If you have ever met someone who works or has worked at a summer camp, they will more than likely talk about what an incredible experience it was and how much it changed their lives.
Hi, I'm one of those people.
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I worked at a Girl Scout resident camp four summers in a row. The summer after those I worked at retail store Justice and this past summer, thanks to a recommendation from the family I babysat for, I took a job as a day camp counselor at my local YMCA. We were asked several times what we were nervous about as we finished training and began the first week of camp, and my answer never wavered: boys.
I had never worked with boys over the age of about six before, except in a classroom with a lot more structure and discipline than camp.
I would be lying if I told you I did not walk into camp the first day with a pre-determined impression of the ten, eleven, and twelve year old boys I would soon encounter. Some of those boys lived up to that expectation: they were loud, they hit and kicked, they played too rough with the little kids, and they were rude and disrespectful towards myself and the other counselors. But if I had to give statistics, I'd say that only applied to maybe 30% of the older boys that came through that camp program.
The other 70% changed my life. It was two to three particular boys, who were twelve years old and shall remain nameless.
The first was a boy roughly an inch taller than myself. Needless to say, it was a little hard to get him to respect us. He was a bit of a tough kid to handle, but pairing him up for an obstacle course with a special needs child showed me a compassionate, kindhearted side of him I had never yet seen.
The second was a boy who disrespected nearly all of the counselors. Over time, we noticed he was a little nicer to me, though we couldn't find a reason why - I treated him just the same as the other counselors (except that one time I aided and abetted his plan to walk away from his counselor and see how long it took her to notice). The day he told me his mother had recently passed broke my heart.
The last was the "cool" kid of camp, a star athlete, and an utter gentleman - a hard trait to find in a child (or anyone, for that matter). Normally I would say his parents raised him well, but he had a brother who was the exact opposite. We got into a (albeit friendly) argument one day over who should re-enter the gymnasium for lunch first. He said I should because I was a lady. I said he should because he was the child. The last day of camp, I told him to remember to say goodbye to me. When I walked over and said I was leaving, he scrambled up from the floor and gave me a big hug, which nearly brought me to tears.
These boys taught me that even the most cemented of stereotypes can be blown, to walk a mile in someones shoes before judging them, and that everyone has another side.
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