Insider Info Creates Outsiders at Camp is That Ok?

Inclusion at Summer CampInclusion & Community Building

Jan 22

I’ve had opportunities to operate in my zone of genius and I feel lucky about that. My zone of genius is community building or culture building. This has ups and downs as you might imagine. On the good side, if you leave me alone with a group of people, I’ll make a team out of them even if they’ve never met before and they are nothing like each other. Anyway, one day someone gave me a summer camp community to play with. It was like Christmas and my birthday and friendsgiving all wrapped up in one glorious package. It was like being a gardener and being given the best soil and the perfect climate. OF COURSE THE PLANTS GROW BIG AND STRONG. Camp is such an easy place to build a community or a culture. That’s why it breaks my heart to see camps stay so homogenous. So white, so upper-middle class, so cis gendered, so male-directed and female nurtured. Yes, I know not 100% of camps are this way – and I know if you’re reading this, you’ve probably worked hard to be inclusive and I respect that.

The first thing I loved about camp was being included. I love being an insider, a regular, a natural. I knew the jokes, I knew the songs, I knew the little sing-it-wrong-because-it’s-funnier part of the songs. I knew how to wear scruffy-but-cute clothes and laugh about how scruffy we all were. I knew how to bring a cute dress and shoes to wear for the end of summer banquet when all the other insiders dressed up for each other. I knew how excited to be when my other camp friends came into a room. I didn’t know then that being an insider meant that some people were outsiders. I didn’t know how lame I was being.

I didn’t respect the idea that some people didn’t have the background knowledge or comfort-level to fit seamlessly into the narrow window of acceptance at camp. It is narrow, you know? We kind of pretend like it’s ok to be different or weird at camp - but it’s not really. It’s ok to stand out but only in a couple of specific ways and only as long as you meet certain prerequisites that make us feel comfortable. For example, this guy Matt at my home camp stood out in a good way. He made up super weird songs, he was extra goofy and didn’t care if he looked stupid in front of everyone. He over-committed to costumes. He was charming. On opening day he toned it down and just worked hard to be friendly and warm to campers and parents. Meanwhile, this guy Carlos at my next camp stood out in a bad way. He was visibly embarrassed by singing, but he tried hard and then put on a costume to come and be over-goofy in the staff lounge at night and then awkwardly asked if I saw his costume. Yes, bro – it’s a giant penguin suit – but this is OBVIOUSLY chill sweatpants time so I only gave you a tired fake-ish smile because I am still a community builder but you are not picking up the cues that THIS time and place is for chillin. On opening day, Carlos wore mickey mouse gloves and creepily wiggled his fingers at people.

Matt had the insider info and Carlos didn’t. WHYYY do some people just get it and some people don’t? I think the answer is part of the reason that camps aren’t more diverse. As a culture-builder, this question has driven the last few years of my work. I’m kind of obsessed. I found the term ‘Hidden Curriculum’ in the early writings about integrating black students into white schools. I applied the idea to culture and summer camp and now I wake up at night trying to explain it. I call my friends and make them listen to me ramble about some new angle of the Hidden Curriculum. I’m even writing this to figure out new layers of it. Here is my latest theory: The Hidden Curriculum is ‘insider information’ – it can make us feel like insiders or outsiders without a word being spoken.

I want you to imagine that you are a person/android from far far in the future – like 1000 years in the future. You and your robot friends dig up a time capsule of your camp from last summer. There is an iphone in there and the robots figure out how to play the videos from camp. You see some guy wearing 12 things that don’t match from the costume closet leading some culty chant. Here are eight 14-year old boys wearing dresses and heels and screaming. Here are seven 11-year old girls doing (almost) the same dance at the same time. Here are all the strange rituals that occur before the people get to eat. All of this is entertaining but possibly confusing to anthropologists of the future. My point is -- It is also possibly confusing to the people of the present time who have just never been there before. And “Entertaining but possibly confusing” is really the best spin we can put on it. At worst it is alienating and lonely not to understand or not to trust what’s happening. AND THIS IS A GIANT WASTE OF SUCH AN EXCELLENT COMMUNITY. Because we don’t do a better job of explaining all the strange and culty things we do, we alienate people who don’t already get it. We value people who have the background knowledge to understand our culture, and we make other people into ‘outsiders’ who have to prove their way in.

Some people who we make into outsiders as camp staff:

People who can’t pretend to be perky for 10 hours a day for 8 weeks
People who are older than 23
People who like to read alone
People wearing headphones a lot
People who don’t hug relative-strangers
People who like to keep their sneakers clean
People need time alone
People who have something sad happening in their life (unless we already know them)
People who get tired easily
People who struggle to stay in an even-keeled mood all day without any breaks to recover

When we make these folks are outsiders, we are basically telling all the campers and all the staff that it’s not cool to be any of those things. We are sending the message that if they are not perky, if they want to be alone, if they are sad, if they are used to listening to a headphone most of the time or they want to stay clean that they should PRETEND otherwise or risk being outsiders at camp. Pretending sucks, and it takes a lot of energy to put on a front or pretend.

Here are some intro steps to turn this way-too-long essay into practical action steps for your camp:

Consider your ‘insider info’. What is the first day of staff training like for a brand new staff member who isn’t your usual demographic? What is the first day of camp like for a brand new camper who isn’t your usual demographic?
Consider explaining more about the first day. What if you wrote a letter or made a video for first time counselors, specifically explaining the first day of training. What would you say to prepare them? What can returning staff learn to explain throughout the summer?
Consider changes. Is anything you do “too exclusive”? Do you only play one genre of music? Does anyone get any alone time? Is it OK to take a day or so to get warmed up to all the crazy hugging and cheering? Is it OK to watch an activity a few times before you try to join in?

Want to dig into this deeper? I am running an inclusion training online or in person. Plus it’s only $199. Check it out.

INCLUSION TRAINING