I'm getting really bad about posting regular updates here. I've been focusing more on real life, I guess. Lately I've been feeling like it's time to forge ahead and stretch in some way, and the computer sometimes feels like the walls of a deep rut, with me at the bottom. It's easier to perform the same actions every day than it is to make change. Safer and more comforting too.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a snapshot of my work week. This is pretty much what I do from Monday to Friday on any given week. My job title is Environmental Education Specialist (sub). The "sub" means I don't currently get benefits, but work almost as much as the permanents. There are around eight permanent positions, but seventeen of us are needed to accommodate the number of campers when both or our sites are running. Each week, there are usually between 100 and 200 kids who arrive with their classroom teachers on Monday morning and stay in cabins until they leave a little before noon on Friday.

Monday morning - At around 8:40 Am, I arrive at work, an unnamed outdoor school somewhere in the Santa Cruz mountains. I'm usually one of the first people there on Monday, which gives me the opportunity to sign up for a meeting spot (a place to meet with our field group for the week). This week I choose a circle of stumps known as the "Lorax circle." I also sign up for some trails for the Monday afternoon hike and gather field journals for my group, guessing that I'll have 21 or 22 kids. For the Tuesday through Thursday hikes, there is a rotating sign-up order. I'm somewhere in the middle this week. My coworkers start filtering in, and soon it's time to meet with this week's cabin leaders (teen volunteers who will be heading up cabin groups and helping out with the field classes). Today, we meet outside the staff room near the basketball hoop. The staff introduces themselves first, each giving a piece of advice to the cabin leaders. My piece of advice this week is something about leading by example. After the staff has gone around the circle (oh yeah, we're all sitting in a circle, known hereafter as a "planet earth"), the cabin leaders introduce themselves and briefly tell us about what they like doing with their spare time. After this, we find out which cabin leader(s) will be hiking with us during field class. This week I am paired with a girl named Terra (oh yeah, we're all using "nature names" - mine is Crow). Terra hasn't volunteered with us before, but is really enthusiastic and generally seems to exude good energy. She's excited for the week to begin. At around this time, the buses arrive. Only one school is coming this week (sometimes there are as many as five different schools) and it's a middle school - sixth graders. The people who are working the Monday night program (we all work the Wednesday night night hike, and then sign up to work one other night every week, with the occasional night off) greet the buses and make sure the luggage and lunches are unloaded. The rest of us conclude our meetings with cabin leaders and lead tours of the site for the incoming students, showing them the cabins, schedule board area, the hub (camp office) and or course, the bathrooms. After everybody has taken a tour, the bell is rung and everybody converges on the cement steps of the main amphitheater for introductions and the general meeting. Once everybody is settled, we sing a song called chabuya, which involves each staff member introducing him/herself via a little rhyme. The rhyme I currently use is My name is Crow/I'm a scavenger/I'm a bit smarter/than the average bird. The first one I ever came up with, but wisely decided not to actually use, was My name is Crow/and I eat the dead/if you mess with me/I'll peck your head. The kids sing along. Various staff members pull out drums and guitars. Lately we've been using a cowbell too. After the song, we go over the camp rules and introduce the cabin leaders. The staff members signed up for the Thursday night program lead the general meeting, explaining our discipline system and our positive reinforcement strategy. The discipline system is pretty simple - if a camper does something bad, his or her name goes on a clipboard. The first time it happens, the camper gets a warning, the second time it happens, they get a check mark and we take away ten minutes of recess time and replace it with a task (breaking down boxes, sharpening pencils, picking up trash, etc.). Two checks means a fifteen minute task. Three checks means a fifteen minute task, a call home, and the student has to write a contract, the breaking of which means getting kicked out of camp. We don't like kicking people out, so there is a little wiggle room. On the other end of the spectrum, a camper who does something good might get a 4c award (contribution, cooperation, consideration, and conservation). While the Thursday staff does this, the rest of us continue to get things