When I was young I attended a summer day camp. Then I worked there as a volunteer, before becoming a leader, and eventually a director. All in I was at this summer camp for seventeen years. From age five to age 21. It’s impossible for me to separate my childhood, my development, or my identity from this particular camp. And yet, I had really left this part of me in the past as I’d launched into a career in higher education. I actually believed this part of my history wasn’t that important. It was just a camp. Just the summer. Just something I did when I was young.

When I became a mom in 2020 I was forced to reconcile with how far I’d gotten away from myself. My husband and I began conversations about what we wanted our home and family culture to be like. The more we had those conversations, the more I felt called to focus on motherhood. I dropped out of school, walked away from my career, and started to heal from a decade of hustling for my worth. In shifting to become a stay-at-home mom I started exploring the possible education paths for our son. I’d been exploring them previously, but as a scholar in education and learning. In fact, in the year prior to becoming a mom I was a student in the Learning Sciences Program at Clemson University; my research interest was in how to construct empowering learning environments. While I’d arrived at Clemson University ready to study college learning environments that’s not where I ended up spending energy. I kept getting assigned to research projects on K-12 age learners. In class I’d be drawn to research about informal learning environments, apprenticeships, positive youth development activities, and home learning. I’d work on projects in the research lab about early childhood. I was teaching adolescent development to pre-service middle and high school teachers.

It didn’t dawn on me until my life changed so dramatically, but all of what I experienced at Clemson wasn’t preparing me for a career as a college educator. It was preparing me to be a mom who educates her child at home.

Now as I looked through the lens of Mama, homeschooling became an option to explore, even though the idea surprised me a little. I hadn’t expected to be open to, let alone excited about, homeschooling. But something told me to let myself understand it better, to release my preconceived notions and be a curious learner about education in the home environment. To bring all of what I knew about teaching and learning with college students, and all of what I’d studied at Clemson, to the table. 

Then, something really cool happened. I was researching outdoor learning in models like Reggio Emilia and also getting really into the 1000 Hours Outsidepodcast. Something was urging me to consider the outdoors in all of this. It was around this time I had a phone call with a really special friend of mine. We met as volunteers at camp. We went on to be high school besties, college roomies, and are both Northern California transplants living in the southeastern US. Her son is three years older than mine. Something in our conversation lit a fire in my mind, and recalling camp became a growing notion.

I’d recalled camp a little bit when I was a student at Clemson, when I’d felt underqualified to be researching or teaching about childhood education instead of adult education. But this was different. In our conversation the memories of how significant camp was to our development, as well as the hundreds of kids I went to camp with and served at camp, became paramount. I finally started seeing camp for what it really was: an incredible learning environment.

I cleared a seat at the table for my camp experience as I continued to research, allowing it equal voice alongside my credentialed experience and scholarly knowledge. I went back and re-read articles from my classes with fresh interest and perspective. I read books about play, early childhood, and human development while allowing camp to be as important to my understanding and expertise as anything else. 

Then I read The Call of the Wild and Free by Ainsley Arment. The gift this book gave me was to transform my perspective. Arment convinced me first to believe I am capable of educating my son. Then she convinced me my way of doing it would be uniquely my own, crafted from the tapestry of experiences I’ve had, things I know, what makes me stand in awe, and what makes me feel whole. I decided to believe her.

In doing so I realized I could draw on my camp experience not as a piece of the puzzle but instead as the bedrock foundation of my approach to homeschooling my son, and also just how we live our lives. I didn’t decide on this lightly. I did it as I read countless articles and books advocating for the preservation of childhood, opportunities for kids to play as the key to learning, the merit of nature exposure for children, the ingredients for curiosity and creativity, and the value of self-direction to name a few. I also chose it because of my confidence; camp was a place I consistently thrived. I feel grounded in my ability when I consider mothering and educating from this experience. Moreover, I chose it because it was a place for me where I felt whole. It was vital to my becoming. 

Yes, there’s actually more. In addition to the countless studies and books advocating for environments like camp, and my personal experience thriving there, I have countless anecdotes of my own. The campers who came to us at the beginning of the summer with a warning label from their parents: ADD/ADHD, behavioral problems, social skill issues, traumatic life experiences. Campers who arrived to us struggling and after nine weeks with us, were transformed. The campers who had never experienced outdoors or physical activities or hated crafts who, after one week, had conquered things they’d never dreamed. The campers who came back to us, summer after summer, because this was a constant, a family, a home. The campers who went on to become volunteers because they couldn’t imagine not giving back to the place that had fostered so much of their own adventures. If I can create even a fraction of all that for my son in our own corner, I’ll be so pleased.

You see, my aspirations as a mother are fairly simple. Keep him safe and healthy, of course. Never let myself or anyone else squash some of his innate traits: delight, curiosity, courage. Teach him to care for himself, for his communities, and for his environments. Nurture his unique becoming. That’s it. I can think of no other place that did this so well for me, and hundreds of others I knew, than camp. It’s not to say there won’t be other activities in his life or influences in my approach. But just like it was for me as a kid, teen, and young adult, camp will be the home I return to over and over again. 

So that’s the why. The how will come. Stay tuned. Follow along. Everyone is welcome at camp.

Originally posted 9/23/22 on old website