As I picked up Isabelle from her first week away at Camp, I noticed she’d been crying.
“How did everything go?”
As we drove out of Camp, we passed the sign, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Be happy because it happened.’
“That’s exactly it.” She replied. For the next three hours, I learned about all the amazing people she had met from all over the world, and as I listened I came to realize just how much these new friends had come to mean to her. She was thrilled to have faced her fear of heights on the high ropes course! I heard about the inside jokes, the late night banter and laughter, and I heard her heart break as she shared not everyone had the same happy home life she did.
A couple months later, at parent teacher conferences, the Spanish teacher asked what had Isabelle done to improve her Spanish test taking abilities and grades?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, she usually takes the full test time, but now, she knows the material so well she doesn’t even need to. Her fluency has dramatically increased.”
I replied, “She made close friends from Spain while away at summer camp. And her only time to connect with them is by text before she leaves for school each morning. You see, she types in Spanish, and they type in English.”