You’ve surely noticed the environmental movement happening in NYC. Whether it’s in the news, fashion, food or technology industries, we keep hearing these two words: “going green.” They lead us to change the way we think about how our buildings are conceived and maintained. We start to ask ourselves: How much do I affect the world and people around me? In what ways can I reduce my carbon footprint and impact on the environment? Little by little, the Lycée is tackling these questions and finding new eco-friendly solutions to help us make better choices at school.

One of the major steps taken in this direction is the York Wing construction project. Our new building was carefully designed to be highly energy-efficient. Following the example of our main buildings, the architects at Ennead took full advantage of natural light by using translucent glass that admits in as much natural luminosity as possible in every classroom. In terms of heating, they chose special dual-pane windows covered with a low e-coating to protect the inside of the building. Today, the Lycée is Silver LEED-certified. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a green building certification program that helps us use our resources efficiently. We hope to keep earning points to become gold certified…

NOVEDA Technologies systems, an energy savings company, was brought on board to help us better monitor our energy usage. Our maintenance team has been working hard with NOVEDA to install customized dashboards to meet our energy reporting and analytic needs. These energy dashboards allow us to analyze past and current energy usage to determine any recurring trends and create innovative strategies to reduce electrical waste. One of the electronic units we are attentively measuring are the classroom Smart Boards. “We want to save as much energy as possible and make sure teachers switch them off at the end of the day, as they use quite a bit of energy. If they are still on, we can let the IT team know which ones need to be shut down,” explains Terrence Kennedy, our facilities director, who is himself an active member of the Green Schools Alliance, an organization that fosters whole school sustainability.

NOVEDA also allows our team to moderate our new renewable energy initiatives, with the solar array on the 6th-floor Primary rooftop playground and the wind turbine on the York Wing rooftop, a gift of the Class of 2013. The solar array creates about 3.5kW of renewable energy on any given sunny day, and the wind turbine produces 1.5kW. We are also proud to announce an important initiative through our buildings’ LED (light-emitting diode) light bulbs. The LED lamps have a lifespan and electrical efficiency much greater than the linear and compact fluorescent lamps we had before. “This lighting upgrade is clearly visible on our NOVEDA dashboards and is a huge environmental enhancement for our school,” adds Mr. Kennedy.

We don’t just focus on electricity. Our aim is also to reduce water waste. Did you know that 3.9 trillion gallons of water are wasted every month in the United States? The school has a water meter connected to the HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) cooling towers to help us consume much less water.

How can our student body learn about being eco-friendly through NOVEDA systems?

Students and teachers will have access to an account for the NOVEDA dashboard that will allow them to see the main dashboard page. Students can then take a look at the solar generation, wind turbine power, total carbon use per day and the different amounts of electricity used. After gathering all the data, we can encourage students  to compare their consumption with other classes and come up with ways to reduce electrical waste in the classrooms and at home.

Excited to learn more about the sustainable progress at the Lycée? Want to see our wind turbine up close on the rooftop? This is your lucky chance! Stop by our NOVEDA booth (2nd floor) on York Wing Community Day and start exploring…

LFNY York Wing Community Day

Hours: 10am to 3pm

Sign-up for key events in advance

Volunteers still needed: click here.

See you soon!

Lorsqu’on demande à Amital ce qui lui reste de ses années au Lycée Français de New York, ce sont les mots ouverture, multiculturalisme, multilinguisme et culture générale qui reviennent le plus souvent.

Cette ancienne élève du LFNY, scolarisée entre 1994 et 2007, s’apprête à ouvrir, avec 30 autres journalistes, le bureau à New York de la chaîne d’information i24 et elle n’en démord pas : “C’est en partie, grâce au passage au Lycée et à la formation bilingue que j’ai reçue que j’ai été recrutée”.

Le parcours d’Amital dans les méandres du journalisme n’a pas été, comme la plupart de ses confrères, un long fleuve tranquille. C’est un peu “par hasard”, avoue-t-elle, qu’elle est devenue “accro“ à l’info. C’est lorsqu’elle poursuit des études de littérature française à Columbia University qu’elle décide de tenter un stage chez Geraldo Rivera à Fox News. Cette expérience de trois mois a été révélatrice : “c’était pendant l’été 2009, au moment du décès de Michael Jackson”, se souvient-elle. Elle découvre alors l’adrénaline du direct, l’impact immédiat sur les milliers de personnes qui vous suivent : “c’est complètement euphorisant”, explique-t-elle.

C’est décidé, elle sera journaliste. L’été suivant, elle fait un nouveau stage à MSNBC, au sein de l’émission de Rachel Maddow, suivi d’un autre dans l’émission Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Petit à petit, les portes des TV networks américains s’ouvrent. Elle passe quelques mois à NBC Nightly News et obtient son premier poste d’assistante de rédaction.

En parallèle, Amital continue ses études. Après son Bachelor à Columbia, elle décide de se spécialiser avec un Master dans ce qu’elle estime être sa passion: le journalisme télévisé. Une période intense pour elle qui alterne entre ses études la semaine à CUNY Graduate School of Journalism et son travail, les weekends de 4h à 16h, à MSNBC.

La force de caractère d’Amital est palpable et elle respire la détermination. Une qualité indispensable, selon elle, pour survivre dans cette industrie où beaucoup de gens ont des égos surdimensionnés, “la discipline, c’est de toujours garder ses objectifs en ligne de mire”.

Outre cette qualité, le LFNY a appris à Amital quelque chose d’inestimable et qui lui sert au quotidien dans son métier : comprendre qu’une information a plusieurs facettes. “Mes amis sont de partout dans le monde, et je me souviendrai toujours de ces débats animés que nous avions entre nous sur l’actualité. Nous venions chacun avec notre histoire, notre opinion, notre individualité. Le Lycée m’a avant tout appris à écouter, à accepter qu’il n’y a pas qu’une facette, mais plusieurs, et qu’elles sont toutes intéressantes.”

À l’été 2012, Amital fait un autre stage à NBC News, mais cette fois, au bureau de Londres, afin de participer à la couverture des Jeux Olympiques. Les quatre langues qu’elle parle couramment (anglais, français, hébreu et espagnol) commencent à se révéler un atout considérable. “C’est l’une des raisons qui m’a poussée à faire du journalisme”, explique-t-elle, “j’essaie toujours d’aller à la source de l’information, lire la presse étrangère, regarder les conférences de presse ou les déclarations en langue originale.”

L’opportunité d’une vie pour Amital s’est présentée en mars 2016, lors des tragiques attaques terroristes de Bruxelles. La journaliste est alors productrice pour l’émission Good Morning America à ABC News. “Ce matin du 22 mars, nous commençons à recevoir des informations émanant de Bruxelles comme quoi des explosions ont eu lieu à l’aéroport”, se souvient Amital. La température monte subitement dans la newsroom, et quelques instants plus tard, la chef du bureau lui tape sur l’épaule et lui demande si elle a son passeport. “Je n’avais pas dormi depuis 24 heures, mais l’adrénaline a raison de moi et quelques heures plus tard je pars pour Londres”, raconte Amital.

Commence alors trois jours mémorables où, depuis Londres, Amital envoie des rapports au bureau de New York  sur l’état des lieux à Bruxelles.  Une fois de plus son bilinguisme se révèle être un atout. “Je regardais les chaînes d’informations locales, des conférences de presse en français ainsi que différentes sources sur Twitter”, se souvient-elle.

En juin 2016, elle postule à l’ouverture du bureau de New York de i24 et est tout de suite sélectionnée. Elle part pour Tel Aviv et rencontre Paul Amar, le directeur de l’information de la chaîne. Il est tout de suite séduit par ses qualités de journaliste et son profil cosmopolite. “Le bureau de i24 à New York est pour moi la parfaite rencontre des grandes avenues journalistiques et culturelles françaises, américaines et israéliennes.”

