Hello and welcome to my podcast My Life and Other Funny Stories. My name is Dagmar Tomášková, I am an English tutor and coach and I created this podcast for English students who want to improve their oral comprehension. As always, you can find the transcription of this episode and vocabulary list in the notes of the podcast. 

Today, let’s go on a little nostalgic trip together.
I want to tell you about summer camps – both when I was a child, and later, when I became an instructor.
Because, honestly? Camps were a big part of my life. I am just a camp child. And camp adult also. I loved camps. Actually, I was counting down the days until my camp in Jeseníky mountains and was looking forward to it more than to Christmas. And Rejvíz, where the camps took place, still remains one of my favourite places in the Czech Republic.
And I have so many stories, some funny, some a little embarrassing, and some that still make me think, “Did that really happen?”

Let’s start with my scout camp.

Yes, I was a scout girlie. And if you don’t know, Czech scout camps can be… let’s say creative in how they test your courage.

One classic challenge was: 24 hours without speaking.
Sounds easy? Trust me, it wasn’t.
If you know me, you know I’m a yapper – that is someone who loves to talk.
And I failed. Not just once. I had to repeat it because I just kept forgetting that I should shut my mouth for more than a few hours.
Imagine being surrounded by your friends, something funny happens, and you can’t say anything. Absolute torture for someone like me. But after a few attempts, I always succeeded because, maybe to someone’s surprise, I am more competitive than talkative, so I just had to bite the bullet and do it.

Another was 24 hours without eating.
Again, it sounds doable. But when you’re twelve, hungry, and everyone else is eating bread with Nutella right next to you? Let’s just say… self-control wasn’t my strength back then either. I remember lying in the tent and all I wanted was to eat dinner but again, my competitiveness wouldn’t let me because I would rather starve myself than not being the person with the highest number of successful challenges.

Of course, like on every scout camp, then there was the night watch.
Basically, in the middle of the night, they’d wake you up and tell you to sit in a kitchen tent or by the fire and watch over the camp.
Anyway, this is a very small story about one of my night watches. Usually, you do it in pairs but this specific night, I was alone because my friend was doing a challenge where she had to sleep somewhere in the forest. Anyway, that particular night, a group from another town sneaked into our camp and stole some of our things. I mean, I knew who they were, they were another scout group so it was just an innocent thing – they took papers from our boards and stuff like that. But do you know what I did?
Absolutely nothing.
I didn’t even notice that they were there. Talk about a reliable night watch. To be fair, it was pitch black, I was half-asleep, and probably too busy trying not to freak out about every sound in the forest. But if you want me to watch your things during the night, maybe think twice. 

Speaking of being scared during the night: we also had the famous “path of courage”. You know, that super exciting thing where you have to go alone through the forest and the instructors are scarying you.
But before they let you go, they tell you a scary story – about ghosts or a haunted forest or most usually about some murderer who killed people and ditched them on the side of the road. To be honest, it always freaked me out so much. Because it was being told during the night at the campfire. And then they sent you alone into the dark forest to follow a marked trail. While jumpscarying you. I remember being told one of those stories about someone’s foot slipping into a ditch and then finding a body there. And then I was walking and my foot slipped and I almost peed myself. 

Sounds traumatic? Well, it kind of was.
But at the same time, it was a camp tradition, and after you survived it, you felt really good. 

Oh, and let’s not forget the story I’ve shared before – about the time a bee flew into my mouth and stung me on the tongue.
I still don’t understand how that happened. Or, I mean, I understand how it happened, you shouldn’t be running with your mouth wide opened, I learned that.
My tongue swelled up, I couldn’t speak properly, and for a few hours, I looked (and sounded) absolutely ridiculous.
Anyway… it’s a great story to tell years later.

Now let’s fast forward a few years:
Me as an instructor.
Different camp, different role, but same energy.

