Summer Camp Mission Statement

Camp Glen Brook's summer camp serves boys and girls ages 8 to 14. The program balances and harmonizes the needs of the bodies, minds, and hearts of the children as they grow and develop.

The goal of our program is to nurture in children the capacity for free thinking and action as adults. We do this through an underlying form of rhythm and structure. We believe that premature exposure to too many choices and ever-changing structures can give an illusory sense of freedom that can actually undermine the attainment of genuine and deep freedom in later life.

With few exceptions, children must participate in every camp program and activity, thereby engaging in a wide spectrum of experiences. Most often campers are expert in some activities and can encourage and help others find greater success, while in other activities they need the support and expertise of their peers. Through these and other experiences at Glen Brook, a true community is built - rather than a society of individuals only striving for self-enhancement.

Camp Glen Brook follows the educational aims and goals advocated by the philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner and carried out by many Waldorf schools throughout the world. The summer camp weaves together many principles of Waldorf education within a traditional New England summer camp program.

Philosophy

At Camp Glen Brook, the staff and counselors foster respect for self, for fellow humankind, and for the natural world of which we are stewards. We believe that heart, mind and spirit must be nourished richly and simultaneously. We value music and art just as much as academics and sports. We find that the deepest community can arise out of the strongest individuality when trust, tolerance, and understanding prevail. Above all, we love to have fun—because smiles and laughter and joyful optimism are the forge of community, relationship and our own humanity.

Camp Glen Brook is non-sectarian and families of all faiths are welcome.  Our philosophy acknowledges an underlying spiritual foundation of the world and we accept that each of us has a spiritual core to be recognized and nurtured. We begin each meal with a singing or spoken grace and all campers and staff attend a 30-minute weekly (nondenominational) service of offering and thanksgiving. The staff at Camp Glen Brook are open to working with parents to meet their children's special religious needs.

The Waldorf Philosophy at Camp Glen Brook
by Tom Braden

In August 1919, Rudolf Steiner addressed a group of parents prospectively interested in sending their children to his new “Waldorf” school. He said that children in the coming century would need never-seen-before skills to navigate the complex world that was emerging from industrialized societies.

“For the future, we expect a social structure much different from the one of the present,” he said. “We look lovingly at our children, at the next generation. And we, particularly those who are parents, often have misgivings in our hearts.” Will our children, he asked, be “capable of contributing to the formation of society” and achieve a more “humane existence” than earlier generations?

At Glen Brook we’re often asked how Waldorf education weaves through the program, as we say in our tag line. Steiner—and other great educators before and since—suggest that the way to begin to answer this question is to develop activities that enhance human interaction and connections, build programs that foster care, love and service to others. That’s one reason why Glen Brook (and Waldorf schools) have a no-media policy up to age 14—computers, electronic games and iPods separate and isolate people.

The three tenets of Waldorf are thinking, feeling, and willing (doing). Waldorf education nourishes the development of a balanced, well-rounded person through the active engagement of head, heart and hands. This is as true in a school as it is in the less academic setting of camp. We stress the arts because they encourage creativity. We share stories because they feed the imagination. (We teach main lessons during the school year because they encourage thinking and curiosity about the world.) We take campers into the outdoors to make them joyful, comfortable, and knowledgeable about nature and our planet. We have crafts and woodworking, canoeing and swimming, camping and hiking because they engage the will. These activities, led by an enthusiastic and experienced staff, make Glen Brook the ideal atmosphere for nourishing children to become responsible and engaged citizens of this increasingly complex world.

Tom Braden, a Waldorf teacher for almost 30 years, worked at Glen Brook from1981 until his death in 2011.