Retour à New York donc pour cette nouvelle aventure qui promet d’être passionnante dix ans après avoir quitté les bancs du Lycée. Amital a fait du chemin, mais il y a fort à parier que ce n’est qu’un début.

On Saturday, November 12, we had the great pleasure of welcoming our entire community for the opening of our York Wing in a celebration of this beautiful new space and the many opportunities for learning and creating it is making possible for students.

You perhaps were there, and had the opportunity to discover our new Media Lab, where our students are practicing the art of film editing under the careful eye of media integrator Jeff Rogers and Option Cinéma teaching team. There they are learning the latest techniques of filming, production, and direction of films and documentaries.

Or perhaps you had the chance to do some hands-on work in the Maker Space with maker-integrator Adam Romary. This new space offers many tools for creating and making, including a new 3D printer, which got much use on that Saturday.  You may have even tested your ingenuity (and confidence) in the art and science of robotics.

A few daring souls — students, parents, teachers and staff — tried out a slightly different experience in the Secondary library. You accepted the personal challenge of telling us on camera in front of two renowned journalists and Lycée parents what the words “journey” and “voyages” mean to you.

Here are a sampling of your stories, in English or in French.

You took us on your travels from Syria to New York, with a special stopover in Anna’s imaginary world.

You took us on the spiritual journeys that changed you.

Your stories showed that one need not board a plane to explore unchartered territory…

And children always remind us that all trips, near and far, are adventures.

What a moving experience this project has been for us, as spectators, to listen to your journeys, your chance encounters,  your joy and sadness.

We chose the theme of journeys, because they unite us as a community. Because traveling takes us outside of ourselves, introduces us to other cultures, and inspires us to discover, to learn new languages, to listen to others and to learn to respect their opinions.  We learn to learn. And what more beautiful place for that than the Lycée Français de New York.

Thanks very much for all those of you who chose to take part with us. And an extra special thanks to Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson and Jeff Kluger, our two journalists!

We look forward to sharing more of your stories very soon….

This day, focusing one aspect of the 2030 UN Development Goal to leave no one behind, can seem daunting. According to the UN, one billion people live in extreme poverty. 800 million suffer from hunger, malnutrition and do not have access to safe drinking water.

Lycée students joined representatives from some of the research and development agencies of the UN in Conference Room 2. Following on the heels of the UN General Assembly, however, this meeting was a clear departure from the traditional gatherings of world leaders, member states and their representatives. During this meeting, attendees heard directly from New York-based human rights activists, many of whom remain in dire situations, but are working hard to find solutions.

“We are here to serve the people, to fight for human dignity,” Jan Eliasson, UN Deputy Secretary-General, said in his opening remarks. “People living in poverty should be the first partners in what should be done about poverty.”  

Said Zohair Ghenania, one of three teachers from the History-Geography Department who accompanied the students on the trip, “Poverty may be something we understand in the abstract, but if we are truly nurturing leaders of tomorrow at the Lycée, our students need to have an understanding of what poverty really means.”

He referenced a 2014 visit to the Lycée of the French economist Esther Duflo, founder and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. “To be poor requires great intelligence. Your time is consumed with survival,” he recalled her saying. “Poverty is about more than material well-being. It alienates people from fundamental human rights. It excludes and humiliates.”

That afternoon, students and other guests for the panel heard from many people about their experiences. To start, Nicole Maucher and Johnny Ocean, a homeless couple, told the story of their experience in homeless shelters and how their child in kindergarten had been required to repeat the grade over and over, because they had moved around so often. They had become advocates and activists for homeless families and their children.

Said ninth grader Juliette of the two, her favorite presenters of the afternoon, “They are going through so much, but they are motivated to help their kids and make themselves examples for them.”

Kimberly Tye, a parent advocate at the Child Welfare Organizing Project, then described how her experience as a single parent of a special needs child, who had been in and out of foster homes, inspired her to become an organizer for child welfare.

1ère student Aurélien, who was making his first trip inside the UN, was most moved by poet Patrick Lubin, who uses his voice as a poet to support human rights advocacy. “Je dois prendre le risque de m’exposer,” Lubin said.

Added Aurélien, “What surprised me was the informality of the session. It had people from many social classes, occupations and more speak, not just ambassadors or men in suits. “

“Class trips such as these, along with the school’s evolving service-learning initiatives and new social entrepreneurship course for all ninth-grade students, are important,” says Head of School Sean Lynch, “because they bring our students closer to the experience of others, and with proximity comes greater understanding.”

Ninth-grader Anna would agree. “It was extremely insightful and interesting. I was surprised that I was going to hear from them, not just UN officials.” Her favorite moment of the day was hearing Sparsh Shah, a young man who brought many of us to tears singing joyfully from his wheelchair.

Wrote Juliette, inspired by the words of Eliasson, “One person doesn’t have enough power to help everybody, but we if all do something, big or small, it will make a difference.”

How did you come to be at the Lycée Français de New York?

My family moved to New York from the Central African Republic in 1996. My mother was working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at the time, and we had been forced out of Bangui, the capital, following army mutinies. My brother, Youssouf, and I were enrolled in the Secondary School and arrived at the same time as another African student, Hichem Kerma from Algeria.

Hichem and I are still friends, and I remember we both thought that the Lycée was very different from the Lycées we had gone to in Africa and in France. It seemed that each student came from a different place, religion and socioeconomic background. I have always been adaptive, but none of the other schools gave me that same sense of purpose. The mix of New York’s energy and multi-ethnic culture, the Lycée’s diverse student body and its emphasis on academic success and good behavior instilled me with confidence, motivation and ambition to maximize my potential in life.

You’ve spent almost your entire professional career at L’Oréal.

After I graduated from McGill, I became a marketing assistant at Dassault Aviation, but I left after a year to get a masters in marketing and communications at L’Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP-EAP).  I competed for a six-month internship when I was at ESCP-EAP at L’Oréal, and it was a tough environment at the beginning. I was interning and writing my thesis at the same time, and it’s like they throw you into a swimming pool and only the strongest survive!

And I was always interested in fashion. At the Lycée, I took first prize in art. Art was an escape for me, and for a time the idea of being constrained within a corporate environment was not attractive to me. To this day, I love working with creatives. I may give them ideas and direction, but I always give them an option to think out of the box and do things differently, and ultimately I think, more successfully.

Tell us about your experience working and living in Nigeria.

Nigeria is a land of possibility with huge potential and a growing middle class. It’s an exciting time there with industrial sectors that are beginning to move beyond the country’s basic natural resources into telecommunications, finance, etc.  But it’s still a country that relies too much on its crude oil, which makes it very vulnerable to fluctuations in oil prices.

At L’ Oréal, we are working to combat these fluctuations by solidifying our activity, building on our strong corporate governance to develop a long-term strategy to accelerate sustainable growth in 2016 and beyond.

How is living in Lagos?

Lagos to me is like New York without the infrastructure — twenty million people, so it’s very busy, with a lot of energy. It’s quite vibrant, and because of all the investment in Nigeria, you have people from everywhere coming here. Nigeria is a former British colony, and new generations of Nigerians are returning to take part in the current development of the country.

Nigeria is also home to many different ethnic groups and three major religions: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Every time you meet somebody new or you discover a new neighborhood, you go, wow, I didn’t know this existed! I was invited to an event and found out that there are a lot of Romanians here.  There is a big Greek community and a big Italian community. There are Indians who have been here for generations.

Culturally as well, Nigeria seems very rich, and some of its writers are getting a lot of attention in the U.S.

Yes, its writers and musicians. The Nigerian culture in modern music is incredible: its musicians and artists are some of the most important in Africa.  When I went to Kenya they were playing Nigerian music; in Ghana, in Mali, they were playing Nigerian music. These are highly respected artists such as Asa and Fela Kuti. Thanks to one of my friends, I was fortunate to have Asa and Keziah Jones welcome me to Lagos. They introduced me to the art scene and quickly made me feel at home.

