July 4, 2018

No Power No Problem

There are many things that make the Arowhon mentality unique and one of the things we’re most proud of is that when challenges arise, we don’t shy away from them or moan and groan – we embrace the opportunity to try something new and feel proud of ourselves afterward. During pre-camp, we played a game called “Awe-sum” (that we learned from our friend and camp guru Michael Brandwein at a conference this year) with the staff: we had them get into pairs and on the count of 3, put out a hand with anything from 1 to 5 fingers raised. The first person to add all the fingers up correctly and shout out the answer won. Then we announced that for round 2, we were going to do the same thing but with subtraction… and a big groan went up. Thanks to Michael, we knew how to use this as a teaching moment: we stopped the staff and asked them how they want their campers to react when faced with challenges. We gave them a minute to chat amongst themselves and then explained round 2 again. This time, we heard an enthusiastic chorus of “we got this!” and “yes we can!”

So when the power went out unexpectedly today for a few hours, our staff knew how to respond to the campers’ groaning. “YES” they said… it’s a great opportunity for rest hour story time, shadow puppet shows, and card games on the porch. And when the power came back on in the middle of evening general, nobody even noticed since they were all outside doing activities!

#unplugged

"There's no wifi in the forest, but I promise you'll find a better connection there"

One response to “No Power No Problem”

  1. Greg Pinch says:

    Fantastic !

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