April 29, 2005

Howdy from Kentucky and from Camp Quest.

Our mutual friend _________ forwarded me your email of inquiry about Camp Quest, and I will try to respond. You inquired regarding someone's concern over whether or not Camp Quest is too didactic and if it engages in indoctrination. You also asked for comments regarding the benefits to kids of going to Camp Quest.

I understand the term "didactic" to generally be a pejorative implying moralizing or preaching. The term "indoctrination" seems relatively clear.

From my Ten Years as Director of Camp Quest perspective, Camp Quest is not didactic. Camp Quest does not approve of, and will not tolerate, indoctrination. We have, it must be conceded, from time to time had more formal lectures than the setting or attention span of most normal humans can reasonably tolerate. I recall one spectacular scene right after a big meal when a particularly tedious talk by a college professor had kids and staff snoozed out with heads on tables. But this is rare, we are aware of such dangers, and have taken steps to make sure our adventures in learning are interactive and fun. If something isn't enjoyable, there is no reason for it to be done at Camp Quest. One can do plenty of non-enjoyable things for free lots of other places without having to sleep in a bunk and eat camp food.

And, well yes, we do have cabin inspections and instruction on how to keep clean and healthy and not get hurt. If forcing kids to learn how to recognize poison ivy, and insisting that they not touch it is didactic, then we are didactic.

Camp Quest absolutely does not try to indoctrinate anyone on anything. Quite the contrary. We do have lively (and brief) presentations on the history and heroes of freethought, and on different religions. Oh, we do have two invisible unicorns at Camp Quest. And there is a prize (as yet unclaimed) of a godless (without "in god we trust" on it--made before 1954) one hundred dollar bill for any camper who can prove they aren't there. Campers come up with the oddest refutations—like Edwin should have to prove that the two invisible unicorns are there. How ridiculous! It is pointed out that I have faith, and that is all that is needed? Isn't it?

For the most part, Camp Quest is much like any well run, competently staffed, and properly supplied summer camp. We have swimming, horseback riding, campfires, crafts, canoeing, field games, chess, soccer, archery, volley ball, badminton, nature hikes, and outdoor skills training, combined with participatory activities in evolution, astronomy, critical thinking, and scientific method. Other activities include games teaching cooperation, wall climbing, and looking in the ground for fossils. Our campers play chess, go on airplane rides, examine pond scum with microscopes, tie dye T-shirts, munch on s’mores by campfires, and generally keep so busy they are surprised and sad when the camp is over. We have many campers and staff who come back year after year. We do not have prayers before meals, and at campfires we are more likely to discuss something like scary bible stories than to sing "Kumbaya." The Camp Quest T-shirt, which is mostly different each year, says, in the part that is not different each year, "Camp Quest; It's Beyond Belief."

We have had campers cry, and say that being at Camp Quest has given them, for the first time in their lives, the chance to be around others who share their lack of the belief systems of the larger society. Last year, on an evaluation form, in response to the question "What have you learned at Camp Quest?" a camper wrote, "I have learned it is okay not to believe in god." She didn't know that before. Please note she did not say she had learned there is no god. We don't teach that. Indoctrination indeed!

Each year campers, by cabin, are given a set of "Challenges" to work on during camp. On the final night of camp they present their responses, in a creative form, to the entire camp. One ongoing project has been to send messages to the inhabitants of the planet Questerion, who have asked our campers to provide advice, together with the reasons therefore, on whether or not their emerging society should be encouraged to develop along lines of critical inquiry or along faith and belief in the supernatural. Past challenges, together with statements regarding the origins and purposes of Camp Quest, can be found here:

http://www.camp-quest.com/info.htm

Our mission statement says: "Camp Quest is a not-for-profit educational organization created in 1996. Its purpose is to provide children of irreligious parents a residential summer camp dedicated to improving the human condition through rational inquiry, critical and creative thinking, scientific method, self-respect, ethics, competency, democracy, free speech, and the separation of religion and government guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States." If we didn't do something to fulfill this mission, we would be no different from hundreds of other summer camps. But we are different.

Camp Quest is unique in concept. It has a board of directors drawn from most major freethought organizations. No one group or ideology can claim ownership. Camp Quest is a separate, independent, unique freethought organization, answerable to no one but itself. We have had campers and staff from many states and several countries. It has spawned similar camps in the U.S. and Canada. All staff is voluntary, and no one is paid. All staff must get to camp at their own expense. Several former campers are now on staff. One camper attended every year from age 10 until she turned 18. She is now a counselor and a member of our board of directors. We must be doing something right.

Camp Quest has an ongoing need for donations from persons and groups who believe in the validity of our undertaking to keep this concept alive.

Helen and I would be delighted to come and talk with your group. My Helen is a native of Regina, Sask.

Camp Quest is not didactic and it does not indoctrinate. Anyone is perfectly free to prove we do not have two invisible unicorns and to go home a godless one hundred dollar bill richer.

Edwin