The fourth post in our guest blog series, featuring Ken!
As a reminder…
In “Stories with Scatico Senior Staff” we have guest blog post authors share lessons, musings, or connections between their life outside of camp to their life in it. Our hope is that this series serves as a little taste of the 12523 during the school year, and helps you learn more about the people who help make Scatico… Scatico!
Ken addresses camp at Open Mic night, a special event he spearheaded at camp, along with The Art Show and Legends. (Open Mic also pictured in the banner above).
My name is… Ken Vallario.
My first summer at Scatico was… 1999.
My first summer on Senior Staff was… 2016.
When I’m not at camp, I’m… an artist, philosopher, and wandering educator.
At camp, I’m… Head of Arts and Crafts, Events, and Philosophy.
My favorite camp event is… Legends, of course.
After 25 years of being in the Scatico community I see camp as a place where people discover who they are. As I think back on my first summers Aziz comes to mind, a long-time tennis counselor who built a beautiful legacy at camp. He inspired people to be their best while also living out loud as a proud eccentric. He was a deep thinker and he liked to speak in riddles. As a young counselor I was fascinated by him. When I struggled as a young counselor, he would always speak to me from a very wide perspective and respected me as I was.
Aziz on the tennis courts his last summer.
Aziz invented The Heart of the Lion, a tradition of acknowledging somebody who showed a lot of heart in their tennis, regardless of their skill level. When I was new to Scatico I thought this was a beautiful tradition.
When I returned in 2015 , Aziz was still there, but he retired shortly after. I was just beginning to develop my programming at camp, and I knew Aziz’s absence would leave something of a hole in Scatico culture. The kids were just beginning to understand my love of philosophy and embrace it, and I felt a calling to try and step into Aziz’s role as camp mystic, to honor something that felt like part of the special sauce of Camp Scatico. And to my surprise it started to feel right. I know I am very different from Aziz, but the philosophy program at camp would not exist without the seeds he planted.
Ken leads a Philosophy circle
Kicking off Legends
As my daughter prepares for her last camper summer I am also mindful of how much camp has helped Dusty, Poppy, and I to have the unique experience of discovering who we are as a family.
In my work outside of camp as an artist and educator I am often advocating from an eccentric viewpoint, looking for ways to support educational environments where people can discover who they are. And this can be uncomfortable. Sometimes people look at me as if I am speaking in riddles. And thanks to the influence of late great Aziz Kommel, sometimes I do.
Ken, Dusty and Poppy at Carnival circa 2016
Aziz teaches tennis in the early 2000s