Day 338: Cleaning Camp

OYLPA Day 336: Cleaning Camp, a photo by klodhie on Flickr.

What did I learn this camping trip (the 2nd one of my life)? I learned, besides all the school activity related lessons, that I still do not know how to get into a sleeping bag, the consequences of which are severe out in the woods. I enjoy realizing what I don't know, though, because now I know I had better figure out my sleeping bag for next time.

While the past few days in Mentor groups, both during the camping trip and otherwise, have been a steep learning curve and I was anxious about my abilities as a Mentor, today's mentor time and MentorOlympics made me breath a sigh of relief. A series of games like the Sack Race and Tug-of-War in which my mentor group, the self-identified "Rolos," played against 9th, 10th, and 11th graders gave me a chance to begin working on my "pump up" skills (still weak, but I'm working on it). Our final Mentor Time at the end of the trip, though, was a sign of progress - mentees sat and listened to one another, and shared their camping trip experiences in more than a sentence each (almost). I suppose these things just take a bit of time =)

Other heartwarming moments were spread throughout today and yesterday. The Henna/Mehndi breakout sessions I lead brought an unexpectedly high number of students to the activity, and I was so excited to see the number of students excited to learn more about Mehndi and a bit of South Asian culture, and also those students who are brilliant artists! I also truly enjoyed all those little moments during this camping trip in which I got a chance to sit down and have casual interactions with students: that moment when a quiet student advocated for herself and let me know something was bothering her (which was immediately resolved); the moment when a group of students surrounded me to tell me about the Harry Potter Musical that I just have to watch one day with them; the moment when a young student, and the first person to ever say something like this to me, upon learning that I'm ethnically Pakistani and am troubled by the violence in Pakistan, said to me with a hand to my shoulder, "It'll be ok Ms. Lodhie, it will get better. These things always get bad for a while, but they also always get better. Don't worry."

I love being a teacher. I'm surrounded by awesome human beings, all the time.

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