heather mclean

Nanci,

I was interested in starting a homeschool Camp Fire
group and had a great turnout at our "organizational"
meeting last May. The Camp Fire director for our area
attended and was enthusiastic about our group getting
started as she homeschooled her daughter for many
years.

You did a lot more research than I did and since our
group decided NOT to pursue it, I stopped looking.

<...As a passionate Unschooler/Natural Learner how
many ways can I say ick? Curricula? Grade levels?
Outcome based? Am I just looking at this the wrong way
or not understanding what they are trying to say?

Elsewhere in the pages I received, it says "When
children and youth join Camp Fire, they start at the
level appropriate to their grade." Is this program
totally geared toward the institutional schooling
system, and would we be totally out of place? I don't
really want to separate my children out into narrow
band age groups. I don't think it is socially good
for them. I am one of those who is of the opinion
that institutional schooling is intrinsically bad for
the human mind and spirit, and that the institutional
educational model can never be made healthy enough to
be effective or positive.>

I guess I am pretty relaxed about their "developmental
assets" and so forth. If it was me, I wouldn't be
quantifying how many hours of community service or
nights out with friends, but I wouldn't be too worried
about it either.

Camp Fire is mostly geared to school children, but
they have also started a program called Family Clubs.
This is designed to specifically include moms AND dads
as well as kids of all ages. Seems tailor made for
homeschoolers. I understand that some areas require
leaders to attend training & if you can't attend, or
aren't near a Camp Fire office, you can't officially
start a club. However, our director, Bev Field, has
offered to help other homeschoolers get a Family Club
started where ever they are. (Let me know if you are
interested in her contact info).

Our major problem with Camp Fire was selling candy
bars. In forming a club, we were agreeing to
participate in 2 major fundraisers a year. One was a
walk-a-thon type event where we had to send letters to
20 people asking for sponsorship. We had to submit
the letters to the Camp Fire office and they would
check and make sure we had the right number of letters
(!) and then mail them for us. The other was candy
bar sales. Each person would be required (?) to sell
an ungodly # of candy bars, like 200. The money
raised went to support the area Camp Fire office. We
had no problem with supporting the office, but we
weren't allowed to come up with some other way to
raise money or even just make a monetary donation
INSTEAD of selling candy. (We were told we could send
letters to area businesses & maybe get a corporate
sponsor who might want to buy hundreds of candy bars
to give their employees & to support Camp Fire). We
were also told there was no real consequence if you
didn't sell your allotted number. Ok, so that was the
major disagreement. A few people had kids who wanted
either girls-only or boys-only club and wanted to try
scouts.

My husband had another concern, which you didn't
mention, and which I felt unsure about and that is
their system for beads & badges. He felt it was
rewarding them for completing specific projects so
that the kids wouldn't be participating for the
intrinsic value but to "get" the next bead or patch,
etc. Another friend said it wasn't about rewards,
but just a sign of their accomplishment. Any comments
to share?

What happened for us was that we discussed forming our
own club and then from one of my many email lists
-maybe it was this one- someone mentioned "roots &
shoots". I had another organizational meeting in
September and we started a Roots & Shoots club. It is
a program designed by the Jane Goodall Institute.
Here is the website:
http://www.janegoodall.org/rs/index.html We meet 1st
& 3rd Fridays 10 - noon. We invite all ages, boys &
girls & their parents. We rotate leadership among the
parents and the first event was a bug party learning
about desert bugs including a bug scavenger hunt & bug
"show & tell" and the second event was a field trip to
the AZ-Sonoran Desert Museum (thanks, Dawn!). We have
some kinks to work out as our group has grown so large
so quickly. We've kinda outgrown meeting at homes. I
just received the official Roots & Shoots manual last
week and it has a lot of interesting information that
I still need to digest.

heather mclean
tucson AZ

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