Herbert Spencer Zim was a teacher and author in the field of science. Sonia Bleeker (Zim) did the same for children but focusing on Anthropology. Sonia and Herbert travelled all over Africa, Europe and North and South America.
Always taking notes and doing research for her many books about Native Americans, Pre-Columbian cultures and various African tribes.
1954, 1955, 1958, 1960, 1963, 1969 Editions
The Quiz-Me Books were a series for youth featuring impressive Museum illustrations, a clearly written text and a concluding list of questions which sent the reader back into the text for further investigation.
Sonia’s INDIANS book is arranged by topics that are close and familiar to the lived experience of a contemporary child. Good starting points for beginning inquiry into complex cultures. Homes, Family Life, Hunting & Farming, Clothing & Ornaments, Languages, Tools & Weapons, Transportation & Trading, Religion & Ceremonies, Games, Feasts & Dancing.
Pre-Colonization Family Life is described as happy with parents who took good care of their children. A child naming ceremony was considered important to the clan because it bestowed upon each child a name that possessed special powers. A baby was given a nickname so that the secret name never got used up thereby wearing out its power. This is exactly the sort of anthropological detail that adds an element of magic and mystery which appeals to imaginations young & old.
A Busy Iroquois Household
Women are shown with breasts. And Sonia writes that all mothers nursed their children and the baby was always with its mother. Fathers took charge of sons when boys were old enough to learn planting, harvesting, hunting, weaving or chipping, flaking and fashioning arrows, wampum or turquoise ornaments.
Turquoise
Every Indian man, woman and child was once upon a time surrounded by relatives. Elders transmitted the ceremonies & rituals of the tribe as well as the sacred pathways to adulthood. Presented is the portrait of a stable and thriving society. BEFORE Invasion, Enslavement, Disease, Genocide, Occupation, Forced Relocation, Destruction of Food Sources, Demoralization, Despair. The Deliberate Devastation of a Way of Life.
Even a speed read of Sonia Bleeker’s Quiz-Me paperback would leave one asking very different kinds of end-of-chapter study questions. How can the annihilation of 80 Million Indigenous people be imagined? What facts should be included that might help us calculate such horror? Which anthropologists in 2024 are researching and writing for school age children seeking facts about cultures & customs recovered and revitalized precisely because of the richness they contribute to the vitality of democracy?
Herbert Spencer Zim. Ever meet him? You probably have if you’ve picked up one of the wonderful Golden Nature Series Paperbacks.
Herbert was the author or co-author of more than 100 books and countless articles. And he was known to generations of children as the man who explained everything from the workings of parachutes to which birds could be found in Central Park in the fall.
The Golden Nature series, including “Birds,” “Insects,” “Fishes” and “Trees,” exemplified his style. Concise, engaging and comprehensible to children without being simplistic. The 1966 book “Birds of North America,” which he co-wrote, is still regarded as a staple of the field.
Starting with “Mice, Men and Elephants” in 1942, he set about writing children’s science books at a dizzying pace. His early works, like “Air Navigation,” “Parachutes” and “Submarines,” often dealt with mechanical science.
In 1947 he became the editor of Simon & Schuster’s Golden Nature Guides, and he began writing some of the books in 1949. He also wrote articles for magazines, particularly those devoted to education. He edited a children’s encyclopedia, “Our Wonderful World,” in the mid-1950’s.
Herbert Spencer Zim In Spanish!
Like Herbert Zim, the Los Alamos scientists of The Manhattan Project, also believed that children in a Democracy need to understand the science of their world. In the 1960’s they began their own versions of elementary school science investigations designed precisely for classrooms. Hands-on places where curiosity and inquiry were encouraged. Not annihilated in the interest of profit-driven, corporate testing tyrants.
There was a philosophy.
The important thing in any learning is to be able to use it, to go beyond it, in the direction of still further learning and activity. When we look at our classrooms, what do we hope to find? We hope to find children working with confidence and intensity on problems of their own choosing. The primary objective at any given moment is that the children be involved with the caring about it enough to make their own effort to come to know it better.
