It was early morning. The sky billowed with snow, which fell like a whisper and packed itself like the wool of a loom being tightened. And as the sky scrapers of Manhattan gave way to the wooded hills of the Catskills, the words of American poet Mary Oliver came to mind: “Snow was falling,/so much like stars/ filling the dark trees/ that one could easily imagine/ its reason for being was nothing more/ than prettiness.”
Our Secondary school director, Nicolas L’Hotellier, and I were driving in the direction of Claryville, where for the second year in a row our College Counseling director, Christine Pluta, had organized a very special retreat for our tenth-grade class. Located about three hours from New York City, Frost Valley was already known to many of our tenth graders because they had spent a week there in fifth grade, as part of a nature stay marking the end of elementary school.
Pressures linked to college admissions preparation
Of course, our students had changed a lot over the intervening period and so too had a large number of their preoccupations. In January of fifth grade, they were still quite focused on the present, though middle school would begin just six months later; in February of Seconde, however, a lot of them would almost certainly be thinking of the future, not necessarily of their own volition, but because it seemed sometimes like the world around them was focused almost exclusively on the Baccalaureate years which were soon to commence and the next major phase in their lives: departure from home and matriculation at college.
Mr. John Tasevoli’s 10th grade advisory group at Frost Valley.
Certainly, if our students had perused the special section on education which the New York Times had published a few weeks earlier, they would have come across an article by Laura Pappano entitled, “Is Your First Grader College-Ready?” Amid the frenzy of college admissions preparation taking place around the country, one program, our students would have read, took “3,000 fourth graders on a single day in May to a local campus for tours, information sessions and a sampling of classes, including sociology and women’s studies.” The article is overflowing with such examples of the college-related pressures exerting themselves on children at younger and younger ages.
In tenth grade, a moment of reflection and teamwork
At the Lycée Français de New York, our philosophy and practice of college counseling are more balanced. Educators and families work together to ensure that our students are able to understand and cultivate their passions and strengths from the earliest years onwards, but we also make it clear that the true value of this understanding and cultivation is above all intrinsic and lifelong. We insist that personal development and fulfilment be pursued with the utmost seriousness at our school; we believe too that the formal link between these goals and the college admissions process is most fruitful for our students when it is made in tenth grade.
That we do so with the attention and care which only a retreat in the mountains can provide speaks volumes about the ambition and thoughtfulness our approach. Our deepest gratitude to Ms. Pluta, as well as our college counseling and Seconde advisory teams, for their inspiring presence and dedication at Frost Valley. As one of our Seconde students beautifully described her experience a fortnight ago, “leaving behind the city was tops.” “What was it you liked most?” I asked. The fact that so many “adults” had taken the time to be with them, and the message, she answered. “The journey IS ours.” Yes, I said to myself, remembering the great Greek poet Pindar, whose words we hope resonate in all that we do at the LFNY: “become such as you are, having learned what that is.”
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.