SuperCamp Success Story #1: Charles
Charles’s mother, Regina, never expected to raise him completely alone. She had been divorced for a while, but her ex-husband still played a strong role in Charles’s life. There were struggles, but life was solid. That was before the three military men showed up at her door.
They told her that her ex-husband, Charles, had died in a helicopter accident. They wouldn’t go into the details, but Charles Jr heard it and went to the Internet. Within seconds, he knew the most intimate details of his father’s death. Reports said it wasn’t the crash that killed his father. It was the fire after the crash that consumed him.
Before long, the straight-A grades Charles had been bringing home started to drop. He seemed less and less interested in his friends. He became withdrawn and sullen. Regina needed to find a way to reverse this trend, and fast.
She had been thinking about what to do for many weeks when she noticed a packet in the mail. The information within concerned something called SuperCamp. She received a variety of mail on educational subjects every week, but something caught her eye in the material. This SuperCamp was dedicated to “making great kids greater.” Regina knew she had a great kid, but she knew that he could be greater, especially now since the loss of his father.
Charles wanted to go to SuperCamp. He liked what they taught and he wanted to go to a camp with “kids who knew how to do well,” according to him. He kept this positive attitude until his mother pulled up to the camp entrance. Then something in Charles changed. He was scared and cried when it came time for his mother to leave. Regina told her son it would be all right and kissed him goodbye. Noticing Charles’s discomfort, SuperCamp team leaders and other campers came up to him and assured him that everything would be fine. Without knowing them, Charles trusted these strange faces and agreed to stay.
From then on, the experience only got better. Charles met more and more kids from diverse backgrounds who supported him. Each activity and group session became more and more enjoyable. At one point, he learned a technique that impacted him in a way that would affect the rest of his life.
The technique was called Mind Mapping. It is a note-taking system designed to fit the way a brain best learns information. Charles learned to put the central issue of any test or study topic in the middle of a page. Then he would write the subtopics on lines that extended from the central issue. Once started, he could draw subtopic lines off the subtopics as necessary. This technique allows for large quantities of information to be shown on one page in a brain-compatible format.
Mind Mapping was just the thing to get Charles back into studying. He could organize his thoughts and map out lessons better than ever. He started to organize his classes in his notebooks to make it easier to get at his notes.
The term after SuperCamp, Charles came home with six As and two Bs, a sign that he was back on the right track. Studying became fun and several other students asked him to help them understand certain lessons.
Charles’s SuperCamp experience affected him in more ways than academics. Regina said he grew up and overcame some of his grief in SuperCamp. She didn’t worry about leaving him alone for a while or whether he would complete chores. He returned to making friends easily and without her help. Regina believes SuperCamp makes the world better one child at a time.
Where is he now?
Charles followed his father into the military and graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in the top ten percent of his class with a double major in management and Portuguese, and spent one semester in Brazil. He is currently stationed in Boston serving as Financial Officer, is working on his master’s degree, and is engaged to be married. SuperCamp helped Charles know who he is and what he wanted to contribute to the world.
For information about Quantum Learning’s SuperCamp go to www.supercamp.com
Since 1982 SuperCamp has increased the academic and personal success of 73,000 students. Participants experience breakthrough learning, the 8 Keys of Excellence principles to live by, self-discovery, deep friendships, and fun! They learn valuable collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity strategies, and how to apply their SuperCamp experiences and skills to school, college, career, and life.