What is your next move?

My goal is to continue to grow professionally. In my current role, there is a lot of momentum for Nigeria, and for Africa, so it all depends. If there is an opportunity to add more value in Nigeria, I will stay. If I can contribute more by moving back to the Paris headquarters to continue building the African strategy, I will do that. But Latin American and Asian markets, cultures, and consumers have always fascinated me, so who knows…

I’ve lived in Nepal for more than two years now, and there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought of earthquakes. I knew I was moving to an earthquake zone that geologists warned was overdue for a massive quake, and I have a tendency to over-prepare, probably acquired in my 20-plus years on the road as a foreign correspondent. I didn’t have one set of earthquake-ready “go-bags”—the backpacks that hold essentials such as a change of clothes, a first aid kit, spare batteries and some basic food—but three sets, some bigger than others for winter gear and all in different locations around my house and garden.

Yet, when a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit central Nepal on April 25, 2015—a rolling wave that moved the Kathmandu valley 1.5 meters in five seconds and was followed by hundreds of big and small aftershocks that are still continuing today—I realized how little I really knew about the ground I lived on. In that earthquake and its aftershocks, more than 9,000 died, tens of thousands were injured and 3.5 million people were left homeless.

An earthquake is not a single occurrence. It remains a constant looming, unpredictable presence. Fear, hypervigilance and intrusive thoughts have become ubiquitous, always lurking in some corner of my mind. A counselor at my son’s school, speaking to parents weeks after the first earthquake, gave a critical piece of advice. “When your child tells you he is scared, don’t answer that ‘everything will be alright’. There is no way to guarantee that everything will be alright. Your child needs to be aware that the earthquake can come back, and these are the ways to better prepare.”

An ordinary day

On April 25th, my son Lucas and I were following our standard Saturday rituals while my husband John was out of town in the U.S. on business. We woke up early to take Biko, our Rhodesian Ridgeback, for a walk across the cultivated fields below our house. Lucas did his violin practice, and we then started to drive down into the nearby city of Patan, Kathmandu’s twin city, for an early pizza lunch. I noticed that something was not right as we descended a hill towards a bridge over the Nokhu river. At first, I thought I had a flat tire. Then I thought that I’d hit a nearby motorcyclist as I saw him fall off his bike and slide down the road. But then I realized it had to be more than that. I had trouble keeping the car on the road as it jerked up onto two wheels on one side and then slammed back down onto the pavement. Nearby, brick walls were collapsing, and trees were bending down towards the ground, and back up again, as if in a huge wind storm. Everywhere people were screaming. I pulled over, turned off the engine, pulled the handbrake and told Lucas: “It’s an earthquake. Put your head down.”

The rest of the day was run on adrenaline. We drove back home. Our house looked fine. Biko was very glad to see us. I told Lucas to stay outside, as I began doing fast runs in and out of the house to get food, blankets, my computer and camera, any other essentials. I knew to expect aftershocks, but I had no idea how powerful they can be or how much damage they can create.

Some 30 minutes after the first earthquake, as I was squatting in front of a safe trying to open it and grab passports and emergency cash, I heard a loud crack, which was followed by a vertical jerking of the house that was so powerful that it threw me onto my back. In the yard, Lucas screamed for me, and I ran down the stairs. That’s when I decided to stay out of the house for a while. Emotionally exhausted, Lucas fell asleep on Biko’s blanket while I set up a tent in the garden, our refuge for two weeks.

Near dusk, Lucas and I ventured out of our garden on foot downhill about 500 yards to Khokana, one of the valley’s oldest towns. It has been covered in a cloud of dust much of the day, but it wasn’t until we got to it that we could see the earthquake’s power. More than half the town’s traditional mud-brick buildings had crumbled. Entire brick walls had been ripped off. A massive three-story, pagoda-like Indrayani temple in the central square was precariously leaning, jagged cracks on its walls. Miraculously, because it had happened midday and most people were out of their houses, only 14 people had died.

Pre- and post-quake

Pre-quake, I was often asked whether I liked living in Nepal. I love Nepal. Despite the massive pollution, the daily winter electricity cuts, the legendary traffic jams and ubiquitous garbage, Nepal won me over with its natural beauty, its living religions, and also the warmth and quirkiness of its fun-loving people. As so many Nepalis have told me: “We survive and exist not because of our government but in spite of it.”

I owe much to my Nepali friends, colleagues and neighbors who immediately reached out to make sure we were okay. Keshav, our cook, a former Marxist-Leninist revolutionary who also doubles as my translator and fixer on reporting stories, left his own badly damaged house and came to our place that first evening, building an impromptu tarp shelter for our earthquake gear where he and Biko slept. Lucas and I joined him on his motorcycle as I reported on the destruction in the valley. With our internet down, we found connectivity and much appreciated company at the home of my friends Kunda and his wife Milan, where we weathered a few big aftershocks sitting together in their garden. Another impromptu family were my husband’s World Bank colleagues, several of whom came to the office within the first hours to track down all staff.

For the first time, I was living the story that I was reporting. The quake had in one way or another affected everyone in 14 of Nepal’s 75 districts. It’s the language we all had in common. In Kathmandu, people greeted each other for weeks by asking: “Where were you when the quake hit?” After large aftershocks, they still start conversations with “Did you feel that?” After a powerful 5:00 a.m. aftershock one morning, a friend tweeted: “Wakey, Wakey. That was a big one.”  We were all part of a big community.  We all suffered from earthquake “hangovers”, the feeling that the earth was moving even when it was not. That first week after the 7.8 magnitude quake, I’ve never hugged and been hugged by so many people, even just acquaintances.

View from the States

Back in the States for vacation this summer, many friends asked me why I didn’t leave immediately after April 25th.  Many foreigners did leave. Kathmandu experienced an exodus. Some embassies evacuated families and non-essential personnel, including DFID, the arm of the U.K. government that oversees international aid. Over 300,000 migrant workers from India and other areas of Nepal left Kathmandu within days.

Yes, I could have left. I certainly worried about Lucas and his safety. But my husband John was back in Nepal working, saying that this was the time help was most needed in Nepal, so it was absolutely the wrong time for us to leave. In addition, I was reporting. The World Bank gave all its employees and their dependents an opportunity to evacuate, but in the end only one of about 400 people chose to do so. Lucas said he did not want to leave as long as both his parents were in Nepal. John and I felt that if we left the place we call home, we were telling our son that when the going got tough, the easiest solution was to leave the problem behind.

I knew even in the first minutes after the first earthquake that I couldn’t possibly leave. Nepal is my home. I have tried to demonstrate solidarity with the country and my friends there in the only way I know how: by writing.

On Monday, December 19th, the Lycée Français de New York held its first annual Day of Understanding, a celebration dedicated to the many ways in which we identify ourselves. It was the culmination of months of activities across the Primary School, and we were excited to welcome our Primary families to the school that day to hear from the
children about what they learned. It was an important moment of sharing, as parents and students alike talked about the rituals and traditions in their families.

The day was a touchpoint of our ongoing work to foster in our community an understanding and embrace of what unites us and makes each one of us unique. This event helped us as an educational community to reaffirm our commitment to providing our students a fulfilling and enriching educational experience rooted in the values of open-mindedness and tolerance.

Our Day of Understanding was the result of many years of work and reflection about how we understand and teach about diversity in our international context. One would not question the importance of fostering respect and understanding of others in students from their earliest years, but the question of how to go about doing so effectively is much more complex.

© Melanie Milletics

It’s one of the most fascinating questions for a school, as it examines teaching and also how diversity is itself represented among our student body in order to develop the best teaching methods possible.

The paradox of teaching about diversity.

Education and teaching have been traditionally the building blocks of societies. They played an essential role in shaping a community of individuals with a common base of knowledge, traditions and language. A political and social function, education was meant to give individuals a sense of belonging, as well as shared ideas and values.

