Urgently seeking a dedicated educator for the vibrant New York French American Charter School, situated in the heart of Harlem. This unique PreK – 8 institution, with its rich tapestry of students and faculty from over 80 different countries and nationalities, is a nexus of multicultural education and global connection. The role demands collaboration with grade level teams, mentoring teaching assistants, intellectual preparation for each lesson, fostering strong relationships with students and families, data-driven instruction customization, and active engagement with colleagues. As part of the NYFACS team, you'll be integral in providing an immersive bilingual education, underpinned by lessons in cultural diversity, crafting our students into globally-aware citizens.

POSITION TITLE: Elementary School French Teacher
REPORTS TO: PRINCIPAL
NYFACS OVERVIEW:
The New York French American Charter School is a PreK – 8 school located in the heart of Harlem and the Francophone community. Comprised of parents, teachers and families from over 80 different countries and nationalities around the world, the school provides lessons in cultural diversity alongside a strong bi-lingual education in an immersive environment.

POSITION SUMMARY:
Teachers are responsible for collaborating with their grade level teams and mentoring any teaching assistants. All NYFACS teachers are responsible for intellectual preparation for each lesson, building strong and positive relationships with students and families, using data to tailor their instruction, and actively engaging in collaboration with their colleagues.

Teacher Responsibilities:
• Provides French instruction to students in Grades K-5. Subjects include French Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, & Math.
• Executes the mission of NYFACS including: high academic achievement; integration of the core learning disciplines; the application of critical thinking skills and ethical standards to learning; and living and problem solving through individual teaching and learning practices
• Believes that every child can and will achieve high academic standards, and provides consistent support to our students no matter how challenging the individual situation may be. Consistently reflects on self, as well as instructional practices, to achieve these academic goals
• Plans student learning and individual achievements based on long and short-term goals, and program objectives
• Selects and uses effective instructional methods and learning materials
• Establishes a cooperative relationship with all assigned students
• Manages the classroom in a positive manner and keeps students on task
• Attends, participates, and facilitates team meetings and professional development opportunities, as well as common planning times
• Communicates and collaborates with peers, sharing student work, methodologies and strategies, as well as coordinating lesson topics with other teachers in order to create a coherent curricular design that achieves the overall purposes of the school program
• Prepares, administers and reviews all required student assessments
• Meets regular and predictable attendance requirements
• Performs other duties, as deemed appropriate, by the Principal
Minimum Qualifications:
Native French speaker or equivalent.
Bachelor’s Degree Required
Master’s Degree preferred.
Educational background in DELF preferred.
Prior work experience as a French teacher preferred.
Authorized to live and work in the US
Genuine enthusiasm for teaching and for the French language & fully vaccinated.

Dr. Bertrand Tchoumi , Principal
btchoumi@nyfacs.net
New York French-American Charter School
311 West 120th Street / 2116 7 th Avenue
New York, New York 10027
212-666-4134
Dr. Bertrand Tchoumi , Principal

PS 84, The Lillian Weber School of the Arts, is looking for a nurturing and caring French dual language teacher. We are looking for someone who aims to instill a love and passion for learning in all students. The position requires a positive attitude and an ambitious personality, with a desire to improve the lives' of students by helping young learners become bilingual and develop an appreciation for multi-culturalism. Applicants should also possess a warm and collaborative personality and be able to create an environment that encourages critical thinking and self-reflection. We are looking for a teacher who will provide meaningful lessons and educate young students in all academic subjects, while fostering a strong social emotional foundation. The ideal candidate is resourceful, flexible, and eager to work towards instructional excellence. If interested, please send your resume to elolis@schools.nyc.gov.

