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Fire Circles, Compassionate Pioneers, and
Nurturing Communities

 

Steven W. Gilbert

October 3, 2001

 

 

Introduction

– Best Community, My Connection

 

“Catoctin is the place where I can be the way I’d like to be all the time.”

 

That’s what one young adult counselor said about a camping program that has become special, almost sacred, for many of us;  not because of its secluded location, crude facilities, or nearby natural beauty, but because of the community spirit and the way people grow, behave, and – especially -- treat each other.  Of all the organizations and programs I’ve known, the Baltimore Yearly Meeting (Quaker) Camping Program has been most successful at creating and sustaining the kind of Nurturing Community so many of us seek – and Catoctin is the oldest of the camps in this program. 

 

I first learned about the camp experience through my children, but it took me several years to understand the significance of what was happening and how it all fit together.  Even though I had no camping in my own childhood, I’ve been able to participate in the Camping Program in many ways.  My oldest son was a counselor, my middle son was too briefly a camper, and my daughter just completed the full sequence as a camper and hopes to return as a counselor.  Now, I’m on the committee that oversees the entire program.  However, most selfishly, the best part has been my experience as an assistant cook for one or two weeks each summer.  In that role, several parents help the professional cook prepare 3 meals a day for 100 hungry campers and staff, earn a reduction in the fee for our own children, and get to participate in some of the activities.  Along with anyone else who happens to be visiting or working in camp, we are welcome at the evening fire circles and at the morning worship sessions.  [Although my daughter strongly requested that I avoid being in camp during the final week of her final year as a camper last summer.] 

 

The fire circles, especially the “Heroes and Sheroes” stories after each weekly hiking trip, have helped me understand how this program has changed the lives of so many of those who become forever part of it.

 

 

Weekly Back-Packing Trips

 

Campers are grouped into “units,” with each unit consisting of 5-10 boys of about the same age matched with two older male counselors, and 5-10 girls of the same age matched with two older female counselors.  The campers in the youngest units are 9 or 10 years old.  The oldest campers are 13 to 15.  The counselors, many of whom are former Catoctin campers, range in age from 17 to 25. 

 

One of the regular components is a weekly trip in which boys and girls of the same age are combined and learn together how to back-pack, canoe, rock-climb, cook and sleep outdoors, etc.  The duration and difficulty of the these trips increase with the age and experience of the campers, culminating with a 10-day trip as a capstone experience for the “graduating” campers.

 

 

Fire Circle

 – Heroes, Sheroes, & Compassionate Pioneers

[“Sheroes” rhymes with “Heroes”.]

 

The fire circles are the heart of the camp.  On the evening when the campers return from their overnight hikes, they gather in a circle around a big fire.  As daylight fades, Linda Garrettson (the current camp director) and other staff members lead songs as they walk around the fire.  They always sing some well-known to the older campers and teach a few new ones.  When it is thoroughly dark, Linda asks everyone to settle into silence as she continues to walk around the circle between the campers and the fire. 

 

For those who are new – and to remind everyone else – Linda explains that the custom is to spend a little time thinking about what happened during the camping adventures they just completed.  Then, as she slowly continues her circle, those who are in the section she is standing nearest are welcome to speak.  Everyone waits at least a few seconds after one person finishes before offering another comment, and no one speaks a second time until everyone who wishes to do so has had a chance to talk.  Every camper is encouraged – but not required -- to speak at each session. 

 

Perhaps most important, Linda welcomes reports about “Heroes and Sheroes”.  A Hero or Shero is a camper or counselor who has done something noteworthy to help another person during the trip or who has made a special effort to overcome his/her own limits of capability, expectation, or fear.  [Sometimes a hospitable stranger encountered on a trip is honored as a Hero or Shero.]

 

And so it begins again each week.  Out of the silent darkness one of the campers speaks.  He or she often thanks someone – a counselor or peer – for helping him/her get through a tough time during the trip.  Other campers or counselors use the opportunity to praise someone else:  “It was great how Pat was able to keep climbing up that rock face all the way to the top.  We could tell Pat was tired, frightened, and still suffering from the bee sting, but he/she only stopped once and just needed a little encouragement.”

 

The comments are not about setting new records – except, perhaps, “personal bests”.  They are about helping, learning, growing, setting and reaching higher goals – or just about accepting each other.  “Marion kept singing and telling me dumb jokes when we were canoe partners, even when I was grumpy and making so many mistakes.  By the end, I could do my share.”

