Picture the scene: it’s about 10 am on the brisk, sunny last Friday of winter break, and sunlight is streaming in through the windows of our gathering space, illuminating a group of fifteen kids aged four through twelve sitting in a circle on the rainbow rug. In the crowd, there is a tiger, a Spiderman, one middle-schooler dressed in vintage gothic (top hat included), and at least three young children sporting rainbow face paint. One at a time, they get up from the circle, declare their name and what big event they are preparing for, and then dance around the circle to music of their choice as the other kids and grown-ups in the room cheer them on.
This is what the final morning of our two-day Makom camp over winter break looked like. What does this have to do with Jewish learning, you might ask?
At the time, Makom kids had spent the last month or so in Jewish enrichment exploring the story of Yosef in the Torah, focusing on the ways that individuals and communities transform as they journey through challenges. With two full days of camp on the horizon, I thought it could be fun to use the biblical story of Yosef as a lens to further explore those ideas of transformation, self-expression, and the power of art as a tool for empowerment and change-making. On the first day of camp, we explored the Yosef story through physical and pictorial transformation, telling the story through manipulatives and playing improv games that explored different uses for a single object. We then dove deeper into the connections that physical and emotional transformation could have by looking at the way that Yosef transformed himself before meeting with Pharaoh and becoming one of his most trusted advisors. We compared and contrasted Yosef’s internal and external preparation for that event to how we would want to prepare ourselves for any big moment, and then practiced it ourselves to see what it would feel like—hence, the fashion show.
Jewish learning doesn’t have to look like sitting at desks, rotely memorizing Hebrew words, or copying phrases from the board. I’ve found through my work here at Makom that kids learn just as much—if not more—from immersive, creative, joyful experiences of Jewish text, wisdom, and meaning-making. I particularly believe in the power of camp to teach and build community through immersive experiences. I’ve found that the kind of community-building and meaning-making that can happen even in just a day (or two days, or a week) away from school is truly miraculous. At the end of just two days at winter break camp, a whole cohort of four- and five-year-olds who had never met before were singing and dancing to Jewish music, telling Torah stories, and planning silly costumes together like they’d known each other all their lives.
This kind of community isn’t just confined to one age group, either. We get a wide variety of ages at Makom camp (ranging from pre-k to sixth grade), and a big part of my process in camp planning is thinking through themes and activities with which campers of different ages can engage, work together, and help each other learn. At another recent camp day, one of our fifth graders spent the last hour of the day envisioning an intricate marble run made of blocks and dominoes, spanning a table, several chairs, and a lot of floor space. He then guided several of our younger campers in building it and testing it out, before calling all of the senior leadership out of their offices to watch the final run at the end of the day together.
Being able to watch and facilitate that kind of learning, whether it’s explicitly about text, or more about how to collaborate with others. is such a gift, and it’s by far my favorite part of my job. As we move toward the spring and summer, where Makom is offering three full weeks of camp, I am so excited to continue to work toward creating a supportive, caring learning environment for Makom kids at camp—and then watching the magic unfold.
