Position: Summer Counselor-Teacher
Dates of Employment: 7/3/10 – 8/17/10
Click here to complete the lengthy Beam Staff Employment Application. We will be in touch with you within two weeks of submitting your application.
Please send any supporting materials to your application to brian@beamcamp.com Night on Earth movie .
JOB DESCRIPTION:
Each Beam Counselor lives in a cabin with another Counselor and 8-12 Campers. The Counselor’s primary responsibility is the well-being of the Campers. Counselors make sure that the Campers are safe and feel safe at all times. In order to ensure the well-being of their Campers, Counselors provide structure for their cabin. Counselors ensure that the cabin’s atmosphere is, above all else, supportive and respectful. Counselors help their Campers maintain a clean living environment and healthy personal habits.
Each morning, Counselors help small groups of Campers (Waves) work on specific tasks related to the Beam Project. Sometimes these tasks involve building, sometimes they involve drawing, sometimes they involve planning and plotting; in each activity, the Counselor’s responsibilities are to maintain a safe work station, to keep their Wave organized and focused, and to be personally engaged with the activity.
All Counselors lead and/or assist in the running of Domains. Domains are chosen and developed prior to camp along with the Beam Domain Director. Domains seek to produce a specific outcome (a short movie, a solar-powered robot, a performance set to droning black metal in which Campers use shadow puppets to reenact a Norse myth, etc.), providing Campers with a chance to experiment with a certain idea, or learn specific skills.
Counselors supervise and participate in a variety of activities throughout the day that involve the entire camp. These include meals, Pulse Period (a game or swimming), Free Time, 535 Clubs and Evening Activities. Counselors often help plan these activities, and sometimes just to participate in them.
We ask Counselors to maintain the attitude of a “lead learner.” Beam Camp is an opportunity for all of us- Camper and Staff alike- to grow. By creating an atmosphere in which we are open to experimenting, learning, and making the occasional mistake, we provide the Campers with a safe space in which they can challenge themselves and grow. In order to be open to learning, we are not just watching Campers, but engaging in the activities with the Campers.
QUALIFICATIONS:
A Beam Counselor should be passionate about making and doing, ambitious, curious and eager to share. We look for specialists and generalists. Technicians and big-picture people. Architects, engineers, athletes, sculptors, ceramicists, carpenters, manipulators of electricity, body movers, poets, story tellers, naturalists, and scientists. We like makers of images, paintings, objects, moving pictures, games, music and anything else. And you should be over 20 years of age.
This position involves long hours, a good deal of physical activity, and a lot of social interaction. It does not involve a lot of personal time and/or personal space. Counselors have one day off per week, a one-hour break during the afternoon, and several nights off a week. Providing the best possible and most productive experience for our Campers is as creatively, physically and emotionally demanding as it rewarding; counselors need to have the ability to manage the stress that accompanies this mission.
We welcome applications from those who have a lot of experience working with children and those may be newer to it.