Less Rules More Inclusion

Apr 26

Federal Law Requires You Wear a Mask at All Times While In the Airport

Editor’s Note: Okay, it did when Jack wrote this blog, so just play along.

I am sitting at JFK waiting for my flight. Every 10 minutes or so there is an announcement:

Federal law requires you wear a mask at all times while in the airport. Failure to do so will result you removal from the premise and a $50 fine.

But here is the thing: 3 guys just walked by me without a mask, the guy to my left hasn’t had a mask on in an hour, I see lots of diaper chin mask situations, and WHAT ABOUT EATING?! All the restaurants are popping, tons of folks are eating McDonalds, even the staff at the airport aren’t consistent.

I am not coming here with covid plans or even a take on what the right mask rules are. I am here to talk about being real with the rules. When the rules aren’t clear it benefits the people who are insiders and folks willing to push the limits.

The Hidden Curriculum

I am a broken record about illuminating the hidden curriculum to help more outsiders become insiders as the level one inclusion work we need to do at camps. More on illuminating the hidden curriculum (short video - long video) and check out the hidden curriculum training documents in the Free Stuff section of this website. So much of illuminating the hidden curriculum is about getting us all on the same page about what the unspoken rules are in our spaces.

But what does the airport announcement have to do with our camps?

Everything.

At camp it is easy to add more rules. It is easy to say, “Ya! Everyone has to wear shoes outside all the time.” We say that because the nurse has pulled too many splinters or with really good intentions to make camp safer, but what does that really look like?

It looks like campers getting yelled at for running outside to hang their towel up without shoes on. It looks like new campers being afraid to not wear shoes in the pool because they took the rule literally, because they listened. It looks like counselors having to decide whether to let kids break the rules because they think it is a little silly or enforce the rule because they are afraid to get in trouble.

It looks like the insiders and ruckus makers winning while the rule followers, quiet kids, and outsiders anxiously try to figure out what the real rules are.

I see three options.

We aggressively and unapologetically enforce rules even when they don’t make a ton of sense to be fair.
We leave it the way it is and let there be tension between the insiders and the outsiders.
We use our power to start removing unrealistic rules.

How do we know what rules are unrealistic?

We ask the kids. We ask the staff. We look at old documents around what has led to the most incident reports.

As I wrap this up I want to take a step back. This summer, last summer, and every summer, black and brown kids will be disciplined and sent home from our camps at an astronomically higher rate than their white counterparts. I know this anecdotally about camps because as an industry we don’t keep great records, but it is proven in our schools.

By focusing on removing these rules that are enforced inconsistently we are able to make it easier to be an insider. We are making it easier to remove unconscious bias from the enforcement of these rules. We are making our camps more inclusive.

I don’t know what rules you should change at your camps, but what I want you to think about is instead of asking what new rules can we add to make camp safer, think about what rules can we remove to make camp more inclusive.

The Hidden Curriculum Basics And More

This May we are running a Hidden Curriculum Basics Seminar for frontline staff as a part of our Summer Staff Power Pack. The Power Pack is truly an INCREDIBLE deal — 20 mix and match spots in TEN virtual trainings (WITH RECORDINGS) that can teach your staff literally SO MUCH before the summer starts. It’s so cheap you can’t afford NOT to do it.