News & Weekly Letters

I had the pleasure of saying a few words to all of our Elementary and Middle School students yesterday via Zoom–you case it still needs to be clarified–at the end of the last assembly before the break. Benoît and Rachel presented awards and the Climate Change Club created by Chloe, Tyler, Tess, and Victor from 5th Grade made a short presentation. The winners of the poetry recitation contest were also announced and we were delighted to hear Nahel and Tiera recite their poems once more with the same emotion and talent as last Friday.

First, with some trepidation, came the lifting of the mask mandate, next, field trips, and then, this week, live performances. With Shanghai shutting down and the case numbers in France shooting through the roof, we are still experiencing a moment of relative calm in New York—a moment that allows our school to operate (almost) as it did before.

Finnish is one of the 49 nationalities represented at The École. For a head of school, Finland is one intimidating country, on account of the excellence of its educational system—one that harmoniously couples academic success and student well-being in a way that no other country can rival. When you discover that you have a Finnish family at your school the pressure is on!

I have already spoken to you about the growth of our school, how happy we are to know that more and more people are interested in what we are doing, and the pleasure we take in sharing our work with an increasing number of families. I wrote here about one of the risks we will run if we don’t pay attention: the loss of our identity and the dilution of our values.

At school when I was little we all spoke the same language, looked alike, and carried coordinating Tann’s backpacks. Everyone knew everyone else—there are probably more people living on 22nd Street between Park and Lexington than lived in my entire village—just as everyone had known my parents and my grandparents. Our lives were practically mapped out for us before they had even started.