The idea that each student, each person being taught, each “subject of our teaching”, has a singular identity and that together these identities form a plurality of people is essential in thinking about teaching diversity.  Perhaps paradoxically, teaching diversity must take into account a student’s individuality within her or his social and educational setting, while encouraging them to find commonalities among each other each.

Given the many cultures and backgrounds present in our community of students, it was quite a challenge for us to create a substantive, high-quality program. Effectively tapping our own cultural diversity and also taking great care to nurture it effectively led us to work with the renowned Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, and to base our program on Tanenbaum’s seven principles of inclusive education.

As we began to create a program on the topic of diversity, we asked ourselves a number of questions:

• How do we teach the concepts of the “shared” and the “different,” the “one” and the “many”, the “self” and the “other”?
• What pedagogical approach should we adopt? Teaching about diversity engages both teacher and student in a particular understanding and approach. Teachers need to de-emphasize their individual points of view and open up to the many perspectives that exist within a culturally diverse community, including all the affects, representations, and values that go along with them.

It requires a true comprehensive approach in the etymological sense : to take together (cum-prehendere). It hinges on our ability to fully grasp the reasoning of others, their way of thinking, acting, sensing, emoting and to integrate that into our own points of reference.  It rests on the characteristic that human beings share to try to understand the signals another sends, to grasp their motives, and how they interact with the world around them.

Social and emotional learning (SEL), or what we call emotional intelligence, rests on the development of competencies linked to learning and understanding diversity as a “biographical challenge.” It starts from an awareness and acceptance of oneself as an individual, and extends to include the integration of others and their differences. Tremendous intellectual flexibility, cultural fluency and empathy are required on the part of teachers.

At the Lycée Français de New York, teaching understanding is essential in order to form citizens who are conscious and proud of their individual identities and also capable of empathy and compassion, citizens with a sense of justice who will fight for a society where prejudice and stereotypes have no place — citizens of the world, enlightened, accomplished and positive.

That’s what we wanted to affirm, and will continue to do so during our annual Day of Understanding and throughout the year.

On a snowy Saturday morning, ten members of our décor team and their kids assembled in our new Maker Space to continue working on creating blooms made out of scraps of t-shirts and sheets.

Students began by cutting old fabric into 11 inch by 11 inch pieces while parents started bunching these pieces together in poms which were fastened by fishing wire to create strands of blooms.

These blooms were then strung around large copper wire to make our first completed décor piece.

These beautiful structures will hang above our silent auction area at the Gala. This moment brought our gala “Toi+Moi=Beyond the self” to life.

To help with our efforts, please reach into your closets and dresser drawers to find out white shirts, towels and sheets to help us continue creating these amazing pieces. Deposit your shirts in the grey bins in the 75 and 76 street lobbies.

Thank you so much for helping to make this year’s gala a community event!

This year’s gala, “Toi + Moi = Beyond the Self“, is a celebration of community spirit and service to others. The school will honor Christy Turlington Burns, advocate, social entrepreneur and founder of the nonprofit, Every Mother Counts. We sat down with this year’s co-chairs, Jordan Phillips, Orla Coleman, Claudia Fleming Bitar and Monique Frumberg to find out what to expect at LFNY Gala 2017.

Tell us about the theme, “Toi + Moi = Beyond the Self.”

There’s a clear connection between the theme of service, and the education our children are receiving. Citizenship — teaching children to give back to others, to be agents of positive change in the community and world around us — is at the core of the school’s mission.

2017 Gala Co-Chairs: Orla Coleman, Monique Frumberg, Jordan Phillips and Claudia Fleming Bitar

There’s also the community aspect. We’ve met some of our closest friends at the Lycée, and it’s so much fun to celebrate together, at the gala! It’s a reminder that the Lycée Français is not just a school for our children, it’s a community for our families. We’re part of something, and once you feel like you’re part of something, you act differently, and you get involved.

On a more global perspective, we believe it is so important now more than ever that we work as a community to encourage understanding, acceptance and inclusion.

Why did you choose Christy Turlington Burns as honoree?

Photo by Silja Magg

Christy is a role model of courage and entrepreneurship for Lycée students. She took a difficult personal situation during her first pregnancy and became an advocate and educator for maternal health through her nonprofit, Every Mother Counts. We are inspired by how she has used her fame as a platform to make a difference in the lives of others around the world, from Haiti to Syria to Congo to communities right here in New York City.

The decor is extra special this year. How so?

The Park Avenue Armory is such a vast space. It can be overwhelming to think about how to bring it to life, and we were looking to visualize the theme of community so evident in the logo for the gala this year. As luck would have it, we went to an art show at the Park Avenue Armory in the summer, and it had the most exquisite floating white flowers hanging from the rafters. We absolutely wanted that for the gala…raining beautiful white flowers.

Inma Barrero, an artist and parent at the Lycée, is overseeing the project. She immediately understood what we were looking for and wanted very much to make the community present in the work.

We’ve been collecting white t-shirts, blouses, sheets, any white fabric from our community, and with students, parents and teachers we’ve been creating sculptures made from ribbons of flowers. The installation will also include a visual interpretation of the community joining hands. We’re in the final stages of creating it all, and we’re still collecting fabric. Parents can drop it off in either lobby through the end of next week. Thank you!

What can guests expect at the silent and live auctions?

The silent and live auction, which will be hosted by Brook Hazelton of Christie’s, are key fundraising moments during the gala. Our aims this year are to focus on experiences that bring people together and to have items for every budget. Guests will find everything from great wine and gift certificates to new restaurants, meditation classes, and a chocolate-making class for children in the silent auction to a six-day, five-night stay at the coveted Meadowood Napa Valley luxury resort and Ferrari race track experience in the live auction. Silent auction items will go live for bidding to the entire Lycée community on January 18th, so stay-tuned for your chance to “BUY NOW”!

Student participation is always a highlight.

Our student voices are very much present this year through our “street-sign project”. We asked students to come up with slogans in English and in French about emotional well-being and consideration of others. Working with the art department, we’ve created a series of streets signs that will hang all over the school in the weeks leading up to the gala for our students to see when they visit the water fountain, take the elevator or head to the canteen. These signs will also be visible on gala night at the Armory.

Of course, the creation of the white fabric flowers and community fabric sculptures are the work of many of our parents and their children.

What else is a real need-to-know about Gala 2017?

Photo by Shervin Lainez

We’ve worked so hard to make the cavernous space of the Armory feel warm and open and universal. From the white fabric flowers of the decor to the African drums that will be playing as our guests arrive to the international flavor of the music performance by grammy-nominated duo SOFI TUKKER, it will be a thrilling and inspiring evening of community spirit for all guests in attendance.

Thanks very much to everyone in our community who is contributing to making the evening a great success for our school!

To purchase tickets visit: lfnygala.org

Follow us on the Lycée facebook page for updates.

Ce vendredi, ce sont les collégiens du Lycée qui affrontent St. Hilda et St. Hugh’s School.

Ce sont les Boys qui commencent et ce sont NOS boys qui ouvrent le score mais l’équipe de St. Hugh’s est nettement plus offensive, très présente à l’attaque mais toujours présente en défense. Ils dominent cette première manche et les Lynx ont bien du mal à reprendre le dessus. 4-11 à la fin du premier quart.

Le début du 2ème quart n’est guère plus reluisant pour nos Lynx mais ils finissent par trouver un rythme et à organiser leur jeu mais leurs adversaires ne lâchent rien! 14-25 à la mi-temps.

Décidément les Lynx manquent cruellement d’enthousiasme et se font totalement dominer dans la 3ème manche. Les Boys de St. Hugh prennent le large avec 20 points d’avance!

Dernier quart. Ma voisine de gradins, Alexis résume le match en quelques mots: “Ils sont trop forts! c’est pas juste!” En effet ils étaient décidément trop fort pour nous aujourd’hui, score final 28-46.

