At a Yavneh board meeting sometime after this past summer, I heard that Debbie told the board that Kerem 2010 ranked in her top three favorite Kerems of all time. Lo and behold, a few days later it showed up as the status of one of my campers: “I was told this a little while ago, but kept forgetting to post it: apparently, we're in Debbie's top 3 Kerems of all time. She's not wrong, either.” As you can imagine, on that day, the comment was quite popular. It got 9 ‘Likes’ and 8 comments. However, the comment that stood out most to me was one by another one of my campers: “Haha that’s nasty! Who yo think the others are? 04 anddd…” [SIC] Now, as you all know, I was a member of Kerem 2004, but I am not relaying this story to you as a means of tooting my own horn. I am more interested in why my camper automatically assumed that 2004 was in Debbie’s top three at all. What did K’04 do that was so good? What did Kerem 2010 do that warranted Debbie’s comment? Is it even possible to define which Kerem is the best? We, the campers and counselors, talk about it incessantly, and yet we have no real way to determine the answer. This is one of those eternal Yavneh questions that persists every year – no matter how long this question is debated, it remains unresolved. The problem with answering this question is its subjectivity. Either you haven’t been to Kerem yet so a) you have a limited idea of what a “good” Kerem looks like and b) you don’t really know what it means or what it’s like to be in Kerem. Otherwise, you have already been in Kerem and you probably think that your Kerem was the best ever. Even if you are someone on upper staff who has seen many Kerems, and even if you are able to eliminate a bias in favor of a certain Kerem, it is still impossible to get a comprehensive, overarching assessment of a Kerem because they do so much during the summer. Kerem affects every minute aspect of a summer to the extent that no single person can comprehend the overall impact. Therefore, I think it is a fruitless endeavor to either rank the Kerems or tell you which one I think is best. It is impossible for me to remain unbiased about this issue, and frankly my opinion is as good as anyone else’s.
However, the conversation does not end here. It is still possible to assess, completely on a qualitative level, what makes a Kerem better than another. Despite the subjectivity that is nearly impossible to avoid when assessing any Kerem, I can objectively tell you what a Kerem can do in order to succeed. Every Kerem encounters the same problems, but every Kerem chooses to deal with them differently. Every Kerem has to plan Zim and Mac, run KTV and peulot, deal with social and emotional issues, and learn how to become leaders. However, it’s the manner with which they go about dealing with these issues and how they project themselves to camp that ultimately determine who succeeds and who fails. I have come up with eight different aspects that can determine a Kerem’s performance. All of these are intangible and unquantifiable, but I think that they are important elements of a Kerem’s success. Even though they are all important, I have listed them from least to most important.
8. Cohesive, inside and out.
It’s pretty obvious why it is important for an aydah to be cohesive. It fosters teamwork, cooperation, etc. Kids who can work together will undoubtedly have a better summer than campers who can’t. However, I would also argue that it is just as important to appear cohesive from the outside as well. As a rosh aydah for two years, one of my rules for my staff was that if we had an internal fight, the kids should never know that we were upset with each other. This rule also applies to the campers that make up the Kerem aydah. Kerem, for 2 months, is putting on a show for the rest of camp. If people see kinks in the armor, reasons to believe that the Kerem kids can’t work together, than they probably aren’t doing a good job leading the camp.
7. Attitude
The aydah as a whole needs to make sure that their collective attitude is ‘We want to be the best Kerem ever.’ They need to want it. More importantly, they have to remain positive when things don’t go their way, as well as understand that they will not be the “best” at everything. Therefore, they need to be able to take criticismand still remain positive. This is for Kerem’s benefit as well as for the betterment of the entire camp. A lousy attitude is perceptible even to the youngest camper. There is nothing less inspiring than seeing your mentor and leader have a negative attitude.