Children work best when trying to find answers to problems that they themselves have chosen to investigate. These problems are best drawn from their own environment and tackled largely by practical investigations. Teachers should be responsible for thinking out and putting into practice the work of their own classes. In order to do so they should be able to find help where they need it.
A group of Los Alamos physicists were passionately fond of the elegance of physical phenomena such as pendulums, balances and inclined planes. They called themselves The Playground Physics Group. And started by looking at swings, seesaws and slides.
They had a good beginning set of materials and ques- tions for balances. And they were gathering courage to try them out with children. A footlong ruler was balanced on a rounded piece of wood, and a few metal washers were placed along it, preserving its balance. Someone held on to the stick and moved one of the washers. Next someone had to move another of the washers so that move compensated theirs and the ruler would remain balanced when they let go.
How about trying to make as many layers as one could have colored liquids? And then finding particles (rice, plastic bits, wood chips) that floated between the layers. Moving from beakers to closed pill bottles, focusing on the motions the liquids made as they were turned over or stirred up. A favorite was corn oil sit- ting on red-dyed glycerine with a few radish seeds at the interface.
Manhattan Project David Hawkins wrote:
“Along with the growth of intuition and understand- ing goes a necessary component which can only be called aesthetic. An enjoyment, a sheer enjoyment of the phenomena themselves. Make up a few color tubes and play with them. What is this good for? Is it going to lead to an understanding of density or surface tension? Probably not. Well then, what is it good for?
I think part of the answer is that the tubes are just good and one doesn’t have to ask immediately what they are good for, or indeed, whether they are good for anything at all. Try them out and just see if they generate further ideas for exploring the curious behaviours of different sorts of liquids.
Or think about butterflies. Here is much richer scientific fare. But would it have the richness if it were not for the marvellous colors and shapes and movements of these little animals? Every part of science has its own characteristic phenomena and gives rise to characteristic — one is tempted to say — art forms. Contrast the style of the caterpillars and butterflies with the elegant motion of a ten-foot pendulum.”
How About Ants! A little creature often ignored.
What is it? What does it do? How does it move? What does it eat? How does it catch its food? How does it live in these little sand pits? How does it eat? How does it make these little pits? Can it make pits in gravel? In flour? In sugar? In ashes? Does it prefer sand to gravel? How does it throw things out of its pit? How big a thing can it throw out of its pit? Can it see where it goes?
The likes of Philip Morrison, Frank Oppenheimer, Victor Weiskopf, Stan Ulam and Jerrold Zacharias were deeply interested in the activity of ants, bubbles, worms, pendulums, cardboard constructions and butterflies. They joined Herbert Zim and thousands of school teachers on the hunt for children who came absolutely alive in the presence of a natural/physical world that they were invited to encounter and explore.
Jerrold Zacharias knew that reductionist data-points & testing tyranny were the ultimate enemy of thinking people in every democracy. He wrote:
“I feel emotionally toward the corporate testing industry as I would toward any other Merchant of Death. I feel that way because of what they do to the kids. I’m not saying they murder every child. Only 20% of them. Testing has distorted their ambitions. Distorted their careers. It’s not something that should be put in the hands of commercial enterprises.
I have often referred to tests as the Gestapo of Education Systems. Uniformity and Rigidity require Enforcement. So I have chosen a most denigrating title for the enforcement agency. Its hallmark is arbitrariness, secrecy, intolerance and cruelty.”
“As you look back over the whole thing, the theme of it all is education. In the very broadest sense, Zach was our teacher. In his unique way he was one of the greatest teachers any of us ever had the privilege to run into.”
