RevieWednesday (on a Friday!) Back to School Special: Camp Sunshine

Camp Sunshine is Reed Academy's summer camp program. Which is pretty much the regular school year taking place outside with more activities as dictated by a ad nauseam 6 week schedule. Oh boy, where do we begin...

Positives:

The camp day usually involves fishing, some sort of swimming and some sort of sport activity. Which is pretty fun at times, and residence is allowed for some nap time which is kind of remarkable for a heavily regulated environment, which says a ton considering Sudbury Valley is across the street and I consider them to be the school with the most student freedom, but I digress. There is usually some yearly contest that ties to the naming of the various groups that everyone is divided into. There's even a Hollywood thingy that happens once a week by the folks at the Wheelock Family theatre that's fun to do.

Negatives:

The yearly contest is all fine and good...until you realize that the reviewer is non-competitive and is stuck with people who are overly competitive and more athletic (athletic thing account for 60% of winning the overall contest) so I'm forced to feign competitiveness and end up yelling at everyone for not pulling their weight. Also, the camp counselors are not at all adept for upholding Reed's many many many laws so going into residence which is more consistent with its staff experience will ground you or put you into overall trouble just by transition (this has been slightly fixed as of the 2015 camp year, but ONLY SLIGHTLY). Fishing is okay, except you have to walk a good while in the scorching New England heat and fish get harder to catch as the days go by. I actually hurt my back doing the optional nature walk. Instead of being fun in the sun, it's just tedious. Also the cherry on his sundae is that Language Arts exist in this program, UNCHANGED FROM THE BLOODY SCHOOL YEAR MIND YOU!!! Meaning we had to write a paper/essay which unless you go to a summer camp with a bureaucracy theme or about office work, then that's fine. But in a Summer Camp that prides itself about fun outside activities, not okay! And the school misadvertised about the camp and itself in general. This summer camp got boring three weeks in, which is impossible for kind of summer camp! Even ones that try to be boring. Its tedious, it's boring, it's misleading, it's over-competitive, good moments are fleeting, it's a mess.

Verdict: 2.1 out of 5.0 stars

"Its not horrible, but its bad. It is "The Room" and "Foodfight" of summer programs. Expect your kid's to associate any future summers after he goes there, with oppressed unpleasantness. Its fun for a couple days but no more than that."