 

Someone always thanks someone else for cheering them on or cheering them up.  And at least once each year someone mentions how one of the counselors hiked an extra couple of miles at the end of the day to bring some fresh ice cream back to the exhausted campers.  [And a counselor may also speak, perhaps describing the Heroic/Sheroic effort or accomplishment of a camper who especially deserves or needs recognition this week.]

 

By making the act of praising specific kinds of behavior explicit and participatory, this informal system establishes and powerfully reinforces the values central to the camping community.  If you know what kinds of actions are going to be honored later, you’re more likely to find and take the opportunities for doing them.  Everyone is more likely to understand and internalize the values being promoted. 

 

The campers are learning to review and reflect on their recent experiences – and to look for instances of behavior that can be praised within those values explicitly advocated by their leaders.  Every time all the campers listen to these stories and tell some of their own about the “Heroes and Sheroes” they observed, they are a little more likely to BECOME Heroes or Sheroes the next time they go back-packing – or in other parts of their lives. 

 

When you know that others will help you and applaud you for taking risks, for trying to overcome your own fears and limits, you are more likely to strive to surpass your first self-expectations.  When you know that someone who helps you is likely to be honored for doing so, you are more likely to feel comfortable asking for help.

 

Like many camp routines and customs, “Heroes and Sheroes” was formed by the ideas and leadership of Barry Morley and developed further by the camp directors who followed him and by many others who have participated in different roles within the camping program.  [“Heroes and Sheroes” are quite similar to the “Compassionate Pioneers” I’ve been finding in higher education and elsewhere.[1]]  

 

 

Barry Morley

 

Barry Morley died in August, 2000 shortly after I finished my annual week as an assistant cook at the camp that he profoundly shaped in his 23 years as its Director.  The memorial service for him on September 2 was a deeply moving tribute of shared memories and vibrant spirit.  He helped hundreds of people directly, and many thousands more who benefit from the kinds of people those campers and counselors have become.  He was a teacher and a "compassionate pioneer."  For some excerpts from one of his last articles, "Fire at the Center," see

http://www.tltgroup.org/gilbert/barrymorley.htm

I regret that I only met Barry Morley a couple of times. His life was an inspiration. 

 

Many of the subsequent camp directors and leaders are grateful to Barry Morley for much of their own energy and direction.  Morley envisioned camp as an institution not only for the benefit of the campers, but also as a supportive environment for the growth and development of everyone involved.

 

A Nurturing Community 

Camping for Everyone

 

Many campers return each year and become part of an older unit.  Most finish the program at age 13, 14, or 15.  But that is really only the beginning.  Many participate in related camping opportunities elsewhere for a few years.  They learn more explicitly about camping procedures, camp structure, leadership skills, leadership styles and the community values of the BYM camping program.  Many campers return as counselors.  A few eventually become staff with some administrative responsibilities.  More recently, as the demand for the camping program has grown, additional camps have been launched, providing more opportunities for leadership roles.  Not surprisingly, many of my colleagues in the kitchen are former campers;  and many of the campers have parents or other relatives who were campers.

 

Barry Morley’s influence carries forward in the way counselors are treated by the staff and each other.  Some of the camp directors admit that some counselors “get more out of” camp than do most campers.  I get a lot out of just being an assistant cook.  We’re all trying to be Heroes and Sheroes wherever we can in camp.

 

Last summer one of the youngest campers walked up to me one morning and held out her glasses which had become badly bent.  She asked for help and I was delighted to be able to fix the frames and explain what I had learned about keeping my own glasses unbent.  In camp, there is no shame in asking for help and there is the expectation that each of us will be appreciated for giving help when we can.  We’re all there to help and to grow.  Each of us can enjoy the progress of any of us. 

 

 

Lifting Up, Not Putting Down

 

Camp is the opposite of a zero sum game.  When someone does better, everyone does better.  Instead of winning a competition where there must be a loser, being a Hero or Shero means lifting up oneself or someone else.  Every heroic or sheroic act lifts up some of us and doesn’t put anyone else down.  Reporting and honoring these acts lifts everyone.

 

What could be better for self-image, self-confidence, and self-esteem than frequently confronting challenges in a strongly supportive environment – and being praised for trying and succeeding?