Phillip Morrison found a metaphor in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Jerrold as a Fisher of Men. Expanding it to include women and children as well. “I tried to think of people, individual persons, not institutions or grand things. And I could think of individual people in Rio, in Lagos, in Bombay, in Somalia, in Houston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Manhattan, in London and Rome and Israel. And a few other places where there were persons who had been caught….in the same net with me. Who were drawn out in that way from the wild waters of many purposes, by a kind of taste and energy and broad direction. Which we had not experienced, and indeed, did not realize until the mesh included us.”
The net that had caught people up in Jerrold’s enterprises never really existed of course. Except in the mind. And those who were caught in it were always free to return to their many purposes. They did so, however, enriched with a new sense of what they could accomplish and how they might set about it.
But first, they all said, YOU HAVE TO GET YOUR HEAD STRAIGHT.
Jack S. Goldstein’s MIT 1992 A Different Sort Of Time: The Life Of Jerrold R. Zacharias
When the African Primary Science Program produced new materials in the 1960’s, there had been scant thought of introducing standardized achievement examinations for children. The variations in culture, language and circumstances across the African Continent would have rendered such an idea laughable. Nevertheless the program had to be evaluated and the task fell to Educational Psychologist Eleanor Duckworth. Jerrold found it useful to reproduce some of the 20 questions that had formed the basis of the Duckworth study.
Canthe child show others what he has done so that they understand him. Does he puzzle over a problem and keep trying to find an answer, even when it is difficult?Does he give his opinion when he does not agree with something that has been said? Is he willing to change his mind about something in view of new evidence? Does he make things? Does he feel free to say he doesn’tknow an answer? Does he talk about his work at other times of the day? Does he make comparisons between things that at first seem to be very different? Does he start raising questions about common occurrences? Does he ever repeat one experiment several times to see if it always turns out the same?
It is difficult to imagine how any of these desirable behaviors, or their absence, would be revealed in a standardized, multiple choice, computer-graded examination. But any good and reasonably observant teacher would be able to recognize these patterns in students. And would seek to develop and encourage them. Jerrold Zacharias felt it ought to be possible to design tests that would EMPHASIZE and REWARD such behavior patterns instead of rote performance or the ability to guess what the examiner may have meant by an ambiguous question.
Project TORQUE/Tests of Reasonable Quantitative Understanding of the Environment got underway at CDC in April 1974. The project was restricted to mathematics but it attempted to develop principles and techniques that would be for more widely applicable. Project TORQUE designed and produced tests that met the new criteria. Using games, puzzles and other appealing techniques, they showed that FEAR need not be a component of an examination. And they distinguished the valid purposes of examination system from those that are invalid. Without compromising on quality, the project made use of the much under appreciated resource in the American education system. The caring attitude and the intelligence of the teachers. Project TORQUE represented nothing less than a Bill Of Rights for school children, parents and teachers alike. Certainly long overdue and unfortunately still nowhere implemented.
A Different Sort Of Time: The Life Of Jerrold R. Zacharias. By Jack S. Goldstein/MIT 1992.
After 1968 there was a demand on Education to solve specific, immediate problems. It became difficult to obtain funds for curriculum development unless a proposal could be shown to be relevant to these pressing problems.
By 1968 Zacharias and most other scientists had moved off the Washington DC stage. Nixon dismantled the President’s Science Advisory Committee and put nothing in its place. Science Advising never again achieved as significant a role in the upper levels of government. The most scientifically sophisticated, technologically dependent nation on Earth has not since had a useful mechanism to provide its leaders day-to-day policy advice on science and technology.
Jerrold deeply believed “that the country will falter if Public Education fails.” The prospects were dark. Years later, Zacharias testifying before Congress, commented on the failure to follow up on the educational innovations of the period 1958-1968.
“Any farmer knows not to pull up the seedlings to look at the roots. Not to desiccate and impoverish the healthy plants as they are beginning to grow. The jobs that remain to be done are ten to one hundred larger than what had gone on in the first ten years.”
Jerrold moved his base of operations to the Education Development Center in a reconditioned red brick factory building in the town of Newton Massachusetts.
