Teens enjoy 'extremely nerdy fun' at new summer camp in Halifax
Week-long camp meant to whet teenagers' appetites for the humanities
Summer is when lots of teenagers cut loose: head to the beach, hang out at the mall or play video games.
But 40 teens from across Canada are doing just the opposite this week at the Humanities for Young People summer camp — HYP for short — at the University of King's College in Halifax.
Co-creator Laura Penny, assistant professor at King's, calls it "extremely nerdy fun" and hopes it'll give them a taste of what it'll be like at university, studying the humanities.
Penny told CBC Radio's Mainstreet, "It's for young people across Canada who are interested in the humanities, who want to develop their reading, writing and thinking skills and who would like to meet other bookish young people like themselves."
A challenging curriculum
Penny thinks the curriculum will be challenging for the teens.
So far, they've studied Hannah Arendt's The Crisis in Education and Sophocles' Antigone. As the week progresses, they'll discuss Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, they'll see a performance of As You Like It at Shakespeare By the Sea. They'll go on a Mi'kmaq medicine walk with Joe Francis from Sipekne'katik First Nation, and they'll also participate in a symposium with poet George Elliott Clarke.
"I'm thrilled so far. The students are marvellous and are really of a like mind and seem really committed to the experience," said Sarah Clift, co-creator of the program, as well as assistant professor of the foundation year and contemporary studies at King's.
Humanities under pressure
"The common understanding is that a humanities degree isn't as valuable as other kinds of education, and that was certainly one of our main goals, to validate and vindicate the students' interests and their curiosity," said Clift.
She thinks many students feel pressure to pursue a university degree that can lead more dependably to a job.
"But I think that if we lose sight of great literature, religious studies, music, art, philosophy, then we're going to lose our sense of why anything is important at all."
Inspired by foundation year
Penny said it's like a mini version of the foundation year program at King's — what the university describes as a "year-long exploration of those foundational works that have made us who we are."
"Certainly we were influenced by the FYP curriculum. I mean, we are called HYP after all. But we also wanted to do some more practical stuff too so there will be skills development in the afternoons. They'll be learning how to write. They'll be learning how to make an argument. They'll be learning how to present and perform."
Clift said her favourite portion of the curriculum is Antigone, in which the legendary title character must decide between disrespecting her dead brother or burying him and facing death.
"Antigone, both the play and the character, has travelled through centuries and centuries and has remained relevant in virtually every epoch that has taken her up and I think that her own dilemma, the dilemma posed by that play, continues to be wildly relevant today."
"I'm a big fan of history, politics, economics and geography," said Patrick Fraser, 15, who's from Halifax and is taking part in the HYP program.
"So I realized that if I want to pursue that in a career someday, this would be a really good test round and it would be a good place to prove how good I am at this," he said during a break.
"At first I was a little tentative but so far I'm feeling pretty good," he said.
The HYP program continues until Friday afternoon and wraps up with the public symposium at the Halifax Central Library with George Elliott Clarke and a farewell barbecue.
Both Clift and Penny want the HYP program to become an annual event.
"Here's hoping!" said Clift.