Many will know the celebrated words of French philosopher René Descartes, “je pense, donc je suis”. I am borrowing them because they convey the critical importance of reflection in life. Yet I am also taking the liberty of changing the pronouns employed, out of a deep conviction that the best thinking is often the most collaborative kind, especially in a school like ours which strives to be a community of learning. In sum: reflecting on what it is we do at the Lycée Français de New York, before, during and after the doing itself, is an invaluable and even necessary habit to cultivate. And the more intensely and frequently we engage in such thinking together, the more effective we will be in serving the students in our care.
To what extent does our school succeed in upholding its mission?
As you will have heard me say on numerous occasions since the Rentrée, our school has embarked this year on a thorough review of everything we do at the LFNY, ranging from our educational offerings, to our co-curricular activities, to our student support services, to our communications policies, to our facilities management, to our development program, to our financial aid procedures, and beyond. In what we are purposefully calling our “self-study”, we are examining all aspects of life at the Lycée Français de New York, with one overriding motivation: to evaluate the extent to which our school succeeds in upholding the organizational mission we have given ourselves, celebrating work which is already outstanding and identifying areas for improvement. Please click here for a reminder of our mission.
Reflect, Celebrate, Grow
Why conduct this self-appraisal? First, we are doing so as part of a process of accreditation, the term used in the academic world to describe the earning of official approval for an educational program upon demonstrating that it meets a rigorous set of professional standards. The LFNY benefits from two such accreditations, one from the French Ministry of Education and another from the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS). However, it is the latter which is up for renewal in the fall of 2014, in keeping with a calendar that requires reaccreditation once every ten years. A crucial phase in this undertaking will be a four-day visit to our school by a 25-strong team from NYSAIS next November. Much of what these outside experts will be doing “in situ” will be responding to and building on our self-study.
Thinking collaboratively about the Lycée’s future
The second major reason for our comprehensive self-evaluation concerns the fact that the Lycée Français de New York Board of Trustees is currently in the midst of envisioning the medium- and long-term evolution of our school. Indeed, we are developing a strategic plan for the next five years which aims to provide our students with the best educational experience anywhere to be found, in New York City or elsewhere. Even if we did not have a rigorous accreditation visit to prepare, we would be engaged in studying our philosophy, policies and practices in light of our vision for the future, and in fact have been piloting such a process since the autumn of 2012.
A great deal of thinking will therefore be taking place at the LFNY in the months to come, but it is the collaborative nature of this reflection which I wish to underline today. Collaborative because we have designed a self-appraisal process which calls on every member of the school to participate, whether by contributing to the different committees we have created to lead this inquiry or by replying to the extensive questionnaires we will be asking all of our students, parents, faculty and staff to answer in January. Please do share your insights through these surveys with the greatest possible enthusiasm: it is truly when “we think” that “we are”.
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.