There was a massive obstacle on the road to good education. The standardized examination. All the effort that could be mustered. All the ingenuity, skill, cleverness and good taste would be useless if students still had to pass traditional examinations that stressed the wrong aspects of learning. The examination was still the tail that wagged the dog.
“I feel emotionally toward the testing industry as I would toward any other Merchant of Death. I feel that way because of what they do to the kids. I’m not saying they murder every child. Only 20% of them. Testing has distorted their ambitions. Distorted their careers. 95% of the American public has taken an ability test. It’s not something that should be put in the hands of commercial enterprises. I have often referred to tests as the Gestapo of education systems. Uniformity and Rigidity require Enforcement. So I have chosen a most denigrating title for the enforcement agency. Its hallmark is arbitrariness, secrecy, intolerance and cruelty.
Those tests control what goes into the textbooks. And what is in the textbooks is what goes on the tests. It’s what I call a vicious circle. It isn’t vicious because the people are vicious. They’re not vicious. They’re just stupid.”
The achievement tests were culture bound. Children of other cultures, minority children, inner-city children, the “deprived and the segregated” all were placed at a permanent disadvantage by a system that pretended to measures something with precision that was far more complex than the would-be measures understood.
Jerrold did not claim that education should do without tests of some kind. Children, teachers, schools, principals, school systems, curricula all need some kind of evaluation. Both to improve the overall system through feedback and to enable decision-making processes to take place.
“You can’t make tests unless you know a way to find out what a student DOES know and does NOT want to do and is PROUD of. The present testing arrangements are just ordeals with pencil and paper to try to find out what the student CAN’T do. Now I can’t play the saxophone and I can’t speak Russian and I can list more things that I can’t do than I can do, by a lot.”
Jack S. Goldstein’s A Different Sort Of Time: The Life Of Jerrold R. Zacharias/MIT 1992.
It is possible to make a pretty good weighing device, in the form of a balance, using a couple of soda straws, a few pins and a moderate amount of ingenuity. Jerold Zacharais liked to say that he could weigh a fly’s wing with such a device, and he probably could have.
Any student who struggled to achieve it would almost certainly emerge with a new respect for the meaning of measurement. The appreciation was the real point of PSSC. Not accuracy for its own sake but rather for the understanding that it made possible. It was designed to provide a sense of the playfulness that often characterizes good science and with the delight of discovery.
There were many other features of PSSC that were attractive to scientists. Improvising inexpensive and ingenious equipment such as the soda straw microbalance or thinking through how to make atoms and molecules real and believable, filming complicated but interesting physical phenomena. All of it had enormous appeal.
The film called A Million To One deserves description because it conveys so well the light-hearted spirit that came to exist in the studio. The PSSC equipment group had improved upon an invention called a dry-ice puck. It was a simple disk that could float almost without friction on a thin layer of gaseous carbon dioxide. Using the same principle as the British Hovercraft which rides on a cushion of air. The carbon dioxide is obtained from an evaporating piece of dry ice carried in a container attached to the puck. The whole structure weighs perhaps 2 kilograms. But friction is reduced to such a low level that the puck can be set skimming across a smooth surface by a very small force.
“Zach was so impressed by these dry-ice pucks that he kept saying, ‘I’d like to see a cockroach pulling one of these pucks.’ Unknown to him, the film crew went down to New York City and found a flea circus on 42nd Street run by a Professor So-and-So. They made a deal with this guy and they made a three or four minute film strip. The guy actually harnessed a flea to one of these five pound pucks. And they had the movie where the flea actually pulls this damn thing. It was really marvelous.”
A Different Sort Of Time: The Life Of Jerrold R. Zacharias/Scientist, Engineer, Educator. By Jack S. Goldstein/MIT 1992.
I somehow managed to cram myself into the narrow space at the back of an African 5th Grade classroom. Scientists, educators and administrators had traveled from America, England and other parts of Africa. We had come to Kano to attend a remarkable conference on African Science Education organized by Jerrold Zacharias.
