Safety First
“You give knives to 13-year-olds? And they’re allowed to play with fire?! What, are you crazy?!” is a rather typical reaction when parents first hear about Yagilu 1. They calm down when they hear the rationale, as well as the safety precautions, built into everything we do.
Every activity in Yagilu is planned with an eye towards the campers’ safety. Take what might be seen as the most dangerous example – campers in Yagilu 1, typically 13-16 year-olds, receive pocketknives within the first week of camp. If used safely throughout the summer, they get to take them home. How could that be safe? Knives are mainly used for whittling, or using the knife blade to shape or shave a piece of wood into a specific shape for amazing projects. Enter the Knife Rules.
The Knife Rules are:
- Finger’s Length: One must hold the stick at least one finger’s length away from where you are whittling.
- Arm’s Length: One must be at least a full arm’s length away from anyone around before beginning to whittle.
- Don’t Sit(tle) While You Whittle: To protect one’s femoral artery, whittling may only be done while standing.
- Whittle Away: One must always be pushing the blade away from oneself, never pulling it towards one’s body.
- Close It When Done: Once one is done whittling, he must first close the knife before doing anything else. The knife should never be set down while open.
- Extra Rule 1: Don’t Space Out: Full focus must always be on the knife. If one needs to take a break for any reason – rest, check progress, someone comes and starts a conversation – it is the whittler’s responsibility to close his knife until he can give it his full attention.
- Extra Rule 2: Do Not Threaten: The knife is a tool. If anyone uses, pretends to use, or talks about using the knife as a weapon in ANY WAY, it is immediately confiscated for the rest of the summer.
Every camper in Yagilu knows these rules by heart – ask your son to repeat them to you! They’ll remind each other if they notice anything borderline – “Hey, Yossi, watch your finger length; Moshe, don’t forget rule 5!”, keeping each other safe. We create a culture of responsibility and trust, empowering the campers with powerful tools while communicating the importance of using those tools safely.
Every activity has their guidelines. Chopping trees for building projects has a similar set of rules, more strict to account for the more powerful tool we’re using. We dedicate an entire day to fire safety. We prepare for each hike with speeches detailing possible risks and how to stay safe, covering everything from sprained ankles to dealing with the local bear population. In fact, our neighboring camp, Magen Av, asked Tani to present to their campers about respecting boundaries and being safe around animals that appear every so often in camp. It’s nice to have the expert right next door!
The result of these experiences is that our campers walk out safer and smarter year-round. Kids who were never taught to use knives or fire are reckless and silly, not appreciating the power and potential danger of the things they’re doing. A Yagilu camper, on the other hand, knows exactly what he should and shouldn’t be doing, what’s safe and what’s stupid. Even outside of our specific activities, our stress on safety creates a mindset of, “It’s positive to explore and try new things, as long as I know how to stay safe.” This is better than either being paralyzed by the thought of something with any amount of danger, on the one hand, or jumping into a dangerous activity without properly thinking through the potential dangers, on the other.
