to Jayanagar will make the child more alert, aware and open. Part of the learning process is the unfamiliar ambience. The worst thing any parent can do is to put the child into a camp in their school. The surroundings are so crucial that the familiar ones will have the child turning something off and not paying enough attention. Out-bound residential camps are even better. You also cut some of the dependency factor.

Safety, a big concern for parents
There is so much trepidation in parents when it comes to sending their girl child to outbound camps, as opposed to boys. I found it tough to find friends of my daughter to join her at a camp in Coorg. After much coaxing, I got the parents to send their child along, and they actually went to Coorg and stayed there for five days. It could be the malady of the times we live in with the nuclear families, and the sanitised, secured environment, but that’s reality.