“Allez Lycééééee!”  Aux Girls du Lycée d’affronter celles de St. Hilda. Dès le début du match, il est à craindre que le sort des filles sera le même que celui des boys. Le premier quart s’achève sur un score sans appelle de 1-11 pour les “visitors”.

Ma voisine a changé, l’atmosphère autour de moi aussi… Il faut dire que les Girls de St. Hilda nous donnent du fil à retordre. 8-15 à la mi-temps.

Les Lynx gardent le morale et Bernard Otalora nous a rejoint dans les gradins pour prodiguer ses conseils. Les Lynx marquent mais elles ne sont pas les seules… 15-23 avant le dernier quart.

Plus que quelques minutes à jouer, plus que quelques efforts à fournir pour tenter de revenir au score mais décidément les joueurs de St. Hilda et St. Hugh’s School ne veulent rien lâcher, ils remportent le match 19-27,

With the vision of artist and Lycée parent, Inma Barrero, and a host of parent, teacher and student volunteers, the Park Avenue Armory will be transformed for our gala on February 4th, with floating sculptures created out of donations of white fabric from the Lycée community.

Between creative sessions with volunteers in the Maker Space, school cafeteria and her own studio, Inma spoke to us about bringing the Gala theme, “Toi + Moi = Beyond the Self,” to life.

All photos courtesy of Gerald Forster.

Inma Barrero (far right) guides student volunteers.

What inspired you to be part of the project?

What’s special to me about the LFNY Gala is that it’s a community project for our children. When the Gala co-chairs, Claudia Fleming Bitar, Orla Coleman, Monique Frumberg and Jordan Phillips approached me with this year’s theme, “Toi + Moi = Beyond the Self”, I was really inspired.

There’s the collaborative aspect of the theme, the idea of people working together, and there’s humility in the concept of a community making a difference in the lives of others. It was also important to me that the environment of the event be reflective of the fact that we are a tightly woven, diverse community.

I had created a sculpture using my children’s old white shirts, and thought that it would be a good idea to collect all the old, worn-out shirts from our community, not only our students, but anyone who comes into contact with the Lycée and transform the Armory with this white fabric.

Plain white fabric is a humble material. We might wear a white t-shirt or shirt every day. We might sleep on plain white sheets, or use plain white napkins for example. Why not create something out of piles and piles of this material that passes through our hands, unnoticed each day.

Volunteers cut up fabric remnants in the maker space.

How will it look?

We really want the guests of the Gala to see how the immense, empty space of the Armory can be filled with our community’s effort. Giant sculptures created from the fabric will be suspended from the ceiling above the tables and along the s-shape of the silent-auction tables, inviting people to come and explore the many items on auction.

In the dining area, we’ve created backlit centerpieces for each table with the fabric remnants. Each centerpiece is distinct, as we are as individuals, but taken together they bring light and a feeling of warmth to the space.

High above the dining area is a center sculpture, created from the many white shirts of all kinds and sizes our community donated. The arms of the shirts join together as if holding hands, a beautiful metaphor for what we can achieve when we come together.

I understand there is a significant human element to the space.

The central sculpture of joining hands is at the heart of a special performance that will take place during dinner.  The sculpture will come to life!

I am so grateful to our music teacher Remy Loumbrozo and to Blanca Li, dancer, choreographer and a former Lycée parent, who is creating this living sculpture that will bring dancers from our own community (students, teachers, mothers and fathers!) together with the students in our Primary chorale for a special performance. I won’t say too much more on that. You’ll have to come to the Gala to see it!

Done! One of the many fabric sculptures that will fill the space of the Park Avenue Armory.

How did you get it done?

It took the participation of many hands to be sure, many donations of white shirts, sheets, pillow cases, you name it! Thank you.

It also took a lot of sweat equity as we like to say, and a belief among everyone involved that we are doing something for a greater purpose. The volunteers are very much a part of the pieces we are creating. They are present in the work and in that way each piece is infused with individuality. I am amazed by the commitment and enthusiasm.

And, of course, it takes much courage from our community members who will participate in the performance.

We are so grateful to everyone who has been working for weeks, during student dialogue hours, after school in their spare time to assemble the many pieces.

How does the signs project fit in with the work?

The signs project is the brainchild of co-chair Orla Coleman. Her concept was a student-driven one, where she asked students to come up with slogans in English and in French to inspire each other. The slogans were made into streets signs that are posted in the school and will be part of a fun photo booth the night of the Gala.

What do you hope that people take away from this project?

My hope is that this approach to creating an environment and atmosphere at the Gala involving our entire community continues to be a tradition. We have a community of many creative people, and I hope we can tap other artists at the Lycée to create a unique community experience for the Gala in years to come…

There’s still time to buy tickets. Visit lfnygala.org.

Lucie, Audrey, Rémy et Théa, quatre élèves du Lycée Français de New York se sont envolés pour San Francisco le 2 mars dernier pour participer à la finale de l’édition nationale de Startup weekend.

Avant d’entrer dans le vif du sujet, nos quatre socio-entrepreneurs que nous avons accompagnés avec Isabelle Bichard, ont eu le temps d’admirer le Golden Gate Bridge sous un ciel bleu éclatant puis de découvrir les locaux de Google.

Mr Marotte, employé depuis 5 ans nous a guidés et nous a parlé de son expérience au sein de l’entreprise, notamment des 8 principes de l’innovation selon Google. Les élèves ont également eu l’opportunité d’échanger avec un ingénieur basé à Austin via Skype.

L’enthousiasme des employés était tellement communicatif que certains élèves se sentaient déjà prêts à signer au terme des deux heures de visite!

Nous avons ensuite découvert le Lycée Français de San Francisco à l’occasion d’une table ronde avec pour thème la food tech. Les différents intervenants ont partagé avec nous leur parcours et leur expertise. Nous avons aussi retrouvé Pierre Alzingre et son équipe que nous avions quittés après le Startup Weekend organisé le 21 janvier dernier au Lycée Français de New York.     

Nous avons rencontré nos “adversaires” : une équipe du collège Simone Veil de Montpellier, trois équipes du Lycée de Chicago et trois équipes du Lycée de San Francisco. Notre équipe était la plus jeune avec celle de Montpellier. Mais l’entrepreneuriat et l’innovation n’attendent pas le nombre des années!

La compétition a débuté le lendemain. Si le format de la finale ressemblait au Startup Weekend qui a couronné nos élèves fin janvier, deux nouvelles règles nous ont été données:

• Le pitch devait se faire en français
• Les élèves ne pouvaient pas reprendre le projet qui leur avait permis de se qualifier

Tout le monde devait repartir de zéro!

Au travail !

Nouveau projet, nouveau défi, notre quatuor new-yorkais a épaté leurs coachs entrepreneurs au bout de quelques heures! Ils ont réussi leur pré-pitch dans les temps, avec une équipe unie et sans lecture de notes.

Le dernier jour, les élèves ont noirci les tableaux blancs avec leurs idées, leurs mots clés ou encore les chiffres de leur “business plan”, créé leur prototype, choisi avec soin les mots pour leur pitch final et peaufiné leur mise en scène.

Toutes les équipes se sont ensuite rassemblées dans l’auditorium. Mr le Consul Général de France a adressé un discours encourageant et admiratif aux candidats avant de céder la place à la compétition.

L’auditorium était plein, le stress et l’excitation palpables. Pour présenter leur projet, les règles étaient les suivantes:

• Un pitch de 3 minutes
• Un Q&A de 5 minutes avec le jury

Audrey, Lucie, Rémy et Théa ont ouvert le bal avec un pitch d’excellente qualité et délivré sans notes pour présenter leur nouveau projet : Rent-a-Roof – A Green Experience. Ou encore comment lier événementiel et politique zéro déchets. Ils ont justifié leurs choix et répondu aux questions avec assurance. De véritables entrepreneurs!