Zacharias had arranged for us to come to this school to witness a local African teacher, who after only 2 weeks of training, was going to teach science not by TELLING students about it but by putting the simple materials of science, in this case flashlight bulbs & batteries, into their hands. Letting the children manipulate them and make their own experiments. Boxes of scraps containing bits of wire, paper, string, wood, paper clips and rubber bands. The teacher simply asking, “Can you light the bulb?’
Self-consciousness and uncertainty evaporated quickly. One by one, flashlight bulbs lit up. First in one part of the room and then another. Illuminating briefly each time the intense absorption and delight in the children’s faces. Each of us watching had felt that same sense of wondering delight as young children in rare and lucky moments of discovery. We were thrilled to recognize it again now. The teacher moved quietly among the groups of students. Offering encouragement here. Asking provocative questions there. “Can you make the bulb give a brighter light? Can you light 2 bulbs? Will string work in place of the wire?”
60 of us had gathered in Kano. Many of us professional physicists, chemists, biologists and physicians. We had little prior experience with children’s science or with Africa. Yet here we were. Filled with a contagious enthusiasm. Ready to learn. Ready to go forward. I did not understand by what magic Zacharias had persuaded hard-headed scientists that we might be useful in such an adventure. But he did and we were willing.
The Cold War influenced Zacharias strongly. Reinforcing his unembarrassed love for Democracy, Decency and Fair Play. He felt a scientist’s abhorrence of dogmatism. Especially the forms of it that he encountered. McCarthism, Communism, Know-Nothingism and Radicalism of any sort. He came to believe that Education was the most effective way to address the ills of the world. “In order to save Democracy, we’ve got to educate the people who vote. There’s no question in my mind about that.”
A Different Sort of Time/The Life of Jerrold R. Zacharias/Scientist, Engineer, Educator. By Jack S. Goldstein/MIT 1992
Robert Wolfe Columbus Dispatch Owner-Publisher took his family vacations in the American West. Inspired by those adventures, in 1927 he purchased 20 acres of land in Pickerington, Ohio. And created what became a 64 acre wooded retreat which was named WIGWAM.
It was furnished with Native American decor.
Tableware and carpeting displayed the theme. The Wigwam dishes and glasses carried the 1930s picture of Two Gun White Calf. One of three Native American Indians who posed for the likeness of the Indian on the Buffalo Nickel. A portrait that was taken by Walter Nice, a photographer for the Columbus Dispatch newspaper in 1909. Mr. Wolfe engaged a Dispatch cartoonist to paint stagecoaches, trains, airplanes, covered wagons, teepees, cowboy cabins and other scenes from the American West. The Native American decor continued outside with an authentic totem pole.
In 1910 Columbus city officials hired Edgar S. Martin to advise them on how to begin a Parks and Recreation Program. Martin’s efforts met stiff resistance from conservative taxpayers but the idea prevailed. And Martin convinced Columbus City Council to appropriate $15,000 for an initial investment. State bonds were then issued for purchase of playground and recreation equipment.
Edgar Martin was an avid supporter of the emerging Boy Scout movement. He established the first Boy Scout organization in Franklin County Ohio and was responsible for introducing naturalist outdoorsman woodcraft expert Ernest Thompson Seton to Columbus.
Seton first lectured in 1927 at the Franklin County Memorial Hall where he immediately helped raise $1,300 to launch the first Scout troop. He found enthusiastic supporters in the League of Ohio Sportsmen. Seton gave talks at their statewide assemblies about nature conservation and appreciation, woodcraft, Scouting, hiking, natural health, Native American Indian lore, dances, prayers, games, clothing, fun, wisdom and reverence for the great outdoors.
The Wolfe Family purchased the Columbus Dispatch newspaper in 1905. Their newspaper immediately began to cover Seton’s Columbus community activation faithfully. The League Of Ohio Sportsmen began bringing Boy Scouts to Seton lectures. On 12/18/1927 Columbus Ohio Scouts met Seton at the Deshler Wallick Hotel. Seton talked to the men and boys about the traditions of Woodcraft Indian Council Fires, the outdoors and its enjoyments. Seton’s Woodcraft League of America was explicitly presented as a recreational opportunity for girls and boys.
