Earn and Learn Part 1

I don’t remember much from 7th grade. One memory only stands out in an otherwise colorless landscape. I got into my first and last physical fight. An odd scenario. One boy who I usually ignored asked me if I could beat up friend A. I didn’t answer. He asked me again. No answer. Third time, no answer. Soon, friend A is angry, telling me I said I could beat her up. Friend A challenges me to a fight. Did I answer? I remember calling her over winter break, making arrangements the way two people choose a place to have tea. I didn’t see another way out. First day back, lunch recess, behind the building behind the playground. I met anxiety like a roaring engine in my nerves between that call and the day we returned to school. We fought. No one was hurt. Mercifully, it was done. All agreed she won. I walked away at first opportunity, tears falling easily. I was sad to be involved in something mean and angry. I didn’t mind losing. No teachers were aware of our senseless well planned conversation with fists. It was never mentioned again.
I know I was sad because my parents were changing. Instead of inviting friends over for potlucks and generally being social, a lovely way to live I had grown used to, they spent nearly every night at home alone reading, glued to the screen to which all living room chairs faced or asleep. Tempers were shorter (understatement), laughter less frequent. I was older before I realized our good life of easy fellowship with a house full of smiles had shifted to what was for me a pathetic nothingness of watching my parents turn outside in.
I loved my school, an experimental place where teachers wrote their own curriculum, children were treated as the reason for the building and I loved to learn. Regardless, in 7th grade, I often showed up late and I was quieter than usual within school walls (if that was possible). I did my work. I didn’t talk back to any teacher. I just didn’t take notice enough to remember nearly everything. Fortunately a group of teachers did and as was the style of the place, they took loving action.
Toward years end, two things happened. First, I was called to a conference with all my teachers. Just me and them. They told me that if I continued to be late I would miss the end of year picnic. Egg tosses, water balloon tosses, outdoor silliness, that I looked forward to. Done then, I was on time after that. But an impression had been made. An impression of a sad quiet child lacking motivation to perform certain expected tasks. Second, I was recommended for a work study program called Earn and Learn for my 8th grade year.
Though I was well behaved (aside from that ridiculous “fight”) and academically present, I wasn’t personally present. I was also lucky enough to be growing up in Evanston Il in the 1980’s where Rick Weiland lived and cared for children in a program he was passionate about, Earn and Learn.
Earn and Learn started every year with an intense 10 day mini behavioral, emotionally cleansing boot camp. It set the stage for what would be, hopefully, a positive turning point for students heading the way of a problem. I wouldn’t call us “at risk” because I don’t know what’s really meant by that, but also because it’s difficult to see oneself as an at risk youth. So I told myself we were the ones in the middle. Not too problematic, showing promise, heading astray, therefore steered this way, to Rick and Earn and Learn’s guiding care.
First of all, I had to make a commitment. Yes, I would see the year through, being part of a work program where I could make money. Yes, I would show up. Easy to say to a piece of paper asking for my signature. Easy to enjoy at camp. Camp was the first activity. Camp where the main lesson I learned was that the individual is accountable to the group, but the group is also accountable to the individual, that we were one entity when gathered, that one could hinder progress for all. While I don’t like to think that life is this way, it is. The upside is respect, the downside consists of many character building moments when patience must be called on, courtesy, honesty, where walls tumble and we are all in one room, vulnerable, waiting. We waited when one person was not cooperating, therefore keeping the group from moving to the next activity. We knew it going in. No less annoying, no less frustrating, especially the day our group missed lunch.
Camp was like most others, tucked into nature, surrounded by tall trees. The dining hall was large, there were cabins for sleeping, cabins for activities. Worn dirt paths, grassy earth.
I learned about deliberate meditation at Earn and Learn camp. Mats on the floor, we were to lay quietly, let ourselves relax…quietly. I loved the idea, It felt cool. It wasn’t easy to do as a group. The meditation cabin was dark on a bright afternoon.
Besides meditation, other character building at camp included a points or “bucks” system (wish I could think of the exact name). There were many ways to earn points through service or accomplishment. At camps end, we would all go to the Wisconsin Dells, a supposed reward. There we would convert our “bucks” into real money. I was so completely unimpressed by the Dells that I didn’t enjoy being there. It was a man made bunch of nothing compared to the time I’d just spent expanding as a human being.
The only way to earn these points that I remember for sure was to swim across a small lake as many times as possible. I think I went across twice, though maybe only once. A boy named Andrew, a scrawny kid with a funny voice, surprised us all by going back and forth more than anyone, many times more. I say the lake was small. Standing on the shore at 5am, cold, tired, determined, I did not think small. I tried not to think, just dive in and go. I would have thought “huge”, but that would have stopped me at the start. I wonder what I said aloud?
During camp we went on an all day bike ride, 48 miles?, with 3 or 4 stops along the way for cheese sandwiches, juice and fruit. At the first stop, I glided in ahead of the front pack I’d been riding with, all boys but me. After a bit, one of them realized this and alerted all the rest that a girl had just “beat” them. So this pack, all boys and me, stayed ahead. At each following stop and the end, a great race set up, incredibly intense. Those boys were so upset at the idea a girl might win (win a race that wasn’t intended as more than a day on the trail). They stayed upset because I “won” every time, though they gave a great effort, with lots of hollering to encourage whoever was at the very front with me. I held onto that triumph for years, proof that being a girl was not a disadvantage in a competition with boys.
We repelled from a small cliff too. I was so ready for this to be exciting. It was a lot of waiting at the top of a bit of rocky wall where each of us was securely wrapped in straps and buckles. In the sunshine, I see a swarm of wasps tucked in to the side of the rock. That was the excitement, listening to the concerned confusion that followed discovery of the nest. Going down the side of a rock in what felt like a diaper was not. I enjoyed talking to Ernie, my favorite counselor, as he guided me down that little wall. In memory, Ernie and excitement over wasps are all that made an otherwise incredibly boring afternoon in the hot sun tolerable.
Every moment from the time we woke until lights out usually after 10pm was structured. We knew they were growing us. We knew they were serious…usually…until, one evening, outside the dining hall which was near the lake, a fantastic ketchup and mustard fight fought with yellow and red restaurant style squeeze bottles was loudly, messily enjoyed. That night, other than streaks of bright condiments whizzing by, I remember looking out over the lake at a soft darkening blue gray sky. I remember seeing a single building, where we ate 3 meals and 2 snacks a day, among a quiet scene of countless tall gorgeous leafy tree. I don’t hear the night song of the woods when I look back in time but I know such a symphony surrounded my serenity. All was well.
I thrived there. I grew there. I did not miss the city with it’s hot cement, sunlight reflecting in slicing glares off tall buildings, the incessant roll of rubber tires, synthetic reality. Camp was simple but hard. The staff sincere and loving. I was home.
Camp set the stage for the year ahead, which is another story, the test of commitment.