Les 7 autres équipes leur ont emboîté le pas et la concurrence était indéniablement de très bonne qualité. Le jury partageait manifestement ce constat. Notre équipe n’a pas été désignée lauréate pour cette première édition nationale mais au-delà du résultat final, l’équipe du Lycée Français de New York peut être fière de son parcours, de sa créativité et de son esprit innovateur!

Les élèves sont repartis enchantés et heureux d’avoir pu vivre cette expérience unique, qui a commencé au Lycée Français de New York!

En mai prochain, c’est l’autre moitié des 3ème du Lycée qui participera au Social Entrepreneurship StartUp Week-end!

How long were you a student at the Lycée?

My parents are American, but they were living in France when I was born and fell in love with French culture. When we moved back to New York, they absolutely wanted me to attend a French school and the Lycée Français de New York was the obvious choice! I was a student here through CM2, when we moved to San Francisco, and I continued my French education at the Lycée Français de San Francisco.

What inspires your work as you join the Lycée?

What an extraordinary time for the Lycée Français de New York. There is an enormous amount of enthusiasm for the school and excitement about the direction we are headed in, with all the new programs and initiatives in the areas of bilingualism, STEAM, project-based learning, etc.

And yet some traditions linger, and there are still familiar faces, including Rolla Boulad and Jean le Bidois, who were both my teachers!

The Lycée is a home away from home for many of our families and faculty and staff, who come from all over the world. The level of passion for the school goes beyond what you might see at similar institutions, and I am excited to build on that legacy.

LFNY Development Team: Caroline Naralasetty, Brigid Berger, Kate Lubinger, Isabelle Correa

I am also thrilled to be working with such a wonderful team of terrific professionals. Feel free to contact any of us with questions about our work.

We look forward to seeing everyone around the school, and thank you all deeply for your support of the school!

You’ve worked at several renowned cultural and educational institutions. What’s different about fundraising at the Lycée?

I majored in art history at Stanford University, and as a student, volunteered for the fundraising team. In my career in fundraising, I worked in fundraising for institutions like Carnegie Hall, Columbia Business School,  and the new performing arts center at the World Trade Center. Whether as a volunteer, an employee or even a donor, my experience has always been that fundraising helps me feel personally invested in an organization.

I’ve been at the Lycée for just one month, and my experience is the same. Fundraising is a wonderful thing to be engaged in because, at the core, we are building relationships with people who are passionate about a cause. It gives us an opportunity to make a real contribution to the school, no matter how large or small, and we certainly hope it makes us feel part of something bigger than themselves.

We’re celebrating the power of participation in the school’s fundraising activities this month. Why is participation so important?

Participation is a demonstration of the strength of a community and its support of a common goal–in our case, providing the best educational experience possible for students. Participation means that all contributions, great and small, are equally valued.

What is the role of the school’s grade ambassadors?

I have only been here for a month, and I am so amazed by the enthusiasm and leadership of our volunteer grade ambassadors, who are a direct link between our development activities and our families. Along with our parent association, they do a wonderful job of explaining the mission and vision of the school to our parent community. I marvel at the time they devote and the considerable personal effort they put into reaching out to families in their grade. They bring a deep understanding of the value of the annual fund, and the value of philanthropy in general.

People often ask, “Why do we need an annual fund?”

Artist in Residence – Philharmonie de Paris

Every single child at the school benefits from a gift to the Annual Fund, which supports initiatives in every aspect of school life. If your child participates in team sports, the activities of the Cultural Center–like the extraordinary week our fifth grades have just spent with the Philharmonie de Paris, our After-School Program, our science partnerships with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia or the Cold Spring Harbor DNA Laboratory, she or he directly benefits from the Annual Fund.

As the school continues to enhance its core programs, the Annual Fund supports additional professional development opportunities for teachers to help support innovation and new approaches to teaching and learning. Such initiatives as the the biliteracy workshops for  parents in the Primary School are made possible by research grants funded in part by the Annual Fund.

Every gift, large and small, to the Annual Fund is greatly appreciated! Thank you to everyone for their contributions!

In the week ahead, LFNY musical theater will perform a show about being in a show, A Chorus Line, in the 32nd annual school musical under the direction of Remy Loumbrozo and Story McPhee, with choreography by Caroline Blanco.

The Secondary students voted to perform this show from a list of legendary musicals that included Fame, The Pyjama Game. What is it that the students love so much about the show, which was originally performed on Broadway from 1975-1990, making it the longest-running show in Broadway history at the time?

A Chorus Line tells the story of 17 dancers pursuing a Broadway dream to be part of a chorus line. The show’s plot focuses on the private lives of young and veteran chorus dancers, as they describe coming of age and finding in the art of musical theater a welcome escape from difficult lives.

Says Arthur Whitman, English teacher and the Lycée’s resident musical theater aficionado at Wednesday’s rehearsal, “Back in 1974 the show’s original director, Michael Bennett, worked with some friends and brought all these actors together to the Public Theater. They sat in circles and told their stories.” The stories were recorded and put into a book and eventually written to music by the legendary Marvin Hamlisch.

Says student Yasmeen, who plays Sheila, the smart-allecky outspoken child of a distant father and a ballet-dancer mother. “My life is not like hers, of course, but I understand Sheila. In the school’s after-school musical theater program, I feel like can be myself. I understand how being on stage can be ‘a place to go’. “

Sheila, Maggie (played by Terminale student Sarah), and Bebe (played by 1ere student Alice) sing one of the most moving numbers of the show, “At the Ballet”. To bring a French touch the show, Remy and Story added a fourth part into the piece, “Le Ballet”, from their show French Toast and sung in French by 1ere student Agathe, which fits beautifully into the original score. “It’s a clin d’oeil to the school,” says Remy.

Watching the rehearsals on Wednesday evening, it was hard to separate fact from fiction, as stress mounted on stage for the students to get dance parts right. The dance numbers in this show, especially the opener, “I hope I get it,” are not easy says Remy.

But you’re all going to love this one. I am sure of it. Don’t miss Kamila in the role of Cassie, the seasoned performer in the show who is beckoned back to Broadway and sings and dances to one of the show’s signature solo numbers, “The Music and the Mirror.”

The show has some fabulously funny and touching roles for the guys. From Bobby, played by Roman, and the character Paul, played with a touch of sadness by Abarry, we find humor and heartbreak.

Says Mr. Whitman, much of the actors’ stories were adapted to give them more drama and distinctiveness for the show, but the story of Cassie and Zach, the musical’s narrator and director, played by Terminale student Mael, and whose voice is heard throughout the show, came true to life. Donna McKechnie, who played the original Cassie, married Michael Bennett for a time after A Chorus Line went to Broadway.

The original show was a singular sensation, winning Tonys for Best Musical, Best Score for Marvin Hamlisch, Best Director and Best Choreography for Bennett, as well as Tonys for McKechnie and Sammy Williams as Paul.

“The score is so simple and so inventive, and it’s very moving. I think it’s the greatest musical ever written,” says Mr. Whitman. Take his advice and see all our fabulous student performers in this very special high-school production.

Book your seats here for Thursday (4/27) or for Friday (4/28). I hope you get’em.

All photos by Clémence Rebourg.

Le Lycée participe depuis de nombreuses années à une fête d’origine catalane, la journée mondiale du livre et la fête de la rose. Du 1er au 5 mai, pour cette édition 2017, nous proposons à l’ensemble de la communauté de participer à un mur d’expression en lien avec l’univers du livre. Tous les participants recevront une rose le vendredi 5 mai.

Les élèves de Moyenne Section célébreront cet événement à leur tour, en échangeant avec les classes de CM1, les livres réalisés en collaboration avec l’illustrateur Christopher Silas Neal.

Vous pourrez en profiter pour découvrir l’exposition ”Comment un livre vient au monde ? ”. Un grand voyage dans les coulisses du livre, de sa conception à sa fabrication, visible jusqu’au 19 mai à la BCD avec un quiz pour tester vos connaissances.

