Monday morning, when I arrived at school, the male cabin leaders were immediately put to work. We were given the responsibility of loading all of the luggage into a trailer that was going to be taken up to camp. Just five minutes into the trip, I was already realizing that people would be depending on me to step up as a leader. This would not be a week of camp like I was used to, but it would be a learning experience and an opportunity for me to grow as a leader and person.

Throughout the week, I learned many different ways of resolving conflict. One way I learned to solve problems was to distract everyone away from the problem by introducing a new game or activity.

Many of the boys in my cabin bought hacky sacks at the camp store. One of the days when everyone was in our cabin, there was some arguing going on over who’s hacky sack belonged to who. As the bickering escalated I decided that I needed to try and change the subject.

Before my week serving as a counsellor, I had never thought about how difficult it is for teachers and administrators to keep the attention of students. From the very first class, I learned that it was not as easy as it looks. — Phillip Christopher, ’17

I quickly made up a game where we collected up all of the hacky sacks and everyone had an opportunity to make 3 shots into the garbage. The first one to make 3 shots would win “chance tickets” which could be entered into a camp-wide contest drawing to win prizes.

Before my week serving as a counsellor, I had never thought about how difficult it is for teachers and administrators to keep the attention of students. From the very first class, I learned that it was not as easy as it looks.

Now that I have had time to think about the past week, I have learned that some of the most important elements of a leader is having patience and knowing how to adjust the way you go about certain situations.

After my time serving as a leader, I learned how to appropriately deal with unruly students and having to constantly repeat directions. Overall, my time spent as cabin leader served as a learning experience for me to understand some of the struggles of being a leader.

This writer can be reached via Twitter: @Phillip11499 and via email: Phillip Christopher.