Governor's Honors Program summer camp 'a magical, unforgettable experience'

Jul. 7—As Brooke Schlisner prepared to deliver her slam poem — a deeply personal piece about growing up with the skin condition vitiligo — to some 300 of her peers at last summer's Governor's Honors Program camp, she was "terrified," but the overwhelmingly positive reaction both in the moment and for weeks afterward made it "a magical, unforgettable experience."

"I was known as 'the girl with the poem'" for the rest of the camp, which was "the most amazing thing ever," said Schlisner, a member of Dalton High School's class of 2022. "I first performed it in my slam poetry class, and it didn't go that well — maybe because it was so personal — but on a larger scale I got way better feedback."

Numerous fellow campers told her they could relate to her experience — she often felt isolated as a child because of the condition, in which the skin loses its pigment cells, which can result in discolored patches — and a male camper told her he felt emboldened to share his own trials of going deaf and wearing hearing aids because of her poem, Schlisner said.

"Also, a lot of people who didn't have an experience like that wanted to know more of my story."

Schlisner delivered her piece at the first of two "Coffee House" sessions, where those in her major of communicative arts could perform for fellow campers, she said. While Schlisner was a critical piece of Dalton High's drama department, she's accustomed to performing as "a character," not as herself.

However, "once I started speaking, the nerves melted away, because I was caught up in my own performance," she said. "Even though they were my words, I still had a script to follow."

Georgia is the only state that does not charge students or families to attend its summer camp, according to the Governor's Office of Student Achievement. Georgia's is the longest continuously running Governor's Honors Program in the nation and the largest on a single college campus (Berry College). At the month-long summer camp — the 2022 edition is currently ongoing — students focus on a "major" and a "minor."

"The classes were incredible, and the teachers set it apart," Schlisner said. "You call them all by their first name, and they're so personal."

Math instructors were "all really sweet, supportive people," said Nellie Gregg, a rising senior at Dalton High who majored in math at last summer's camp. "It's a very encouraging learning environment."

A variety of learning opportunities

Schlisner took classes ranging from slam poetry to writing different genres of poetry to reading Joseph Conrad's seminal "Heart of Darkness" and comparing it with the critically-acclaimed and Academy Award-nominated film it inspired (Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now") to analyzing Coppola's "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II" to a comedy course to a playwriting class.

She considers herself "fortunate" she got into her minor of choice, and she focused on ceramics over painting and drawing.

The highlight of her minor was making a 16-20-inch vase through Raku firing, which rests on a shelf in her home and "reminds me of GHP (the Governor's Honors Program) when I look at it," she said. "It was really therapeutic to make a vase, and I'm a hands-on person, so to be able to make something with my hands felt (like a) real accomplishment."

In math, Saturdays were devoted to game shows, and "my team got third overall," Gregg said. "We also learned how to juggle."

Her culminating project for her major was following the trajectories of Möbius strips, she said.

"I thought 'What if you had a number line on a Möbius strip,'" a surface with only one side and only one boundary curve?

"The curriculum was really interesting," and her favorite class was "Spirit of Mathematics," a math history course that examined various base systems dating back to the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, she said. "It broadened our perspective on how math can work," and "we made trading cards of historical mathematicians," a project for which Gregg designed the backs of cards in a "Pokemon-style" format.

She also appreciated the "heavily discussion-based classes" in her minor of social studies, she said. In a class examining the impact on society of media and television, "we got to make and pitch our own TV show at the end of the" week-long class, and Gregg created concept art for an animated program.

In another class, she was part of a constitutional convention where students redrafted the United States Constitution, and another class featured a mock Supreme Court of the United States, where students were able to act as justices.

"I was Elena Kagan, and we heard actual cases coming up to be heard" before the court, she said. "It gives you a current idea of how the court works."

COVID-19

Gregg worried COVID-19 might disrupt the camp, but "in general it didn't really have an effect," she said. The campus was "isolated" — parents and others couldn't visit — masks were worn indoors ("but we're all pretty used to that by now") and the unvaccinated had to be tested twice a week, which wasn't an issue for Gregg since she was vaccinated.

The camp taught Schlisner "life skills" for college and beyond, she said.

"It was hard being away from my family and friends for a month — usually, you can leave on Sundays, but not this year (due to COVID-19 concerns) — and I felt pretty isolated at the beginning, but then I" formed several friendships in the second week, including with a Somali student from Snellville who spoke Somali, Chinese and English.

"I made some friends I still talk to, and I'm planning to hang out with them during Thanksgiving break," she said. "Dorm life was great — the girls were super cool" — although "seven washing machines for 200 girls (made) laundry day" a challenge.

"You do things with your hall and get to know them," Gregg said. "I made some friends, and I'm still in touch with a number of them," including fellow Catamount Ari Avila, whom she didn't know well prior to the camp but bonded with over the shared experience, as it "really is a community" there.

Preparing for the future

The camp served about 600 students, with about 85 in Schlisner's major, she said.

"You meet all these people, and they're all incredibly smart, but the camp was so kind and accommodating to everybody."

She realized how true the adage "don't judge a book by its cover" is, she said.

"There were people I thought I would get along with that I didn't, and there were people I thought I wouldn't want to spend any time with — because of how they looked or how they dressed — that became my best friends."

"It was definitely an awakening for me, because I was forced to be all on my own and forced to make all new friends," she said. "I'll be better prepared wherever I go" after high school.

Gregg "got to know how I respond to a group environment with shared spaces, and I definitely enjoyed the sense of independence, operating on my own schedule," she said. "It's a taste of college."

The camp "really does change your life and how you think about things," said Schlisner, who plans to major in communications at the University of Georgia. "I still think about it every day, and I know a lot of people say the exact same thing."