Please forgive me if you have already heard me refer to the concept of “growth mindset,” a notion we owe to the renowned Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, whose book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, is one of the most thought-provoking texts about human psychology to have been published in a
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Have you ever heard the joke about the two friends, one an engineer and the other a philosopher, talking one day over lunch? The engineer was presenting a design for a new machine he had just invented, demonstrating with one example after another how his creation would revolutionize the world.
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The seats in the auditorium were empty. It must have been around 8:30 pm, the evening before opening night. All 17 members of the cast were on stage, some cross-legged on the floor, others sitting on chairs, each attentive to the performance notes being given. Charlotte and Emmett, the two
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The LFNY Rugby Boys Varsity team won against the French American School of New York (FASNY) on May, 8 2013. From a distance, I thought I was glimpsing a scene from the Six Nations Championship, the world’s oldest and most enthralling rugby tournament. As I approached the field on Roosevelt
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Never does a day go by at the Lycée Français when we who have the privilege of working here do not learn something extraordinary from our students. In my own case, that learning happens more often in the context of stairwell, hallway and lunchroom conversations than it does in the
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Yesterday, it felt like spring at the Lycée Français, and not just because the sun finally won out over the clouds, the rain and the wind for the first time in months. As you might imagine, we have our wonderful students to thank for this change in seasons, for it
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One of the most frequently discussed topics in education today is what US educators and educational policy-makers call “STEM”, an acronym which stands for “Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics”. And while the definition of STEM varies from one person to the next, most would agree that this term suggests at
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Last Monday, a fellow parent and I had one of those brief, thought-provoking conversations which often punctuate the early-morning drop-off period at the Lycée Français. For this father, and I could not agree more, a demanding challenge of raising children in an urban setting like New York City is exposing
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One of my many delightful roles as Head of School involves introducing our students to people who do not yet know them. Such was the case last year when we were fortunate to receive a visit from the French writer Daniel Pennac. I was lucky to share a short breakfast
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Following a recent visit to the school robotics club, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of invention, particularly in the realm of technology. And whenever I have had a chance, I have been asking students questions like, “how do you think someone came up with the idea
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