6. Visible leaders
When I ask, “Who is the face of a particular Kerem?” who comes to mind? Even though Kerem summer is supposed to be a leadership opportunity for everyone, there is no question that some campers emerge as the leaders of the aydah. I feel as though there are two different types of visible leaders, both of which are incredibly important to ensuring a successful aydah. There is the “I love and live for Zimryiah and Maccabiah” type of leaders whom you will see in front of the camp leading a cheer, or spending hours of free time arranging a song and dance (and handmotions). They will actively participate in the behind the scenes work as well take on a more visible role to ensure that they are recognized. The second type of leader is the “I have pretty apathetic-to-average feeling about camp activities, but I am the kid who everyone looks up to in the bunk.” These kids are the center of the social circle, and usually they have an antic or ‘thing that they do’ in front of the camp. These kids focus on the intangible aspects of the summer. I think having an aydah with both of these types of people is critical to success.
5. Identity
The people who have attended camp for years talk about this blurring effect; that each Kerem, after a while, looks and feels the same. One way to curb this, to distinguish one’s Kerem from all the others, is to have and establish some sort of identity.
· Stand up for something. As much as the fan fair was mixed for Kerem 2007’s revolution, Kerem 2007 will stand out because of it.
· Have a personal joke- Look no further than this past year when Kerem 2010 loved a stegosaurs song because Jeremy Tibbetts brought it to camp. It wasn’t a big deal, but it gave Kerem ’10 character and flavor.
· Start a “tradition”.[1] Too many to count here (check out this page for a few of the best. Just realize that for almost all of these things, a single Kerem thought it was a good idea, and after their summer, it stuck.
Stay tuned for 4-1 next week. Can you guess which ones they are? Post in the comments...
Thanks for the shout out Yones I love the blog
ReplyDeleteI don't really think Debbie ranking a Kerem highly is a good thing. I feel as though Estelle, Lisa, Fran, etc are all better judges of character.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you'll will get to this, but an important part of a Kerem status is how well they fair as counselors at camp
I agree with Anonymous on the second point. Yoni, you mentioned that leadership was a key part of any Kerem, but you also said that none of these categories are quantifiable. I think if you look at some of the Kerems that are viewed as the "best" and maybe some of the "worst," I think you can see the difference in how they faired as counselors. I think in general you'll see (and obviously it may not always be true) that the better Kerems will have more people to come back as counselors. And even after that, you can see it with how many people continue coming back as counselors after just the first or even second year. I've talked about this with people before and it seems to make sense, but maybe it would be interested to actually look at the numbers and see how they compare with the general perception of each Kerem.
ReplyDeleteOf course the amount of counselor turnover from Kerem may not really indicate how good the Kerem was, but instead, how good their Rosh Ayda or counselors were. But even so, I think coming back as a counselor probably means you had a great Kerem summer and that should say a lot about how they were in general.
Anonymous-
ReplyDeleteMy intention when I wrote about Debbie was not to tell what Debbie thought, but to showcase that everyone's opinions are subjective. No one (not even the director of the camp, nor lisa, estelle or fran) can be an accurate judge of Kerem.
You second point, which Avi very nicely expanded on, is quite true. I have it as my number 2. I dont actually go in and do a statistical recount of all of the counselors of the past 10 years (which given the information, I would love to do), but I give a more general outlook to what Avi was alluding to...
Can anyone guess the other three?
i'm not convinced that the attitude of 'we have to be the best kerem ever' is the best for an aydah to have going into their kerem summer.
ReplyDeletedon't you think it almost makes kerem into a competition, full of comparisons to previous kerems?
i think that kerem should be focused on being the best they can be, by contributing to the camp in both new and traditional ways.
that said, keep up the great work, I've enjoyed reading your blog.
I agree with you that you can't be thinking about other Kerems coming in to the summer, but at the same time, you have to have the mentality that you want to excel and succeed. Not necessarily compared to anyone else, just within the context of the summer.
ReplyDeleteby all accounts, '06 is the best
ReplyDeleteI dont really get your name that you used, but by all accounts, without seeing who this is, you certainly have little weight.
ReplyDelete