What I Learned At Camp

Imagine you were a kid at a camp designed to build skills most essential for living in today's age of technology and communication. What would it look like? Davey here gives us his perspective… Image via montessoritraining.blogspot.com

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thanks so much for sending me to life skills camp, it's been really fun! The counselors are really great, they sure do know a lot! But I have to say Dad, it's not at all like the boy scout camp you went to at my age… at least not from what you've told me about it. We haven't made any fires, built a shelf out of wood, roasted s'mores, or set up a tent. I asked about other things like map reading, measuring with a ruler, and changing a tire but the counselor's told us those skills weren't really that important anymore. Please don't freak out though, I've been learning so much and I would be sad to leave before the week is through. Let me tell you more about what skills they've been teaching us…

The first workshop we got to do when we got there was a computer skills workshop. First, they had us set up our WiFi connection on the laptop. Then they told us we had to find the best website on thermostat control using search engines like Google and Bing. They even had us managing money in fake online bank accounts. One of my cabin mates told me that in the future real banks won't exist anymore… I don't know if I believe him. When we were done they handed us each a smart phone and told us we would be using these each day for different events.

My favorite part of the trip so far was the picture scavenger hunt - everything they asked us to find we had to take a picture of with our smart phones. We were told to navigate to find things using the GPS app on the phone. One of the things we had to do was take a picture of one of our team putting bottles in the right recycling bins. I think we got that one right. We also needed to scan a number of different bar codes with our phones and submit those along with the photos by uploading them to Facebook. Our team got second place!

I hope you're not disappointed with what I've been learning so far. The camp director told us when we started that what we'd be doing was what was relevant and important for today. I know it sounds like all I'm doing is technology stuff, but I did get to do some cooking with my cabin mates for our counselor the other night, though, and that was really fun and helpful. Later we heated up some of the leftovers in the microwave.

Thanks again for sending me to life skills camp. I miss you both a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.

Love,

Davey

P.S. - One thing I forgot to mention: The counselors gave us a website link to a list of the most important life skills for today for us to look at (and if we memorize it we get a prize). It's a good summary of what we've been doing this week. Here is the website:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2413664/Forget-darning-baking-fixing-car--skills-REALLY-need-21st-century-setting-satnav-putting-rubbish-right-bin.html

They told us to show you the list when we got back, but I couldn't wait…. You'll have to let me know what you think.

P.P.S. - Billy says writing a letter is old fashioned. He told me to send you an email or a Facebook message, but I still think letters are nice.