A Life Changing Experience

Summer jobs: we've all had them. Most people end up reflecting on lazy days spent waiting tables or sweeping floors. Sure, you earn some cash, but what's the point of it all? I, by contrast, was lucky enough to have a summer job that changed my life, for I spent the summer of 2009 working with a bunch of retards. Retarded kids, specifically.

In early June I began work as a counselor at Camp Alton for Special Needs Youth (which is just a more official way to say retards). Honestly, I didn't really know what to expect. Sure, I'm a sensitive, caring young man, but did I really have what it takes to work with retarded and vaguely deformed kids? But all those fears went away when I met the children. Their loving spirits and unending enthusiasm touched me deeply within the first few hours of working there. I could tell this experience was going to special. By that I mean special like life-changing, not special like retarded.

The first lesson I learned was this: retards have so much to teach us, you guys. There was this one camper named Jacob, and he was significantly more retarded than the other campers. One day we went to a public park to play on the swings (which reminds me of another lesson I learned: retards really like swings). Well, of course there were some insensitive kids already there who mocked Jacob and his behavior. But darn it if Jacob didn't just walk right up to them and tell them that he was who he was and hop right on those swings. In that moment, I saw a courage and a bravery from Jacob that I really took to heart. Plus Jacob's also black, so that's like, double sensitivity points.

There were plenty of other incidents over the course of the camp that showed me just how ignorant some people can be. It's shocking that we still live in a world where people are insensitive to someone just because they're really, really retarded. If everyone went through a week at this camp, then maybe in the future, instead of pointing out a retard and saying, "Hey, look, a retard, look how retarded he is," they might instead say "Hey look, a retard, look how retarded he is. That's awesome".