Matthew L.
Age 13

At Teen Camp 2011 we did something we had never done before. We had team building initiatives that were very fun. I am writing about two of the four courses that were my favorite. The first course was pretty easy but it had its challenges. The objective was to get all ten campers and both leaders onto a small platform surrounded by dirt which we imagined to be lava. The difficult part was that we had three lives among all of us. If you touch the dirt surrounding the platform, that takes off one life. We thought that it would be really easy, and Robert jumped for the rope and swung onto the platform, then he threw the rope back so we could all get over. One of our cabin mates started having trouble getting over, and before we knew it we had to start over again. We hadn’t been listening to one another or each other’s ideas on how to complete the task assigned to us. Once we all brainstormed on how to help our fellow cabin mate, we were able to finish it. Our second task was a lot more difficult. The task was to flip a small tarp over with everyone standing on it. Once again, we started to just randomly try to flip the tarp. We had a lot of trouble with this task because we weren’t communicating with one another, and because it was naturally a difficult task to complete. Then we all stopped for a little while to think about what to do. Then one of the leaders gave us a hint on how to do it. We tried it and surprisingly it worked! One thing that I learned out of these exercise is that we should all be slow to speak and quick to listen.