Brandon Twp.-When most students hear the words summer class, a shiver runs down their spines. Pictures of hot classrooms, grumpy teachers and mountains of textbooks make their way into the imagination.
But Oxford students Bradley and Steven Freeland learned that taking a summer course can be exciting and fun, especially when the subjects include rock climbing, reappelling and traversing.
“We thought it was like backpacking or hiking,” said Bradley, an eighth grader at Oxford Middle School, “so we didn’t want to go. We thought ‘Classes? Hiking? Boring.’”
“Mom didn’t really tell us what is was,” added Steven, a seventh grader. “We didn’t find out until we got there.”
The two Brandon Township youths traveled up to Michigan Technological University, in Houghton, to participate in one of the school’s week long Summer Youth Programs. While at the camp, the boys learned about moutaineering, which includes rock climbing, rappelling and traversing; and orienteering, which Bradley describes as “finding your bearings.”
“When they returned, they said ‘Mom, do you know what you sent us to?’” laughed Jeanette Freeland.
“I wanted to send them to a summer camp, so I started searching the web,” she later explained. “I picked the Mich Tech camp because of the price and what they were teaching. I used a YMCA camp search engine to fine it.”
She added that the boys’ father, Richard, actually made the final decision on where they would go and what they would learn – not an easy task when Mich Tech offers 27 different subjects such as specific engineering, medical physiology, ecology, mountain biking, leadership, photography, creative arts and The Art of Raku.
“Our family does a lot of snow mobiling and four-wheeling, and we wanted the boys to be able to find their way back to the trail if they ride off,” said Jeanett. “We thought these courses offered some good skills.”
In the orienteering course, the Freeland boys started by learning how to find their location using only a compass and a map. They spent time in a classroom learning the technical aspects of the skill and then took the lessons into the field. By the end of the week, both boys were able to find a location with a simple instruction such as “120 degrees North.”
“The teachers were cool and let us do what we wanted and joked around with us,” said Bradley.
In mountaineering, the tasks became much more physical and a lot more demanding. The boys explained that the first thing they learned was how to rappel from a little hill. Over time, they built their way up to a 180-foot cliff.
“Leaning back over the edge was the hardest part because, well, you’re leaning back 180 feet over the ground,” emphasized Steven.
In the classroom, the boys studied all of their equipment, how to tie their ropes properly and any safety techniques they may need. In a gymnasium, they worked on a rock climbing wall to learn how to climb.
“The rock climbing wall was actually harder than anything we did outside,” said Bradley. “There was one part where you were actually climbing sideways to the ground, and there was only one boy in the class who could do that.”