48 is a figure which many of us at the Lycée Français de New York have proudly mentioned during the past month. It corresponds to the number of nationalities which our 1330 students hold this year. We are honored that our school is able to attract families from so many countries around the world and know that you who have chosen the Lycée Français are here because you too are committed to this remarkable international dimension. 48 nationalities: a fact which speaks volumes about our character and mission.
The reasons for which the diversity of our school is such a source of strength for our students are myriad and require little explanation at a time in our collective history which is so marked by globalization, when each of our lives is so inextricably bound to every other life around the globe, when learning how to navigate across languages and cultures is so essential to fulfilling the needs and aspirations of us all.
Presidents Obama and Hollande
It may not have been easy to get across town this past week, particularly when both President Hollande and President Obama were in Manhattan on Tuesday; yet I have been struck by just how many times over the last few days I have heard members of our community, arriving late for class because of traffic, affirm that any inconvenience which they might have suffered had been for a good cause (world peace, said one student with a smile). At the Lycée Français de New York, we understand the inestimable value of our shared humanity.
During the last couple of weeks, to take another example, some of my colleagues from the secondary school educational team and I have been having lunch with our new students, one level at a time, from Sixieme through Terminale. And how uplifting it has been to hear one group after another underline the extent to which they have been made to feel wholeheartedly welcome in our community, regardless of their linguistic and cultural backgrounds. From the instant they have arrived in our midst, they have been made to feel immediately and entirely at home by both their teachers and their classmates.
I cannot help but think of the wonderful book by the great journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski entitled “The Other”. Kapuscinski writes, “Human experience shows that at the first moment, as a first reflex a person reacts to an Other with reserve and restraint, mistrust or plain reluctance, or even with hostility…Hence entire civilizations have been characterized by this sense of alienation towards the Other…And in our times? What about the arrogance of one group towards the cultures and religions of others…? All manner of walls and barriers, ditches and entanglements? How much of it there is everywhere!”
Approaching the Other
Not so for our students. Rooted in the best practices of the French educational tradition, seeking out the most promising aspects of the American educational system, and all the while embracing the inspiring diversity of the 48 nationalities which surround them, young people at the Lycee Francais approach the Other from a different perspective. For them, to encounter the Other is a joyful occasion. To encounter the Other is already to engage in the building of an ever better world.
About the Author :
Sean Lynch was Head of School at the Lycée Français de New York from 2011 to 2018, after having spent 15 years at another French bilingual school outside of Paris: the Lycée International de St. Germain-en-Laye. Holding both French and American nationalities, educated in France (Sciences Po Paris) and the United States (Yale), and as the proud husband of a French-American spouse and father of two French-American daughters, Sean Lynch has spent his entire professional and personal life at the junction between the languages, cultures and educational systems of France and the United States. In addition to being passionate about education, he loves everything related to the mountains, particularly the Parc National du Mercantour.