The Hidden Curriculum Camp Science Fair
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We are talking staff training here in a sec, and do have The Staff Training Sprint Playbook rolling right now. There's a ton in there to run staff training. Just click the link and check it out.
All right, on to one of my favorite topics
Every camp has a Hidden Curriculum.
The unwritten stuff. The things veteran camp staff people know in their bones that new staff don’t get yet.
The best place to poop
How meals actually run
What happens on days off
Who actually gets chosen to lead stuff at Color War
What’s a night game
How hard do you really play basketball with kids
This stuff is everywhere at camp, at every camp. And I think a lot about how that kind of knowledge gets transferred to anyone showing up for the first time.
The binder
Usually, the default solution is some sort of documentation.
A 100-page binder. Every tradition explained. Every system outlined. Every nuance captured in writing so that new staff can get up to speed before summer starts.
(Or worse, nothing at all, but that’s a different story.)
I get why camps do this. It feels responsible, thorough and if I write something down I’m like ok, well at least it exists somewhere.
Writing it down is 100% worth it.
But tbh, mostly nobody reads it. And even the ones who technically do, don’t come close to retaining the texture of what makes any of it actually work. A binder or simple explanation can tell you what Hollowpalooza is. It cannot tell you what it feels like to run it well.
The binder transfers information, but it falls way short of transferring culture.
Speaking of running camp, Campminder is how we do so much behind the scenes
Trip reports, luggage lists, travel schedules all through one system. Staff background checks and forms.
I learned everyone's faces through the Campanion app.
All the admin work that has to happen for camp to run well? One place.
The camp science fair
So this year we made something up. I have no idea if it’s going to work. But here’s the idea.
Groups of three or four staff, intentionally mixed: at least one or two returning staff paired with new people.
Each group gets a packet about one specific camp tradition. Hollowpalooza, Big Brother/Big Sister, Color War, Free Play, the meal system. The packet has photos, written context, some prompts.
See, I still gotta write stuff down…
45 minutes to build a poster. Think middle school science fair: big tri-fold board, markers, photos taped on, key phrases pulled out. Giving you flashbacks to trying to get this done the night before school in 5th grade? Yeah, me too. Thanks Pam Schott for rocking with me on these!
Then every poster goes up in the dining hall. All staff walk around for about an hour, vendor hall style. Snacks, conversation, people moving around. Each group stands by their poster and explains their tradition to whoever walks up.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Why (I think) it works
Three things happen at once.
New staff learn the traditions through 45 minutes of conversation with someone who actually lived them, instead of solo reading that probably doesn’t happen anyway.
The returning staff member who explains Hollowpalooza to a new hire becomes the person that new hire finds later when they have a question about it. They already have a friend for that.
And returning staff have to articulate why the tradition matters. Not just what it is. Why it’s there in the first place. What the moment means. Getting back to renewing their own ownership of the thing in a way that just showing up to another summer doesn’t.
Snacks, posters, people walking around, conversation.
That seems like training.
We’ll see
I’ll be honest: we made this up. It hasn’t happened yet. We think the logic is right but we’ll know more in a few weeks.
The underlying idea feels solid though. Hidden Curriculum only transfers through people. If that’s true, then the whole point of staff training should be to build the relationships that let the transfer happen.
A binder can’t do that. A poster explained by someone who loves the tradition might.
You got this,
Jack
PS - Trying to make this newsletter as helpful (read: awesome) as possible. Got time for a quick poll? Hit it below.
Get my newsletter every week.
It’s all about kids today
Jack Schott
Summer Camp Evangelist