This summer, incoming freshmen spent four days on Robinson’s campus, fully immersing themself into global culture before they start the school year. With both traditional and IB students, French and Spanish students, each and every student took away a valuable experience from the camp.
Along with myself, rising senior Dillon Colaso volunteered as a camp counselor, getting service hours for his IB CAS portfolio.
“The Bridge of Biliteracy camp was a critical opportunity for the incoming class of 2029 to break the ice and immerse themselves in the numerous benefits of learning a new language as well as familiarizing themselves with a variety of different cultural practices,” Colaso said, “Robinson Highschool is the first school in the entire school district to pilot the new ‘Virtual Reality’ curriculum that gives students the ability to interact and learn in a completely new environment. Integrating this hands-on curriculum of cultural immersion and interactive language learning just expanded the capabilities of the World Language department to new heights.”
Through activities like learning a traditional Flamenco in Spain to painting smurf houses in Belgium, students had a personal experience to immerse themselves into the global outlook Robinson brings. Directors of the camp also found creative ways to include global skills. Colaso and I ran a currency exchange table within the camp, where every day at 10:30 a.m. campers would get money to spend at the marketplace full of worldly goods. Before they could shop however, they had to convert US dollars into “Biliteracy Bucks”, and calculate the exchange rate. Unique experiences like this example were woven into the camp, but the most interesting of all was making local news.
July 23, Bridge to Biliteracy was featured on Bay News 9 for being the first school in the county to utilize virtual reality (VR) goggles. Every morning, campers would put on their VR goggles and be transported to different countries around the world. Camp counselor Siara Espejo would guide students through famous locations around the country and provide facts about local customs. She was interviewed by the news channel, sharing her perspective on the pros of these new VR headsets.
“It’s a great opportunity for students to experience and see things maybe they would’ve never been able to in their life.I try to be an example or an inspiration for them on the idea of, if you want to learn something, then you can. It is a daunting task when you’ve already grown up monolingual,” Espejo said.
Many students from the camp had only taken one level of language in middle school, or none at all. However, the camp was good for more than just learning a new language.
A personal favorite aspect of the camp, watching as a volunteer, was seeing the new connections formed. Going into freshman year having missed fast camp, it was scary trying to make new friends. Seeing these incoming freshmen be able to make friends in a smaller group of 20-30 seemed like a great way to have a few friends going into high school.
The hope is that this program continues on for years to come, helping freshmen get acclimated at their new school and start to navigate the global culture Robinson has to offer.