in order for field class, with an occasional detour into the computer lab to check e-mail. After the general meeting, the kids move into cabins and field staff get their class lists. After allowing some move-in time, we ring a bell to call the kids back to the amphitheater. From there we read out the names of the kids who are in our groups, and take them to our meeting spots. I have 21 kids on my list. Some of them have names I can't pronounce. I do my best. This week all of my kids hear their names correctly and I don't have to radio around to find any (we all carry radios - the expensive police-issue kind). The first thing I do when we all sit down on the stumps at the Lorax circle is go over the list again. I ask the kids to tell me three things when I call out their names: 1 - the correct pronunciation of their name (if I got it wrong), 2 - what they want their nature name (nickname) to be for the week (I explain to them that they can't name themselves after anything made by human beings, so names like "asphalt" and "port-a-potty" are out), and 3- what they are most looking forward to at science camp. About 80% of the kids know what they want their nicknames to be. One kid wants to be called "Booger" and I let him because I think it's funny. The only other odd name is Snow Wabbit (with a "w", the kid says). No reptile names this week, which is good. I really like reptiles, but for some reason, whenever a kid picks a nature name like "snake" or "cobra" he (almost always a boy) ends up being a troublemaker. After all of the name checking is done, I go over my expectations for the week (respect each other, be nice, listen when others are talking, don't pick up sticks and rocks, stay with the group, etc.) and what to bring to field class (water bottles, long pants, good shoes, etc.). Then we talk about how to go to the bathroom in the woods (we have code names for this - chasing coyotes and bears). I end the meeting with a quick little trail-safety activity called a "danger hike," which involves me placing a piece of laminated paper face-down in front of each camper. Most of the pieces of paper say, safe-just duff (duff being a term for leaf litter, just in case you thought it was the beer they drink on The Simpsons). The idea behind the game is that students aren't supposed to go off trails during hikes. I tell them that most of the time nothing happens when somebody goes off trail (hence the "safe-just duff" cards), but the potential for danger is always there. There are about ten cards that have consequences/dangers of going off trail written on them, including things like stepped in a Yellowjacket nest (I've had that happen three times over the last two and a half years), stepped on a newt, touched Poison Oak, touched Stinging Nettle, stepped in scat, etc. The kids always like getting the cards with the bad things written on them, but it does make them aware of why we have rules about staying on the trails during hikes. By the time we finish the activity, we're slightly late for the lunch/recycling talk back at the main amphitheater. The people who get the night off (only working one night program) are in charge of doing the lunch/recycling talk. The rest of us go into the dining hall to eat lunch and meet the teachers. I recognize some of the teachers from last year, but we go around the table and make formal introductions. We have a couple of new field instructors, and there are a couple of teachers up at camp for the first time as well. After lunch, we go out and supervise the clean up and in the amphitheater. The kids have been told to separate their waste into plastic/glass, aluminum, paper, compost, landfill, and good food (any food that they brought with them for lunch but didn't eat is placed in a crate and taken to the staff room so the cabins won't be crawling with opportunistic wildlife at night). This is often the hardest part of the week, trying to get the kids to stop, read the helpful signs we've tacked to the supports of the picnic shelter area, and put their stuff in the proper bins.
After lunch is done, the hub host (this week it's Rain -this is another rotating job, which more accurately could be called "camp coordinator") introduces herself and we sing a couple of songs - Banana Slug (to the tune of La Bamba) and Evil Waste (to the tune of Santana's Evil Ways). Afterwards, we retire to the staff room to go over medical lists. The medical lists are just that - lists of known medical problems for this week's campers. Any other relevant information, such as behavior problems, is also covered. This week I get off lightly. I only have one camper on my list with any sort of problem at all, and all she has is mild asthma. After this, we have some down time, which I use to cut pictures out of old calendars with the intention of eventually using them to make new solo-hike cards. Several other staff members are doing the same thing. We share calendars.

