Barker-James' summer camp brings history to life
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If you’re a parent looking to keep your kids busy this summer with an adventurous and educational experience, Tillsonburg’s Robin Barker-James may have the perfect fit.
“It’s a summer day camp that’s going to run Monday-Fridays from July 2 to August 30,” said Barker-James, a local historian, teacher and dramatist.
“It’s very similar to the history camp I had last year but I’m going to be introducing acting skills, stagecraft, making props, costumes and sets.
“I’m hoping that we’ll put together some history-based drama at the end of each week for the parents to see, as a showcase of what we’ve done during the week.”
The two-month summer day camp will be offered weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., throughout the summer and is open to children in Grades 4-10. They are encouraged to sign up for as many sessions as they like, noted Barker-James, whether it be a day, a week or an entire month.
Kids will bring their own lunches for the program held at the Barker-James farm near Tillsonburg.
The day camp will teach a variety of skills, including acting, and will focus on a number of history components such as re-enactments and role-plays, arts and crafts, artifacts study, military drills and training, history film and documentaries and social history among others.
The drama component will include dramatic story telling, making and using props, making costumes, voice work, improvisation, set design and building, and choreography.
Barker-James said that unlike last year’s camp, participants will have more say in what they want to learn.
“I’ll give them a large menu of choices, find out what they’re interested in, and we’ll put together activities for the rest of the week. So they have a voice in what they’re going to be doing.”
There will also be some new activities to learn from this summer.
“I’m going to do an archeological dig each week. I have a site that I’ve put in the field and I’m going to salt it with archeological artifacts from a different period, and then we’re going to go in and be an archeological team and excavate the site. They’ll locate it on a grid system, sketch it, and then come up with historical theories about who they were, what was going on, how do we know that, and what’s our evidence.
“It’ll be quite exciting for the kids. I did this with an army cadet group recently and they loved it.”
Barker-James is hoping to coordinate with other local recreational programs or day camps in Tillsonburg this summer, to broaden the experience and learning opportunities for children participating in his History and Drama Summer Day Camp.
“I just had a village built, so we can put on a drama and people can come and visit. We’ll put on a medieval theme day in the village for them, or whatever period we decide to do. We’ll bring them in for a field trip, there won’t be any charge for that and it’ll be our kids in our summer camp learning leadership skills by putting on an event for another group.”
Several eras are expected to be highlighted including First and Second World War history, Cold War, the War of 1812, and everything from the Ancient Greeks to modern times.
“It’s a little bit of an adventure in a way, but one that they will learn something from.
“It’s confidence and self-esteem building, leadership skill building – it puts these kids in a leadership role and I think that’s one of our goals, to look at leadership styles. What was the leadership style of Alexander the Great as opposed to the leadership style of George Washington or Gandhi? To look at counter culture figures, not just the great conquerors but people that were conquerors of the spirit and soul.”
In addition, Barker-James wants to use his camp program to address a very relevant topic for many young children and teens today – bullying.
“I’m going to make that a central focus this year - to try and bully-proof them a little bit. If you look at history, history is dominated by bullies – Napoleon was one of the biggest bullies, Hitler was a huge bully. So that’s going to be one of the focuses, but in a way to show them courage… It’s about how do you overcome your fear and how do you develop courage?”
He wants students to be pro-active, and will use examples throughout history to relate those lessons to life today.
“When you study First World War and Second World War, you see that courage was pretty common. People had to overcome their fear or there wasn’t a good future. Courage is very, very rare in today’s society.
“I want to explore that, not only looking at case studies in history, but also using dramatization. Here’s a situation, we’re going to role-play it and then kids are going to tap in how they could have done it differently, how they could have prevented it as a bystander.”
One thing Barker-James wants to stress is that for families who may be struggling financially, he does not want that to prevent kids from enjoying and learning from his summer day camp.
“If there are kids that want to come and there is a financial barrier, we’ll work that out. We don’t want any kids refused for financial reasons in participating in our History and Drama Summer Day Camp.”
To register for the History and Drama Summer Day Camp program call Robin Barker-James at (519) 688-0066 or email at robin.barker-james@sympatico.ca.