Responsibilities:

• The teacher will be responsible for planning and preparing lessons in both English and French, using the Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop Methodology
• The teacher will be responsible for implementing lessons in both English and French
• The teacher will be expected to fulfill all responsibilities outlined in the UFT contract
• The teacher will be responsible to implementing SEL curricula daily in the classroom

Additional Responsibilities

• Creating lessons for units of study in Social Studies, Science, and Grammar

Minimum Requirements:

• NYS Teacher Certification or
• NYC Substitute Teaching Certification
• Bilingual Certification or working toward one
• Master’s Degree or enrolled in a Master’s Program
• Fully fluent and literate in French
• Detail-oriented individual
• Position begins September 8, 2023
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Highly organized individual with ability to multi-task

Salary and Certification Requirements:

• Please refer to the NYC DOE Salary Schedule

With Bilingual Matters, Antonella Sorace challenges conventional wisdom about bilingualism

Antonella Sorace, an Italian living in Scotland, is the founder of Bilingualism Matters, an organization that advances research on bilingualism and language learning. Misconceptions in this area are rampant, and it is thanks to Antonella Sorace's work that we are now able to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions that are often found in our schools and in our societies.

The Bilingual Revolution podcast is produced by French Morning with the participation of CALEC.

Listen to this new podcast episode In French on New York in French

https://newyorkinfrench.net/podcast

How many times have you wished someone a bon voyage? What about bon appétit? Ever indulged in a fresh croissant or New Orleans-style beignets? Or even just a coffee from Pret À Manger? If you didn’t know it already, French is literally everywhere – in our history and values, in our families, and in our neighborhoods and communities. The United States’ relationship with the French language is as old as the United States itself, and even predates its creation. But have you ever wondered what French culture has given us, beyond the Statue of Liberty, the state of Louisiana, and à la carte menus?

Recorded on May 5, 2022 at the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie in New York.
As part of the « Spring Festival of La Francophonie » and on the occasion of the release of the 2022 Report on the French Langage Worldwide and of the book « French All Around Us », the International Organization of la Francophonie (OIF), the Center for the Advancement of Languages, Education, and Communities (CALEC) and French Morning invite you to :

“A conversation on the French Language in the United States : history, commitment and future” #language #education #french #unitedstates #francophonie

How many times have you wished someone a bon voyage? What about bon appétit? Ever indulged in a fresh croissant or New Orleans-style beignets? Or even just a coffee from Pret À Manger? If you didn’t know it already, French is literally everywhere – in our history and values, in our families, and in our neighborhoods and communities. The United States’ relationship with the French language is as old as the United States itself, and even predates its creation. But have you ever wondered what French culture has given us, beyond the Statue of Liberty, the state of Louisiana, and à la carte menus? If so, then French All Around Us is just the book for you.

French All Around Us—a new title from TBR Books—offers an inclusive, social historical examination of French language and Francophone culture in the United States. This book brings together 24 prominent authors from various fields to shed light on aspects of the French language and its culture in the US: general history and demographics, education policy and realities, linguistic landscape, media and popular culture, literature and literary themes, foodways and culinary heritage. Readers will come away with a greater understanding of Francophone American identity as well as global Francophonie. This is a great read for historians, educators, language specialists, and all those interested in the uniquely American experience of French language and Francophone culture.

This collection of profiles and essays shows readers a unique side of life in America, from food to fashion to higher education. All of these chapters are written by authors who have spent the time to listen carefully to their Franco communities. They include personal interviews as well as time spent listening to podcasts or studying relevant publications to give insight into what life is really like for Franco-Americans today. Further discussions include trajectories of Francophone diversity in the US (immigration), language policies in schools and universities, minority status issues, identity politics in the arts (music, film), literature and language planning. Innovative essays explore themes related to the notion that "French is everywhere" – but with deliberate attention to how it is lived out across space and place. The book covers many peoples and diasporas long associated with Francophone presence in the US, such as Louisiana, New England, and New York. But French All Around Us also delves into states that are not so well known for their connections.

