Teenster, as a teacher, let me assure you I get equally close to some of my students as I do to my campers. After all, I am seeing these students for nine full months, and many of them participate in extracurricular activities that I am also involved in. I may not see them as much as I would see a certain camper in say 2-4 weeks, but I can assure you that I am getting close to them.
Calico I must say very good post there. You definetely marshaled your arguments well and present them in an organized fashion. Now, for the rebuttal. :-)
First, I think the entire privacy argument just doesn't hold water. I think Teenster's example of a camper finding her real name and then getting her cell number is an extreme one; I'm not even sure how they would go about that. Heck, I can't find MY cell number online and I know a lot more about me than just my name.
Anyway, in six summers of camping, I've had plenty of campers email me, but so far none of tried to call me or 'show up on my doorstep', as some of y'all seem to be afraid of. If you are seriously worried about it, the best way to defeat that is to give campers a "camp screen name", one that has no attachments to your real identity and one you only sign on under when you want to talk camp.
Regarding the authority issue, if a staff member cannot make their authority known without having to have a camp name to back it up, they aren't doing a very good job. Even if you have say 8th grade staff members and 8th grade counselors, those young staff members should absolutely not be working with campers their age or older, so the authority issue wouldn't come up. Most campers know who that staff are, and even if they don't, how hard is it to tell them once? Not very.
In re to the guessing game, I play it with kids all the time. The difference is, I usually run with a "Where am I from?" theme for a session instead of "What is my name?". I think the guessing game is great, but I also think there are ways that it can be played which do not involve you being dishonest with campers about your real name. I will be honest in that I don't understand the closeness point you raise, either. I don't feel any closer to campers or students based on whether they call me by my first or last name. I can see where that idea would be there, but I think it's a false conception.
All that being said, why are camp names harmful? For those of you like Tom who haven't been reading all the posts, I can lay out the arguments in a neat precise fashion as Calico was so kind to do for the pro side.
1. Honesty. Let's face it, by not telling a camper you real name if they ask for it, you are basically lying to them. I think lying to kids is something that should be avoided in general, even though it goes without saying we can't tell them the whole truth all the time. Still, when it's something so basic like your name you refuse to tell them, I can't see that being dishonest about it is a good thing.
2. Individuality. What is one thing kids at camp learn almost above all others? That it is OK to be themselves! Unless, of course, you are a staff member at camp in which case you should make a false name and live THAT persona at camp. True, it's been said that many people are the same wehther they are called Bob or Thunder, but do you really think kids can make that fine distinction? Especially younger ones! All they see is that their counselor is using a false name, so that leads to the question- is it really ok to be themselves when their counselor doesn't seem to be?
3. Expectations. Taking off that point above, some people are NOT the same person at camp as they are in the outside world. I think that everybody really should be. Now obviously you can't go doing the things in your workplace that you do at camp, but you should at least be able to fully be yourself in any social situation. My behavior at camp and my behavior with my friends is very similar; and the reason for that is because both accept me for who I am. Camp names kinda encourage people to act more uninhibited and differently at camp. That's a good thing at camp, but maybe not really getting the point across. Especially as many camp counselor are still college-aged or younger, and from my perspective at least that is when a person really finds out who they are in life. Staff at camp grow too, and I think camp names inhibit that.
Those are the three main points. There are other sub-points too, but they all basically spring from those three issues as far as I am concerned. I'm not having this discussion just to be stubborn, I am having it to encourage a healthy debate on a subject that many people obviously feel strongly about. When it's all said and done I highly doubt we'll change anybody's minds, but that doesn't mean that this debate isn't worth having so both sides can at least understand each other better.
