Meaningful Work, Community Building, & Apprenticeships - Farm & Wilderness

At lunch one day, one teen excitedly explains how they worked with F&W resource staff to fix the exhaust on one of our camp vans. Another teen recounts lessons on mood versus tone from the creative writing apprenticeship. Other teens describe the physical health of a baby calf and her mom. The expanded apprenticeship program at Tamarack Farm adds a depth of competency to our youth development work. This experience for teens gives them the connection and confidence so needed for this important time in life.

For each of the apprenticeships (referred to as prácticas this summer), staff created a 6-week curriculum on topics including: Organic Farm Animals, Nature Guides, Youth Movements, Auto Mechanics, Music, Leadership & Facilitation, Mindfulness and Activism, Creative Writing, and Gender Comics.

As the summer progressed, several of the prácticas started meeting more than once a week. The music collective prepared a special performance for our banquet. Counselor apprentices expanded their time together as they went to the Barn Day Camp to shadow counselors and prepared to help at

a social justice night at Timberlake. These teens learned about facilitation, planning, and presenting.

Fifteen to seventeen-year-olds are at a unique point in their lives, developing abstract thought and solidifying the foundational views that shape their future. This is why we take our work as a teen development program as seriously as we take the zany fun we create at Tamarack Farm. Our teens are active participants in experiential education that happens though meaningful work, community building, and apprenticeships.

A teen recently recounted in their end of the summer survey, “This was the best experience of my life.”