It’s such a gift to look back at my teenage years and feel so distant from the pangs of loneliness of teenagehood. When I look back, the pain is dulled—just a soft echo—but it used to be more like a booming ache that bounced around in my head from morning till night. I grew up…
A hard watch but an important one I don’t watch a lot of television; I’m usually too busy trying to get better at golf or, lately, shoveling snow, but this week I watched “Adolescence,” a 4-episode series on Netflix about a thirteen-year-old boy accused of killing a female schoolmate. The story was fictionalized, but it…
When I started Odyssey Teen Camp twenty-four years ago, I didn’t know much about running a summer camp. What I did know was that I needed work that felt meaningful, something that would make a difference. When I was about thirteen, I went through a tough time. A group of kids bullied me, and I…
Last month, I wrote a blog post about the importance of honoring one’s authentic self. We talk a lot about that at camp – about being exactly who you are. But how a teenager, or anyone, gets to “know” that authentic self in order to “be” that, is a whole other topic. Emotions live in…
I started Odyssey Teen camp twenty-three years ago because I wanted to create a place to help teenagers who might be struggling. We didn’t advertise ourselves that way, but I believe most teenagers struggle to feel good about themselves and that many suffer in silence. I know I did when I was a teenager. I…
Our biggest question One of the biggest questions we get all year is how we assign campers to their cabins at OTC. Unlike many other camps that decide to house based on the binary genders of “boys” and “girls,” we at OTC have chosen a different approach. We have listened to counselors and campers over…
I freshly remember my first experience with Magic: the Gathering (shortened to Magic for the rest of this post) at OTC. Here I am, a 13-year-old kid so far tainted by society that I start my first summer at camp trying to find out where I “fit in” and who I have to pretend…
Learning from disappointment and frustration When a camper wants to call home after only being there for a few days, they usually ask their parents to come and get them. They are tired from walking; they don’t love the rustic camping lifestyle; they miss their cell phones or all of the above. Usually, parents reluctantly…
Too often, young people are punished for being different. As a neurodivergent person, my teenage years were punctuated by pressures to conform. Teachers and authority figures weren’t interested in how my mysterious brain worked or how fully I felt my feelings. They were interested in how well I would do well on standardized tests and…
“What are the ideas that will liberate all of us? Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together…practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world.” -adrienne marie brown, Emergent Strategies: Shaping Change, Shaping Worlds In the summer of 2020,…
Find Out About Odyssey Teen Camp
A Non-Profit Overnight Summer Camp For Teens Ages 13-18
Located in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts.