It is quite challenging to be an instructor. At least for me, because …kids have infinite energy.
Adults? Not so much. Or maybe not at all. I swear I ran out of energy on my seventh day (out of fourteen) and then I was kind of just trying to hype myself up to be able to do anything.

There were many funny moments on that camp but I don’t think they are suitable for this podcast so I will just share one. It was during a night game.
All the instructors had to hide in the forest and watch the kids so that they go the right way. Well, there was me and also my good friend with me and we were sitting in the forest, watching over the kids as you do but as the night progressed, we just got more and more tired. And guess what happened?
We actually fell asleep in the forest. Which is not even the funny part.
By the time we woke up, everyone else had already finished the game and left.
So there we were, sitting under a tree, completely lost, thinking, “What just happened?” And then I called my brother, who was also an instructor on the same camp. I asked him “hey, where are you?” and he told me “well, we are back at the camp base.” and I said “what? we are still in the forest?” and he said: “Wait what, you are not here?” 

Yep, they all forgot about us and hadn’t even noticed we weren’t there. I mean, I would understand, but my own brother? Sometimes it is just harsh. 

But do you know what? Even with the bee stings, missed night watches and falling asleep under trees – I really loved it all. Even though I always lost my voice on the third day of the camp because you have to shout over all the kids and usually came back home sick.
And when I look back now, I realise how much summer camps taught me.
Not just about nature, knots or making a fire (to be honest, I don’t really remember how to make more than three knots but that is just a minor detail) – but it taught me about creativity, improvisation, teaching, explaining and having lots and lots and lots of patience.

Because here’s the thing: at camp, you can’t just read instructions from a book and expect kids to listen.
You need to make them care.
You need to turn a boring task into an adventure.
You need to improvise when it starts raining in the middle of your planned outdoor game, or when the kids suddenly decide they won’t listen to a word you say. I mean, they are kids, what do you expect?

At camp, I learned how to explain things simply, because you often work with small children whose attention span is about three seconds.
If you can’t explain the game quickly, you lose them.
And honestly, that’s something I still use every day in my English lessons.
Because explaining grammar to a student who’s already tired after work?
That’s not so different from explaining the rules of a treasure hunt to twenty hyperactive ten-year-olds before dinner.

I also learned how to see learning as play.
At camp, everything is a game: you turn running into a game, cleaning into a competition of who can have the cleanest room or tent, sitting around the fire into storytelling or singing songs.
And that taught me to see language not just as grammar and words, but as something alive – something to be played with. Something that doesn’t have to be explained only in tables and paragraphs, but something that can be turned into an interactive game, funny story or a competition.

And perhaps the most important thing: at camp, you see that every child is different.
Some kids are shy, some are loud. Some love singing, others love strategy games. And also that every kid is talented in something else. Some children prefer the logical puzzles, some are more physically gifted and so on. And that taught me that there is no one-size-fits-all.
Which is exactly how I feel about language teaching too.
Some of my students love writing, some hate it. Some want to speak freely, some feel safer with structured exercises.
And that’s okay – as a teacher or coach, it’s my job to see who you are and what makes you light up.

Even the little mistakes I made at camp – like losing my voice on day three – taught me something valuable. That even though I like to do things with my 110%, sometimes I have to chill a little and relax.
And as a teacher, that means it’s okay to slow down and find balance.

So yes, my summer camp years were messy, loud, and sometimes embarrassing…
But without them, I honestly don’t think I’d be the English coach I am today. I still visit the camps now but it is much more complicated with my health problems and also work. But this year was the first camp of my little nephew so of course I had to go visit and see him in action. I think it is super important to give a child the possibility and opportunity to visit a camp at least once – to meet other children, to experience life without technology. Because let’s be honest, that is quite challenging now. Even though I know, not every child would be so enthusiastic about camps as I was. 

Thank you for listening! If you liked this episode, please leave a five-star rating and share it with your friends. Don’t forget, you can find the transcript and vocabulary list in the notes of the podcast. See you next time. Bye bye