By May 1928 the Mayor of Columbus had authorized the head of City Recreation to collaborate with Seton on plans for building an Indian Woodcraft Village on city property, located on the banks of the Scioto River. The site of an original Wyandot Native encampment.
Seton’s 1928 drawings included an Indian Village Day Camp headquarters building. A smokehouse kitchen. Wigwams, teepees, longhouses.There was a trash burning area. A sweat lodge and a Sun Bath. Bunkhouses. And an outdoor education space for plays, dances, games, storytelling, camp crafts, wood crafts and community gatherings. Periodically, Seton offered training workshops at the Columbus Board of Education for any adults interested in becoming teachers of woodcraft and leaders in woodcraft nature study.
Seton-designed Indian Village Day Camp was formally dedicated in May of 1928. It was laid out next to the Fishinger Road Bridge. The camp was grouped around a longhouse which functioned as the Dining Hall and Council Chamber. There were 5 teepees and 2 wooden lodges providing sleeping quarters. City Recreation operated the camp and when in summer season, there were nightly Council Fire Gatherings for 50 inner city children.
July 4, 1932 the Dispatch newspaper ran a story on Indian Village Camp plans for the national holiday. Boys week and girls week alternated. On 7/4/1932 city neighbors were invited to visit. At 2:30 PM a play was performed. Sports, field games, bead-making and swimming were on the schedule. Supper was served at 5:30 PM. And at 6:30 PM The Scioto River Boat Club staged canoe races! At 7:15 PM Mayor Worley gave an address. Joined by campers who put on a Seton-inspired Council Ring Ceremony.
At 8 PM The Improved Order of Red Men, under the leadership of one Harry Lehman, concluded the evening program.
Harry Lehman’s IORM was founded in 1834. It was a national fraternity with members wearing Native costume and nomenclature. Their rituals were historically focused on preservation. One member said, “The value of the ceremonies of our Order is their historical accuracy. They seek not merely to imitate, but to preserve. When the time comes that the Indian race is extinct, our Order will occupy a place original and unique. And becoming at once, the interpreter of Indian customs and the repository of Indian traditions.” Columbus Red Men Lodge #128 continues to operate in Columbus 2023. Located at 2634 N High St, Columbus, OH, United States, 43202.
In July of 1949 the Columbus Dispatch newspaper again referenced Seton’s tradition. A Summer Reading List of Nature Books included a review of Ellsworth Jaeger’s COUNCIL FIRES. The Buffalo Museum of Science Curator was a member of Seton’s Woodcraft League. And he produced a detailed account of campfires, fire-lighting, peace pipe ceremonies, games, songs, stories, Indian dances, Indian equipment and how to make all of it using whatever was locally available.
Dr Samuel S Palmer Pastor of Broad Street Presbyterian Church initially helped Seton start the Indian Village Day Camp. Mrs Maude Fowler Wolfe was the wife of Dispatch publisher, banker & civic leader Edgar Wolfe. She served on the Board of Broad Street Presbyterian.
The chosen location was rich in Wyandot Indian lore and Seton hand-carved a large Totem for the encampment. Mr. A W “Bugs” Raymond was the Parks and Recreation Director. In the beginning, he operated the camp on weekends only. But after that, the Federally-funded WPA arrived and helped construct the cook shack and other new buildings.
By 1947 the Dispatch newspaper boasted of the camp’s 11 cabins each housing 8 campers + counselors. Swimming pool, shuffleboard court, a dining hall and well-equipped kitchen. A recreation hall for rainy day programming and a crafts department. In 1947 camp sessions were 2 weeks long. Offering hiking, boating, swimming, fishing, camp fires, Indian lore activities, games, dramatics and gymnastics. Tuition was $18 a session with additional costs covered by philanthropic donations.
