Just as parents around the Bay of Plenty do this time of year, I volunteered for three days at camp with my son. Despite a stunning lack of bush craft, I was lucky enough to be selected to scrub dishes, coax children to cliff jump, rescue kid-less kayaks and make a fool of myself on the confidence course.
The point of camp, we're told, is for students to stretch themselves, to take risks.
I learned as much at camp as my younger charges did.
I never attended school camp growing up in the States. My class took field trips to Washington, DC and Gettysburg, PA. We learned about history and stayed in hotels, evading abseiling, flying foxes, freezing cold swimming holes, bug bites, rustling sleeping bags, kayaking, tubing and raft building. Pity. Thank goodness for second chances at a Kiwi childhood.
This was my second time at school camp. We were based at Ngatuhoa Lodge in the Kaimai-Mamaku Forest Park near McLaren Falls.
A class of 31 Mount Intermediate students shared the facilities with five parent helpers and two school staff. Miss C, a 23-year-old teacher, ran the programme, commanding attention in a manner combining the gentleness of a friend with the sternness of a drill sergeant.
I watched children walk from a high platform wearing a harness and helmet while attached to ropes. Two students shook their heads before retreating from the ledge - no abseiling this time.
There were struggles on the confidence course, too. While some kids breezed over a high wall, heel-toed over beams, propelled themselves hand-to-hand along a metal pole and swung over water, others wrestled with each task.
Children helped classmates by letting them use their backs as a step. Tail-end Charlies got longer, louder cheers than winners.
Some may call it coddling the weakest links. I like to think those struggling students will long remember their classmates' encouragement. I hope my son learned teamwork and empathy belong to everyone, regardless of whether he/she can scale a 2m wall.
At a time when so many of us sit zombified at LCD screens, activities like school camp with its glowworms and gleaming possum eyes become more special and rare. We had no cell coverage. No internet. No tech barrier between us.
I fear for school camps' futures. Our RAMS (risk assessment and management strategies) booklets outlined potential risks, and how to avoid or minimise them. It did not mention the possibility of a centipede bite on the Burma trail.
The creepy critter attached itself to a student's leg and was pulled off by an adult. Another student hurt her finger on the flying fox. Get a group together at an adventure camp, and someone will get banged up, bitten or bleed.
We all made it home safely. I hope, despite dangers lurking in the outdoors and in the hi-jinks kids perform, that Kiwi school camp won't succumb to fear of injuries, lawsuits or lack of internet access. We need it now more than ever.
What do you remember most about school camp?
Dawn Picken also writes for the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend and tutors at Toi Ohomai. She's a former TV journalist and marketing director who lives in Papamoa with her husband, two school-aged children and a dog named Ally.