Également à la BCD et au CDI, jusqu’au vendredi 12 mai, Je lis donc je crée! Venez découvrir les objets, dessins, bandes annonces et autres créations des élèves de CM2, 6e et 5e, en lien avec leurs lectures du Prix des Incorruptibles.

Nous vous attendons nombreux à tous ces événements!

The survey was an outcome of our re-accreditation by NYSAIS, the school’s governing body here in the US, that culminated in a visit from a committee of accreditors from schools across the New York area in the fall of 2015.

You will perhaps remember that the committee loved the school! We received our accreditation handily, but with an important caveat: the committee felt we had evolved beyond our existing mission statement. They asked us to work in an inclusive process to revise our mission statement so that it better aligns with who we are and the “objectives and spirit of the school”.

The values survey instrument we sent out last spring was an essential starting point. What subjects and how we teach our students in class matters, of course, but this survey focused on the shared values we aim to foster in them as a community of parents, teachers, staff and students.

It strikes me that articulating what we value in this global community of ours, coming from 50+ nationalities and speaking so many different languages at home, is a very positive statement indeed. Despite (or perhaps because of) our cultural differences, what you’ll see in the results is a community that shares a significant amount!

Here’s what we asked.

Our survey takers, which included our parents, teachers, staff and Secondary students, were asked to select five from a list of 15 “character or personality traits” that they felt would be most important to foster in students here at school. 526 people took the survey, or about 20% of our community at all levels.

We scoured books, articles, and other surveys to come up with a list that could be easily understood, with as a little overlap as possible, by our community. You’ll note that some traits addressed student performance (work ethic, self confidence, adaptability), others were more generally related to how we are as members of a community (embracing of differences, curiosity about the world).

Some survey takers felt frustrated at having to choose only five values. “All of them are important,” wrote one survey taker. Others were annoyed by the simplicity of the exercise. We found the exercise a fascinating one, if imperfect, and well worth the frustration!

Adult Outcomes

The chart below is a summary of the results of the survey of the parents, teachers and staff of the school. The percentages listed spotlight the five most frequently chosen traits. Of course, all of these values are important. We simply wanted to know, if you had to choose, where would you put an emphasis.

If we look at the top five responses, Lycée adults have a strong inclination toward values that direct us to respect self and others, embracing differences and curiosity about the world. Not surprisingly, and surely the result of experience, was an understanding that having a strong work ethic and self-confidence are important attributes for long-term success.

If we separate out responses from our teachers, we found that the results were similar, except that among the top five responses from our faculty, the most widely chosen was embracing differences, followed by respect for self and others, curiosity about the world, and an emphasis on fostering creativity over work ethic.

For students connecting bilingualism, pluriculturalism and empathy

As with the adults in our community, the majority of our students put “respect of self and others” and “embracing differences” at the top of their responses. We often share studies that make a strong link between bilingualism and fostering empathy in students. Is this openness to others and the choices our students made on this survey an indicator of this tendency? We’d say a resounding, oui!

Also among the top five character traits selected by students in middle school were personal qualities that they may themselves see as essential to their growth at their age, with independence and collaboration, a much discussed topic at the school, figuring fourth and fifth on the list.

Students in 10th, 11th 12th grade were more inclined to focus on “other-directed qualities,” like openness to the world, making the world a better place, perhaps also owing to where they are in their emotional development and their orientation to the future and their purpose in life.

Here were the most frequently selected character traits by grade:

• 6th, 7th, 8th grade: Respect of self and others
• 9th grade: Embracing of differences
• 10th grade: Respect of self and others
• 11th grade: Embracing of differences
• 12th grade: Curiosity about the world

We asked all respondents to comment on values they felt were missing from the list. Here are several that were mentioned more than a few times:

• Rigor
• Excellence
• Empathy and openness
• Cultural understanding only attainable through bilingualism
• Citizenship and world citizenship, in the sense of an active civic life
• Generosity and kindness
• Esprit critique
• Creative risk-taking

Does the language we speak affect what we value?

We asked all survey respondents to indicate whether they spoke primarily French or English at home. Language spoken at home had no significant bearing on the results of this survey.

If a survey respondent didn’t speak primarily French or English at home, we asked them what they spoke at home, and we loved reading about the diversity of languages spoken among our survey takers. They responded both (!), Spanish, Italian-French-English, French-Turkish, French-Japanese, French-Portuguese, Arabic, Farsi, Greek, Chinese, Flemish, Polish, Tunisian, Hungarian, Russian, Swahili, Madingo and other African languages.

What’s next?

If you’ve read this far, you’ll be interested in this key end note. We’ll be introducing our renewed mission statement to the entire community at back to school this fall, with loads more information on the drafting process, which started from the results of this essential survey. Along with it, we’ll be welcoming a refreshed visual identity for the Lycée Français de New York, which will mean a new logo, website, and guess who’s having a makeover… Leo.  Stay-tuned!

We’re traveling around the world this Saturday, May 13 during the Lycée Français de New York’s annual Spring Fair. Spring Fair chair, volunteer parent Stéphanie Bismuth, mother of CE1 student Lucie and incoming MS student Stella, shares all you need to know about this fun globally themed community event!

Spring Fair chair, Stephanie Bismuth

Spring Fair is such a memorable community event in the life of the Lycée. How did you get involved?

I am a parent delegate with the APL, and when they approached me about it, I thought, why not!

The Spring Fair is a lot of fun. My kids love it. They can run around with their friends and enjoy seeing everyone from school in a different context. They love the macaron! My husband’s American, and he loves coming out to the fair to see his children having fun. He likes to try the French cheeses and the nice ambience…

We all love the theme!

The theme this year is “Around the World.” The Lycée community is multicultural like New York City, and I started to think about Jules Vernes, and his book “Around the World in 80 Days” and his balloons, and voila! I was also thinking about our world today and very much liked the idea of a theme that shows our children how to be open and feel at home in the world.

The country booths are a highlight. What countries are represented this year?

Many parents, especially first-year parents!, have stepped forward this year to do a country booth. Spring Fair visitors will find food, costumes and activities that represent each country. We have a number of countries represented that we’ve never had before. We’re excited about the many new booths from North Africa and the Middle East, including Algeria, Iran, and Morocco. We have a Puerto Rico booth, too. Stop by for pina colada, non-alcoholic of course! Our guests will be happy to know that the Swiss booth returns with raclette and chocolate!

Did we hear correctly that slime-making is an activity this year?

Yes, slime! Children love it right now, and they’re going to enjoy making, scenting and coloring their own slime. It’s one of many activities! Children can do anything from glow-in-the-dark basketball to cookie decorating to science activities like coding and robotics. The Maker Space will also be open, where children can make their own rubber stamps. A cool virtual reality experience will take place in the Media Lab.

Scenes from Spring Fair 2016

Is there anything else we should know?

We’ll have two performances during the day. Our children’s choir will perform at 11am in the cafeteria, and the adult choir will perform in the afternoon.

The Spring Fair is green, naturally, with an earth-day booth and the unveiling of the pre-K students Green Thumb project 11:30am at the tree-bed by the 76th Street entrance.

We’re asking everyone to be green and bring their own bags to the fair this year.

Click here to sign up for activities.

The necessity of an education rooted in tolerance and understanding is undeniable. For this school and all schools, the challenge is not only to teach humanist principles but also to make them a way of life for our students. But how do we do this?

The tragic events of this summer in Charlottesville, Barcelona, Myanmar and elsewhere in the world remind us of our duty and responsibility to our students (protect and educate) and to society as a whole (make it better, more humane). I am convinced that educating about diversity, openness and understanding is the strongest weapon we have against racism, discrimination and fanaticism of any kind.

According to the FBI, in the US in 2015, there were some 5850 bias-related crimes. Such crimes are often the consequence of a lack of education and exposure to people who are different from ourselves. For this reason, putting into place programs that allow students to learn to understand and build relationships with people different from themselves and to embrace these differences is essential to maintaining stable, balanced society.