Ernest Thompson Seton’s Camp-craft work lives on. Today you can visit Seton Woodcrafters in the modern Czech Republic!
The Czech Woodcraft League 2023 continues to bring people to nature and teach them how to stay there and get by with just a minimum of the items they have brought from their home in the city. It is believed that this is the way how to bring back to life the things which have been forgotten, both spiritual and practical. When camping in nature people can understand again where they have come from and revive their bonds with nature.
We practice so-called primitive camping, imitating techniques of the Native Americans, primeval people, indigenous people and others who were masters of woodcraft.
Our aim is not to imitate indigenous people in all details or promote the escape from civilization. We just want to help people find the roots of their humanity.We believe that lifelong education is the core principle of building true humanity. That is why we put stress on learning by doing within the Deed system. Using E T Seton’s Birch Bark Roll of Woodcraft, which was modernized and updated after the Czech Woodcraft League Revival in 1990.
A Woodcraft International Meeting is being planned for sometime in 2023-2024. Uncertain political landscapes will determine if the gathering is ZOOM or Hybrid/meaning a bit of both.
OBJECTIVES: Create an international coalition of Woodcraft practitioners. Develop new friendships and connections across the world. Share best practices across the world. Identify ways to improve traditional WC/Woodcraft activities intended to reduce/eliminate Amerindian cultural appropriation and increase each organization’s focus on their own culture.
The Red Oak Summer Camp in Kirtland Ohio. Published a camp METHOD Statement that is right in line with what Dewey and Clapp were attempting in the Great Depression era Arthurdale Community School.
Red Oak’s statement reads as follows.
Our Method In order for children to develop fully, they must be allowed to make autonomous decisions in how they conduct themselves, how they solve problems, and how they spend their time. Rooted in the philosophical writings of the famous educator John Dewey, we provide numerous opportunities for our campers to make safe and appropriate choices throughout their day under the watchful eyes of our staff. We feel this to be especially true in today’s world where so many of our young people are over-scheduled and over programmed.
As John Dewey writes, “The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.”
We learn the most about ourselves in times of challenge and risk, not in times of comfort.Whether a camper is completing a ropes course, working out a conflict with a friend, completing a service project, designing a stool in our wood shop, or saddling a stubborn horse, we see challenge as the flame in which we forge strong and capable individuals. Our staff are trained extensively in how to coach campers as they navigate challenges at camp and in life.
Again, as Dewey clarifies, “We only think when we are confronted with problems.”
Throughout much of human history, apprenticeships were the way young people learned how to be in the world.We only hire great mentors as our counselors at the camps, as it is our belief that all young people benefit from the warmth, guidance, and light a mentor can provide. Our Junior Counselor Leadership Program is founded upon this important belief, a program where we mentor young people to be great mentors themselves. As one might expect, many of our staff members stay in touch with campers even when camp is not in session.
The Red Barn/Chincapin Experience uses the natural world as its dynamic classroom. Most of our lives are spent inside in boxes and rows: homes, elevators, classrooms, cars, etc. We strive each day to have our campers not only spend as much time outside as they can, but to commune and experience the natural world on its most basic level. In short, we want our kids to come home each night with dirty fingernails, muddy shoes, and great stories! As well, it is our firm belief that children will grow to love and protect our planet if they have an intimate relationship with all its complexity and richness. This will, in turn, hopefully empower and inspire them to act as stewards of our amazing planet.
Words mattered to John Dewey. The Ruling Class held very painful & precise meanings for Authority, Discipline, Deferred Gratitude, Tradition, Hierarchy & Order. These were the terms they defined and exploited to extract maximum profit from hard-working, under-educated working stiffs. Translated into action, Plutocrats broke the back of Democracy in favor of their bottom line. It was a brutal way to live and an equally brutal way to educate children & youth. And so Dewey set about reclaiming the words that animated Democracy in behalf of everyone. And not just the privileged few.
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