Pre-script:
This started out as the same entry as the re-telling of the events from Stress Camp 2008, but grew into something different, so i'll post it first, mostly just to get it out of the way. It's sort of long, and maybe a little boring, but explains the rationale and change that has happened within stress camp. It's at least worth a skim!

The mentality of stress camp in the past seems to have had more to do with teaching survival skills, showing students that they are capable of more than they think, and being a lesson for overcoming obstacles. Also it was good for them to have an actual adventure, where unexpected things happen and there are no easy outs when they get too tired to go on. And, to be honest, i agree with a lot of those reasons. it really makes me mad when kids give up on hard stuff. it boggles my mind that these kids have never, as far as they can remember, gone one single day without some kind of gadget. and they've re-defined "adventure" to be something you do on the internet! and so, for the last 1,000 years, stress camp has been going on as a time for kids to get out of their comfy little lives, and go experience a real adventure, do something really hard, and accomplish something they could be proud of. And i do think that these are good, true things.

The problem is, that's not really defensible. CAJ can't really sell that one to the parents. Kids have been trying to get out of it for years, and more and more, parents have started trying to get their kids out of it. And I can't really imagine the reasons that CAJ gives: "One day, we'll all be chased into the woods by the invading armies, and if your kids don't know how to build a fire, they'll never survive the first week!". Well, to be fair, it was probably something more down the lines of character building. So, in the past, the idea was to have kids have a "good experience" (in the sense that it was good for them, not that they enjoyed it), that they would remember for the rest of their lives, and be proud of. And what if the kids aren't proud of it? What if they're overweight and have a horrible time? The overwhelming response from students, when asked "would you ever do something like this again?", was "I would rather suffer death by fire-ants". Seriously. The single greatest effect Stress Camp had was to convince kids that adventuring outside is horrible, and we have earned the right to stay inside with our machines, so that's where we'll be. Maybe 1 kid in each class would go again, and they probably had that mentality before they went out into the woods anyways. Most of the kids (and they've started handing out a survey after stress camp every year, so this is actually based on fact) would never, ever do anything like stress camp ever again if they had the chance to.

So, something had to change. It all came to a head a few years ago, in the now-infamous "typhoon year" of stress camp (my first year as a leader, incidentally). parents were furious that the administration was forcing their child to sleep outside in the woods during a typhoon. and the administration realized that stress camp could no longer continue as it had been for eons, but would either have to be stopped entirely, as the values of stress camp no longer matched up with the schools goals for the students, or the school would have to figure out just what it's goals for the students were, and re-work stress camp to fit with those goals. which is what they did.

In some ways, nothing has really changed--we still go out and hike in the woods and sleep outside and build fires to cook over and things (the western, "leave-no-trace" fad has yet to catch on...), but now the leaders carry curriculum with them, too. The idea is that they learn some stuff from the experience, stuff that translates to other contexts besides being in the woods (although knowing how to poop in the woods is a valuable life skill, I've found). Each day there is a theme, and there are verses and quotes that go along with these themes, as well as questions and opportunity for discussion. The themes all have to do with leadership, and help the kids (in theory) to become better leaders. Additionally, for each theme there is an activity of some sort (blindfold walk, solo, etc.) that helps the kids to experience or think more deeply about the theme.

I was suspicious, I admit. I was skeptical. These are good things, in theory, but to do them well requires a fair amount of time, which means that much less time hiking, and actually going somewhere. Last year, i didn't really build in the time to use the curriculum, cuz I'd never used it before and had no idea how long it would take or what it would mean to use it. So, the activities were all rushed, the discussions ended up being more like lectures by me, and the whole thing really felt like it was forced, added on. Which, to be fair, it was. This year, though, things were different. Which was hard for me to do, cuz (ironically) it meant that things weren't as hard for the kids!

For starters, we hiked around in a circle....