Children are cognizant at a very young age of differences. By the age of 12, they have already formed stereotypes. Recent studies show that the best age to teach children about tolerance is between 4 and 9 years old.

Day of Understanding 2016-2017

It is therefore essential to introduce into the curriculum at the youngest ages and to develop this knowledge throughout a child’s years on school. Programs should, naturally, correspond to a student’s age and cognitive abilities. A child’s social and emotional development would be very different in kindergarten than it would in ninth grade.

What’s the best approach?

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), and what we call emotional intelligence, must start with the development of social competency connected to diversity and be rooted in cultural and intellectual fluidity.

This type of education is essential for developing citizens who are proud of their indivdual identity, but also capable of great empathy and compassion, with a sense of justice in a society where prejudice and stereotypes cannot have a place–students who are at home in the world, with a clear sense of themselves, positive and confident.

At the Lycée, the renewal of our mission is a direct call to teach children to be open and understanding of difference and oriented toward living in harmony with others. The Lycée already has a program and community adapted to this way of teaching. Our students already join us from diverse origins, in terms of socio-economic background, family life, culture, race and religion.  However, we know that teaching about about difference must be thoughtful, explicit and systematic in our program. At the Lycée, our program in diversity is tied to our SEL program, which starts with teaching our students to appreciate their unique identity in a diverse world.

Openness to others starts with knowing ourselves

With the introduction of the RULER approach in SEL as early as preschool, our students learn to recognize and articulate their emotions. This first step in communicating how they are feeling helps to ease tension and even address stereotypes they may feel about themselves. This work on themselves is the basis for living well together and collectively.

At the same time, with the introduction of our diversity program, they learn little by little that in order to live together, they must recognize and accept individual differences and cultural diversity.

Developing guidelines for students (and their families)

In the Primary School, one of our key tools to support this sense of living together in harmony is our class charter. Our students develop the charter together and decide for themselves, with the teacher’s guidance, how to go about doing this. This work combined with the French conseil de classe, developed by the child educator Freinet, gives students an opportunity to identify and address issues. It also requires students to construct a framework on their own that acknowledges compromises that need to be made in order to live well together.

Active engagement through project-based learning (PBL)

At the Lycée, we believe wholeheartedly that PBL is a liberating approach that roots what we teach in a real-world context. PBL can help students to become more aware of the major challenges of the 21st century: societal and environmental and build their belief in their own ability to engage in solutions for the world around them.

We know that teaching is complex and also delicate. Intolerance is all around us, and we know that what children learn at school can be unlearned in the environment outside of school. This approach to education implicates our families and must be supported and reinforced by parents at home.

It also means we must develop and prepare our teachers with the right tools and share them with families to use at home: teaching modules, shared values, answers to questions and tools to help students understand intolerance and prejudice.

There are many tools, but these from The Morningside Center, an organization we work with for our Secondary advisory program offers great examples:

• Guidelines for stopping oppressive behavior
• How to talk with children about violent events
• Teaching about controversial or difficult issues

This recent article in the Washington Post offers great resources that can be used in class, and this CNN resource offers guidance on how to talk about hate crimes in the news with chidlren.

We can and must all work together to build a better world. As the great poet Maya Angelou says:

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou.

On Tuesday, the French Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, visited the school. He was previously president of the renowned French business school, L’ESSEC. Minister Blanquer, who joined President Macron’s cabinet in May, is a professional
educator, as members of our student, teaching, administrative and parents surely noticed during a special session with him. During the two-hour meeting, he was clearly impressed with the school’s innovative approach to pedagogy and how we blend both French and American educational approaches in our program.
He will perhaps bring back ideas and strategies for France in how we teach bilingually in Primary, the 7-day cycle in Secondary, project-based learning and our Secondary advisory program. He was intrigued by the work on mindfulness taking hold at school and wanted to know more about our Artist in Residence program.

After a tour of the Lycée, Minister Blanquer and his team of advisors spent a few minutes in the auditorium with our 10th graders and Stéphane de Freitas, the French social entrepreneur and film director, who spent two days with students in Secondary this past week. His documentary film, Á Haute Voix, presents his approach to breaking down social class barriers in France through public speaking and opened the Cultural Center film season on Tuesday night. The minister seemed genuinely appreciate of cultural offerings for our students and the community around us through the Cultural Center.

On Tuesday evening, twelve of our seniors, joined by our Secondary director Nicolas L’Hotellier and Student Life director Isabelle Bichard, had the privilege of attending an event organized by the French Cultural Services at the 92Y. They had the opportunity to hear, first hand, President Macron’s inspiring speech about the future of Europe and the urgency to address climate change, a theme so important to the Lycée. First Lady Brigitte Macron took the time to come and greet the students, as well. She remembered having a few former Lycée students in her own classes in France, remembering their “high level” before asking about our current Lycéens about their results on the spring bac exams.

The Lycée had a special place during a moving evening about a new fund that will benefit bilingual classes in public schools, a beautiful way to spread ever further the French language, a cause near and dear to the Lycée as well. “Language makes us human,” said President Macron. It helps them “develop a conscience” and become “bridges between cultures”.

The evening opened with a emotional short play about the refugee crisis by students of the Boehrm Hill School for International Studies. As Cultural Counselor Bénédicte de Montlaur noted, this young theater group had won first prize at the Lycée Français de New York’s very own French theater festival, Première Scène. The festival, now in its 20th year, is the brain child of two Lycée teachers: Nathalie Roussel and Frédéric Yvelin.

This year, instead of having several “Languages days”, we decided to focus on one day only. To make the experience more meaningful for the students, with the help of the Cultural Center, we were able to invite artists so the students could participate in workshops depending on the language they study.

• In Italian, Roberto Scarcella Perino (opera author) worked with Y7 to Y10 in the music room.
• In German, artist Bastienne Schmidt was with Y7 to Y10 in the MakerSpace.
• In Mandarin, Y7 to Y10 talked about Kung Fu culture and philosophy as well as taught some movements with the Bo Law Kung Fu Association in the Small Gym.
• In Spanish, Flamenco singer Alfonso Cid lead workshops for Y7 and Y10 with his team in 2 different spaces: the Auditorium and the Motricity Room.

Spanish

 Students in seventh and tenth grade had a unique opportunity to take part in a flamenco workshop with vocalist Alfonso Cid, dancer Nelida Tirado (Nelly) and guitarist José Moreno. Students first took the stage with the three artists for a demonstration of bailaora by Nelly. She took them through basic techniques such as las palmas (hand rhythms) and taconazos (foot rhythms). The students then brought their new skills together blending song and dance in one final moment 

Justine Szarek & Farida Meddah - Spanish teachers

Italian

 For Languages Day, the Italian program was thrilled to welcome Roberto Scarcella Perino, an opera composer who teaches Italian Language and History of Italian Opera at NYU. Roberto led a workshop where students sang four pieces from two of his song cycles: Le Passioni dell’Aria (about the weather phenomena) and Le Passioni dell’Anima (about emotions). The workshop consisted of a crescendo of activities  (comprehension of the lyrics, music production accompanied by pianist Andrew Henderson, listening to the recording and interaction with the guest), that culminated with the students successfully creating their little songs with the assistance  of the composer, the pianist and Sonia Rocca, their Italian teacher. 

Sonia Rocca - Italian teacher

Mandarin

BO LAW KUNG-FU class teaches student not only Chinese Martial arts :self-defense and behavioral skils such as memorization and concentration but also teaches students the embedded Chinese culture and life philosophy: resilience, perseverance and respect for others.

Susan Wei - Mandarin teacher

German

Our students of German in seventh to tenth grade went to the Maker Space for workshops with Bastienne Schmidt, a German visual artist in New York, to work on a giant group fresco on the theme of Raumwahrnehmung, or “a sense of place”. The objective was to illustrate through painting, drawing or collage a place that they love the most.

Sophie Pottier - German teacher