2:00 PM - the afternoon field class starts. We all go to the amphitheater to collect our kids. This will be the first time that Terra meets our group. Also along for this hike is Sycamore, who is another new staff member. He wants to observe my lessons for the afternoon. I start class by writing down the nature names of the people who couldn't decide earlier. I do some quick , interactive definitions of words like ecosystem, habitat, and interrelationships. I try to explain interrelationships by having the kids stand back to front in a circle and all sit down in each other's laps. It doesn't work too well. I make a note to go back to my old method (using Kapla blocks) of explaining this.
We start the hike by crossing the meadow (under which lies the San Andreas fault) and stopping near the pond. There is a California Newt in the water, and a couple of Mallards paddling through the duckweed. We talk about invasive species, since the pond is also home to Bullfrogs. The kids take pictures.
The next stop is over by the youth hostel - a genuine Redwood log cabin - where we do a couple of name games (instant replay, followed by a group juggle) so that people will start remembering nature names.
Afterwards, I walk them to the other side of the hostel. All along, I've been using our basic call and response (I say "banana", to which the kids reply "slug") to focus the kids when I have something to say. I hear Booger's voice after everybody has said "slug." I take his name as an example. He gets quiet. Near the hostel's slide and volleyball net, I do a quick lesson on the F.B.I. One kid already knows that I'm not talking about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and properly identifies the F as Fungus and the B as Bacteria. A couple of other kids chime in and pretty soon the figure that the I stands for Invertebrates. I talk about what a niche is, and explain that the F.B.I.'s niche (or job) is to decompose dead material and return nutrients to the soil. I pass around a covered petri dish of bacteria that I'd grown in my bacteria farm in the linen closet at home. The kids think it's cool. I then pull over a nearby log and we discover some fungus. I talk about what it is doing to the log. I'm hoping to find a millipede or other invertebrate decomposer, but strike out with the other logs, only finding a couple of Slender Salamanders. I use trail hands (picking up the dirt under the salamander to avoid actually touching it with my hands - salamanders are sensitive creatures) to pick up the salamander and bring it around the circle to show the kids. They all try to take pictures of it from inches away with their disposable cameras. I remind them that the focusing range is about three feet. Most of them adjust their distance. I put the salamander back near its hiding place, making sure the kids notice that I'm not dropping the log back on top of it, but rather letting the salamander make its own way back under the log.
We vacate the area and walk up a trail called Washout due to a section of it being washed out. There is also a relatively new fallen tree covering part of the trail. We step carefully over and around it. I point out some Poison Oak and some more fungus on the way. When we arrive at Douglas Fir Junction, I decide that we don't have time to play "Meet a Tree" (a game where the kids break off into pairs and take turns blindfolding each other and leading each other to nearby trees - the object being that, after being led back to the starting point and having the blindfold removed, the blindfolded kid must guess which tree he/she was led to).
We turn north and end up back on the lower field near camp. I teach the kids a game (modeled after "red light/green light") called "king snake/coral snake," designed to teach about mimicry. The only main difference between this game and "red light/green light" is that instead of saying "red light" or "green light" I hold up king snake or coral snake patterns taped to the back of a pair of dry erase boards (aka white boards). The kids run and have fun. Then class is over.

Back at camp, I release the kids to their cabins and pick a couple of kids to give 4c awards to . I pick a girl named Grey Fox, who was participating well, and Terra suggests a boy named Snow Leopard. I write something nice about them on the 4c list. Later, the hub host will read the list out loud in front of the assembled kids. Public recognition is good for the ego.

The Monday night staff pull the fire alarm for the fire drill. The Tuesday night staff, Jellyfish and I, are in charge of checking in with the cabin leaders once all of the cabin groups are safely down on the lower field, which is currently serving as our go-to location for emergencies. Everybody is there. I go home. It is approximately 4:10 PM.

To be continued...