 

Camp activities that lead to “Heroes and Sheroes” stories go far beyond more narrowly constrained “self-esteem programs”  -- often well-intended but too little, too late, and too artificial.  Most adolescents have some kind of self-esteem problem, and a typically competitive socially segregated middle school or high school environment can make it worse.  Limited programs that can provide only an hour or two a week when young people are encouraged to notice and embrace some of their own good points can easily fall victim to the surrounding culture of criticism and harsh win-lose comparisons typical of too many schools and other institutions.  Praising oneself is not nearly so powerful as praising and being praised by one’s peers.

 

The BYM Camping Program provides experiences that brilliantly combine real challenges with guided follow-up – interpretation and admiration.  And then more challenges, forming a sequence that cumulatively builds toward clear goals.  It also helps that much of what happens on each trip is actually fun and provides many opportunities for young people to get to know and trust each other.  Everyone faces real challenges that are sometimes frightening but always safe – and always possible to achieve at least to some degree.

 

 

 

Beyond the Camping Program?

[TO BE EXPANDED, CONTINUALLY]

 

I want to find ways of working with others to extend what I’ve learned from camp throughout our lives.  How can we help other kinds of institutions to develop and sustain more nurturing communities?  As my friend and colleague Tom Marino of Temple University said in response to a draft of this article, “Where are the fire circles in our lives?  On our campuses?” 

 

How can we identify and support in our own institutions the “Compassionate Pioneers” – those who not only  reach beyond their own limits and lead the way in developing or trying new options, but who also encourage and help their colleagues to take the same path?  How can we all be Heroes and Sheroes more often?

 

How can we more explicitly encourage in the rest of our lives these simple basic values from the heart of the camping program:

·         Helping and encouraging others.

·         Overcoming our own limits of capability, expectation, or fear.

·         Setting and reaching higher goals –- achieving “personal bests”. 

·         Asking for help.

·         Listening respectfully.

·         Accepting responsibility and taking initiative.

·         Thanking and praising each other.

·         Accepting each other. 

 

Wouldn’t this be a superb foundation for learning and growing?

 

[Testing and challenging ideas is one valuable way to advance knowledge.  However, in higher education criticism and analysis can easily slip into cynicism and contention.  Perhaps something like a “fire circle” could be the antidote.  Edward Hallowell often says that “Fear is the worst learning disability – the greatest obstacle to learning.”  Can we create an environment in which ideas are tested against each other but people support each other?]

 

 

Lessons from the Camping Program

 

Telling stories to each other around a campfire can deepen the impact and meaning of experience, can fix events more solidly in memory.  Real campfires are best, but metaphorical campfires can work too.

 

In their increasingly hurried lives, people need a time and place where they can quietly and thoughtfully reflect on what they have done.  They can help each other recognize and understand the significance of their accomplishments. 

 

Praising oneself is not nearly so powerful as praising and being praised by others.

 

An organization can establish and powerfully reinforce values by providing regular opportunities for everyone to publicly describe, reflect on, and praise the specific kinds of effort and accomplishment that are most welcome.  If people know what kinds of actions are going to be honored later, they are more likely to find and take the opportunities for doing them. 

 

A sequence of real challenges that are always safe and that cumulatively build toward clear goals can provide opportunities for everyone to have fun, get to know and trust each other, and make visible progress.

 

It’s not about setting new records – except, perhaps, “personal bests.”

It’s about taking risks to overcome one’s own limits of capability, expectation, or fear.

It’s about helping, learning, growing, setting and reaching higher goals – and accepting and loving each other. 

 

 

It’s possible to build a Nurturing Community.

It’s possible to create an environment and institution in which everyone can help each other, and everyone can grow, and everyone can enjoy the progress of others. 

 

It’s possible to build a community where: 

When someone does better, everyone does better. 

 

 

We need more fire circles in our lives.

 

 

Getting from Here to There

 

[Specific suggestions, examples.]

 

Collect and publish stories about Heroes and Sheroes – Compassionate Pioneers --  in every context.

[Stories about Heroes, Sheroes, or Compassionate Pioneers must be told or written by someone other than the Hero or Shero.]

 

Collect and publish stories about Compassionate Pioneers in educational uses of information technology.  Stories that clearly explain how a Compassionate Pioneer made an innovative improvement in teaching and learning that makes use of information technology AND how that same person helped a colleague to make a similar effort.

 

Collect and publish Compassionate Pioneer stories within a college or university.

 

Organize local Web sites to accept and assemble Compassionate Pioneer stories in a structure that is easy to browse, read, work with, and add to…