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Friday April 27, 2007

Local camps battle e-intrusions with old-fashioned pen and paper

by joshua brandt
correspondent

Does the electronic frontier have a place in the wilderness? And is our technology-driven world affecting the traditional rustic camp environment of Jewish camps?

According to Rabbi Daniel Greyber, executive director of Camp Ramah in Ojai, camp has always been — and will always be — “back to the future.”

By that he means that letters are preferred to email, pens are preferred to keyboards. “We encourage kids to take pen to paper and write actual letters home,” Greyber said. “Our philosophy is that it slows down the process and gives them time to think about family, which is obviously an important Jewish value.”

According to Greyber, one of the ways that value is instilled is by having it serve as a meal ticket — literally. Once a week, in order to gain access to lunch or dinner, campers pen a letter home and present it to the counselors before they can enter the dining facilities.

Ramah also has a strict no-cell-phone policy, and limits the use of electronic devices such as iPods and Gameboys to certain areas and hours.

“Camp is a very social context, and one of the most important things camp does is provide skills so kids can interact with each other in a much fuller way than they might have previously,” he said.

“The use of a cell phone in particular is a constant struggle between camps and families. When parents feel inclined to be in constant contact with their kids, it sabotages the experience of having campers reach out and learn from a new environment.

“We had one episode, for example, where a child was phoning her parents at night,” Greyber said. “The child was struggling socially, but we had no way of knowing. By the time we found out, it was too late for us to help her make the connections she needed to make for a successful camp experience.”

Mimi Gordon, associate director of Camp Tawonga, also has a strict no cell phone and no email policy.

“Camp is a time for kids to unplug,” said Gordon, who cites Tawonga’s rustic environment as the antidote to the wired world.

During her 13 years as an executive with Camp Tawonga, Gordon has seen her fair share of letters and postcards, which the camp encourages kids to write.

“Most of the time, when kids write, they’re usually having so much fun that the letters are garden-variety stuff. You know, the ‘Can you believe I’m eating vegetables?’ and ‘I forgot my socks’ type of thing.”

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