Everyone has a set perception of the way things are. As we talked about in class, we develop certain schemas about things we experience in the world. For me, I developed a schema after I went to my summer camp for the first time when I was twelve. Anytime anyone talks about camps now, I can only picture my camp, and no other camp.
I’ve been going to camp since I was twelve as I said, for one week every summer myself and about two hundred campers would fill Sheldon Calvary Camp. I started working there two summers ago, and it honestly changed my life. The feeling of knowing that you’re changing making such an impact on kids’ lives. There was one camper I had specifically, who felt so comfortable, we were able to have a really important conversation about her home life, and I was able to listen and be there for her and help her the best I could. It was SO amazing to have that ability to help her like that.
The schema that I have developed about camps is so specific to my camp, and we’re not in the woods, we are in a giant field in the middle of Conneaut, Ohio. Whenever most people think about camp, they think about the Parent Trap, with big cabins in the forest, and my camp is absolutely NOTHING like that, and I think it’s so interesting how I hear the word camp, and someone else hears the word camp and we both think of two completely different things.
Camp has honestly changed my life, and has changed who I am, and has made me a better person, and I’m SO grateful for it J.