In a school like ours, where something extraordinary is always happening, finding the time to reflect on the beauty, dare I say the exquisiteness of what our students are achieving is not necessarily easy, which reminds me of a story I once heard about the great violinist, Joshua Bell. Out
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Outside of school, there was considerable unrest this past weekend, with demonstrations taking place at Battery Park, JFK International Airport and other areas around New York. The atmosphere inside the LFNY last Friday and Saturday was no less turbulent, though in a different way. Young voices could be heard everywhere,
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In this extraordinary city called New York, education is a matter of the utmost importance to families. Moreover, an ever-growing number of those seeking to provide a world-class educational experience to their children are focused on bilingualism. Yet who can be surprised? After all, study after study has demonstrated the myriad
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Ask our students what word comes to mind when they hear the name Gad, as I have done these past few days, and what one hears is simple. Mais c’est impossible, monsieur. A single word could never capture his gift for making you fall out of your chair with laughter,
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A former colleague and lifelong principal whom I hold in the highest esteem often used to say, and in so doing make her students, parents and fellow educators laugh, that middle school is a special period in the educational trajectory of any child because he or she is as cute
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We are careful at the LFNY not to allow digital devices to displace, let alone replace human interaction. Yet access to the internet can be a great support for intelligent conversation, as I experienced laptop in hand a few mornings ago in our 75th Street Lobby. My purpose: to ask
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Among memorable openings to books, it would be hard to find one more moving than the following: “I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday.” Many will recognize these words as belonging to Malala Yousafzai, written at the start
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Following the announcement of our new strategic plan last January, students, faculty and families have been VERY excited about the makerspace we will soon be building for our primary and secondary schools. Those familiar with the concept of “making”, often because they have visited the “makerfaire” that takes place at
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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
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The Music Lesson, by Charles West Cope (1869). Every so often, I will have a hallway conversation like the one I had this past week. Someone will mention that his or her daughter or son, typically in the upper grades of primary school or the lower grades of middle school, has been
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