Outside Artifact

Over the past summer, I worked for the City of Elyria, as a camp counselor at the new summer day camps the city hosts. Each camp had a theme, and kids ages 6-12 were invited to participate in activities ranging from building rockets, to learning about wildlife, to playing basketball. As a counselor, it was my job to not only help manage these activities, but also to oversee my own group of 7-8 children. There were ten of us in all, for a total of around 80 kids per camp. We had to make sure we knew what our kids were doing and where they were at all times, along with getting to know them and trying to make sure they were having a good time. Each day, the camps went from 8 AM to 4 PM, so the weeks that we had camp were 40 hour work weeks. At the end of each week, the kids were given evaluation forms to take home to their parents, so they could grade both us and the camp in general.

The pictures here represent some downtime I had during the camp. For obvious reasons I am reluctant to post photos that include the kids on the internet. 

I went for the job because my dad saw an ad in the classifieds, and when he told me about it I had just recently decided I wanted to be a teacher. I thought that working with kids in a teacher-student sort of setting like that would be perfect to see if this was something that I really did want to do. I had a blast. Although it was exhausting at times, and a number of the campers made me question my value of humanity, I still looked forward to it every morning, and I am excited do it again this summer. Seeing the excitement the kids had for the activities was really rewarding, and it definitely helped that I had great coworkers and supervisors.  Although these kids are well below the age range that I am planning to teach, I think that it is still a great experience to improve my abilities to manage groups from a position of authority and to test the limits of my patience.

I think that this artifact aligns well with standard one of the NETS for Teachers. The camps definitely facilitated learning, and most of the activities we did inspired students to learn both independently and as a part of a group.