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Closing Comments and Wrap-Up

We arrived back in Newark Airport and rode quietly in the van all the way back to Hill Top.  There were a few random comments but the effects of jet lag were already evident and the sheer exhaustion from not only the heavy travel schedule for 10 days but the release of the adrenaline put forth for that entire time all contributed to a very quiet ride back to the school campus.

Unloading the luggage at the front door of the mansion around 11:30 pm, the enthusiastic welcome back reception from excited parents and family members, and the interest on the part of the families to get home and hear about the trip made the closure on the trip rather efficient.
I would like to provide folks with links to what the students completed as their final projects at BSD on their last day.  These travel apps for Hong Kong were completed designed by the students themselves, from scratch.  While they clearly ran out of time to complete all of their plans, one can see the basic structure of the app and some of the things that they felt were most important to others who may be contemplating a trip to Hong Kong.  The links are:

https://app.bsdlaunchbox.com/share/hHbxGbM3
https://app.bsdlaunchbox.com/share/1Vui9ShN
https://app.bsdlaunchbox.com/share/cV1UTK9E
https://api.bsdlaunchbox.com/api/share/SqL7WKtS/index.html#regions
https://app.bsdlaunchbox.com/share/FvnHvAiM

In summary, a small private school took students who had been taking coding classes for a year at BSD to its main location which happens to be in Hong Kong to take additional courses in a foreign country.  While many independent schools, large and small travel to foreign countries to learn of their culture, history, experience their foods and see the sights of a foreign land.  This group seemed to experience so much more.

For the first time, Hill Top students combined the cultural experience of traveling to an Asian country as many other schools but took classes in a foreign school, met students in a local school, met leaders of major companies who work in both countries, traveled across another border to see international entrepreneurship and learn about funding sources for new ideas that can be successful, see how technology can be sourced for the uses they have in their own lives, talk with others with similar interests regarding emerging trends in technology, cloud-based financing systems such as bitcoin and the technology behind it, and surprisingly expressed an interest that what they were learning in the classroom actually has an important application to the real world and to their future.

I have been traveling internationally with students for over 25 years. These trips have always provided the students with a wide array of experiences and learning that have affected them in many unpredictable ways.

However, this trip was somehow different. I saw truly bright, gifted students transformed before my eyes.  I watched as they employed organizational skills to be prepared for each day's schedule, support for each other to always be where they needed to be and to try new and often challenging foods, transportation, and integration of information from completely foreign sources.  I watched as these students shared and learned information in a classroom and then went out into the outside world of Hong Kong University, international corporations like SEI, privately run maker-spaces in Hong Kong and crossed the border into mainland China to learn how creative solutions and entrepreneurship can come together for successful AND profitable results.

Theory into practice.... the most basic tenant of teaching.  Helping students to see why they are learning in their classroom.  This is a powerful experience for not only the student but the educator.

Lastly, I came away from this trip even more self-assured that these five students are merely examples of many more students in this quirky little school who are so bright, talented, creative and bound to be successful in the world beyond Hill Top.

What comes next? There are discussions of a continuation of this program in another year for other BSD students who are interested.  There is discussion that Hong Kong students would like to come to programs at Hill Top for an American school experience.  And through the international contacts of BSD and their colleagues, there are discussions of a service learning trip to India.

One final discussion is geared to our parents.  The question we are looking at is to find out if there are parents who are raising children on the spectrum who would consider making a trip to Asia for a dual purpose of experiencing another part of the world and at the same time participate in a two day symposium on the topic of the challenges families face when raising children like those at Hill Top.  Speakers would come from the US and from Asia to share their expertise and parents from the US and all over Asia would come to share their own stories of challenge and success.  The common thread of the whole trip?..... it takes a village - a very large village.

What do you think?  Can you see yourself here with other families of different cultures with similar experiences?

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