From Camp to Classroom

It has been just over a week since YMCA Camp Ingersoll and Summer Enrichment have come to a close. The camp season filled me with new hope, a renewed energy, and an overwhelming sense that the good we did during the summer months will carry on through this new school year as we pass the torch to our Before and After School Professionals and teachers. It is my hope that we remember we have the power to shape the life of every young person we meet. For me, Dr. Haim Ginott expressed it best; “as a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized”. While Dr. Ginott refers to the “teacher”, it is imperative that we do not limit this word and remove ourselves from it. We each have in ourselves the power to be great teachers. We all have the ability to shape a child’s life, and it is essential that we build them up, not knock them down. Going into this new school year, I hope, with great optimism, that we can strive to send our students “home in the afternoon liking himself just a little better than when he came in the morning”.