You
You
If you've ever taught you do all this work with your kids and you send them away for the summer and they come back with this blank stare
Faces trying to figure out what was it that you talked about last year multiplying dividing?
What is that and they basically lose a lot of the skills that they acquired during the year over the summer and
For more affluent young people the summer is more of an enriching experience the parents travel
They go to other countries. They enroll them in fancy summer camps and workshops
For less affluent kids a lot of time is spent, you know watching TV, you know sitting outside
If it's too hot they can't you can go outside
The average achievement gains for lower-income kids during the school year is
Practically identical to the average achievement gain of upper-income kids. So these kids aren't falling behind during the school year
They're keeping pace if you look at how those
Achievement scores trend over time for different kinds of kids
You see a characteristic profile say at the end of first grade
They'll be an achievement gap and then if you look at make the same comparison at the end of second grade
The graph will be a little bigger and the end of third grade will be bigger still achievement gadgets gets bigger and bigger over time as
Disadvantaged children fall farther and farther behind
Basically, what that is is that disadvantaged children come closer to keeping up during the school year and fall behind during the summer months
The conventional notions of summer camp are that there's trees. There's lakes. There's campfire
Sitting around telling stories
Sharing experiences and getting to know new people. These summer camps have a challenge to create a summer camp experience
To transform a classroom into a community gathering place a place where they could sit around the campfire
Share stories share happenings and get to know each other
The goal isn't to turn camp into another school or another educational setting. It's to utilize the strengths of youth development
to
Work with kids in a way that they're learning at the same time that they're having fun
Clearly, you need a strong core academic program because that's where that's where the problem
lies
Reading is the foundation for everything that follows and it seems to me if you've got to focus on one thing
That would be it and he wasn't back by lunch and he wasn't back by dinner
And he wasn't back by the snack after dinner
It's one of the best things you can do for a child is to read to them and then have them either act it out
Tell a buddy whatever you need to do to make sure that they've understood it and also give them opportunity to raise questions
to one another
Because if we can talk really well about books and we can talk really well about anything that kid
That was saying it was talking talking my rhythm
I think that was like a journey because he goes and this is my life the life
I live like saying I chose my path already
I know what I want literature is a really good vehicle to really get tooled to
Explore the same kinds of things we're trying to get kids to explore on their teams
So it's just another way to to bring that home to the kids so for camp counselors when they're working with the kids
One you want the camp counselor to know what they think they're teaching the kids what the goals are what the outcomes are going to be
And when the kid knows what they're supposed to be learning and what they're going to do with that information a lot of times
What readers have to do is they kind of have to go back and revisit certain parts of the book so that they can kind of
Help themselves think a little bit more so the development of vocabulary doesn't come from just lists
It comes from exposure of people reading to them having conversations looking at the world
It isn't only reading that the kids have to do and it has to do with their
Understanding of what they read in their application of it
The whole point of the Ben diagram is you want to figure out what is
Similar about two things and what is different you guys have to go around the room and find who's got
The picture that's just like this, but that's from a different country
Teaching kids how to organize information how to find out what's the most important how to categorize it link it is really really critical
You know if you have a piece of information comes in it's going to go right out if it has nothing to do with their life
You know, oh, they made this kite great
I've never flown a kite before we learn about the invention and then we make the invention and then we read a story about the invention
And it just reinforces their understanding of it and gives them a context to put the information in
We we definitely try to have them look beyond the world that they know to get them out and they put with field trips
We're always trying to use a multi multidisciplinary
Approach we're listening to Chinese opera
We're also going to look at Vietnam CD wrong today. I'm going to create an airline
So and then they're going to travel to different countries and everybody has a job
They also are learning, you know, how an airport runs and
Different groups are going to come and visit their classroom and take imaginary trips on their airline
They come up with the projects themselves and they all put it out there. This is what we plan to do
This is what we've accomplished. So there's there's a sense of I can do it. I can complete something
I can research it from beginning to end
submersible is used for like
I'm
Scientific work in a summer reading this with the friends and this is the propeller
Go this one goes like a jellyfish, you know
the jellyfish sucks in water and it throws it out to fish itself
It's the way I've always thought about teaching and learning for myself to embody what you learn
You'll keep it with you longer
You'll learn to apply it then what they will get over the summer is that they won't take a step or two back in terms of their skills levels
And their ability to work in team and instead they'll take a step or two forward
I like to think of the whole program as as a learning environment and that we use the classroom as learning environment
But we also use the field. We also use our field ships
The kids see that is is one big hole and they don't differentiate between what they have to do in different places that it's all
It's all part of who they are
The teachers have the time to listen to what the kids have to say and that's not something that kids get to have that often
There's a lot more openness and time and freedom to be as creative as the kids can possibly think of being
Those are the kinds of experiences that they should have for the summer as much fun as possible
Yes, we know that they you know need to keep up their academics, but also
To have an enriching experience go to a museum. You never went to before
Make a new friend that you never had before
What we try to do is to try and
Close the gap and keep them from falling backwards. We try and give them a heads up
So they even go back to school a little bit
Ahead of where they left
You
You
You
