Every Moment Teaching

I grew up in a family of teachers and educators and had five years of teaching experience before discovering Chewonki. But, I never fully understood how to teach until meeting Tim. For Tim, everything we did at Chewonki, in every program, was about teaching–from reading to campers at bedtime, to comforting a homesick child, to guiding a group of senior citizens down the Allagash, to confronting dishonesty in a cabin, to helping a group of 5th graders to figure out how to cross the Gulch, to working one-on-one with a semester student on Work Program. During the ramp-up week for camp, I remember him saying that the dining hall experience was part of the teaching curriculum – practicing manners, trying new foods, learning to have conversations, and making announcements. He believed that even the most routine parts of a camper’s or student’s experience are part of the curriculum. Under Tim’s leadership, every staff member was a teacher.