French All Around US is a great resource for those who want to explore the French language, especially with an American twist! This one-of-a-kind volume is more than just a compendium of research and statistics. It provides a voice for Americans with French ancestry who have long been underrepresented and relegated to the fringes of the North American narrative. Get this book to learn more about the everyday life and heritage of American French speakers and for a better understanding of just one of the ingredients that makes up our country’s melting pot.

Emani Fung

French all around us – French language and Francophone Culture in the United States (TBR Books, March 20, 2022)
Edited by Kathleen Stein-Smith and Fabrice Jaumont
https://tbr-books.org/product/french-all-around-us

Dans ce nouvel épisode de Révolution bilingue, nous partons à la rencontre d’Agnès Ndiaye Tounkara, une Franco-Sénégalaise qui coordonne un programme scolaire unique en son genre, le French Heritage Language Program. Proposé dans plusieurs écoles publiques et centres communautaires de New-York, du Maine et de Floride, ce programme est destiné à des enfants francophones venus d’Afrique et d’Haïti, récemment arrivés aux Etats-Unis. Pour ces jeunes, la langue française est un atout de réussite scolaire et d’intégration.

https://podcasts.apple.com/.../episode-25.../id1439096182...

#RevolutionBilingue #Podcast #bilingue #education #immigration #afrique #haiti #frenchheritage | French Morning Fabrice Jaumont Agnès Ndiaye Tounkara French Heritage Language Program

We are thrilled to announce the opening of CALEC France as well as our new office in Paris, conveniently located on the left bank near Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and several key actors of the publishing industry, as well as major universities.

Our goals in France are to build local partnerships to better contribute to France’s debate on dual-language education and linguistic diversity; expand our European and African network of influencers, authors, and supporters; open a gateway to Europe for our initiatives; and publish more books via a partnership with Lightning Source France and Hachette Livre Distribution.

Our facilities on 198 Avenue de France in the 13th arrondissement include access to a 75-seat auditorium and various meeting rooms for our book events, talks, and symposiums.

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

CALEC is a nonprofit organization based in New York and Paris. Our mission is in alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to establish language as a critical life skill, through developing & implementing dual-language education programs, to promote diversity, empowering multilingual families while fostering cross-cultural understanding, to reduce inequality, and helping to provide quality education. Our programs seek to protect world cultural heritage and support teachers, authors, and families by providing the knowledge and resources to create vibrant multilingual communities. Support us here.

Visit calec.fr, our website in French, or contact us via contact@calec.fr

L’invité de ce 23ème épisode de Révolution Bilingue est un homme qui compte dans l’éducation bilingue. Bernard Manuel est président de l’École active bilingue Jeannine Manuel, aujourd’hui située sur trois campus à Paris, Lille et Londres et considérée comme le meilleur lycée de France depuis 8 années consécutives, avec un réseau d’anciens élèves influent qui compte des personnalités comme Antony Blinken, secrétaire d’État des États-Unis.

Lui-même bilingue et l’un des premiers élèves de l’école fondée par sa mère, Bernard Manuel a développé une expertise très écoutée de l’éducation bilingue en France et à l’étranger.

Ecouter

French is an important language of New York City, and it's not the only one. With speakers of approximately 10 percent of the world’s 6000-7000 languages, the New York metropolitan area is the most linguistically diverse urban center in the world, probably in the history of the world. From a thriving Algonquian language in pre-contact times, Lenape today is down to its last native speakers, but there are efforts to revitalize it, despite the sea of surrounding non-Indigenous languages with their own complex histories. Beginning in the colonial period, local languages were overrun by European languages, and by the early 20th century, New York had become a quintessential product of large-scale pan-European immigration.

Now, in the 21st century, New York City is hyperdiverse, with arrivals from areas of deep linguistic diversity across the globe, from the Himalaya to West Africa to the Indigenous zones of Mexico and Central America. Among its residents the city can count speakers of languages found virtually nowhere else, but the pressure to switch to rising world languages — like English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, and Hindi — is intense.

Since 2010, the Endangered Language Alliance, motivated by worldwide language endangerment, has worked with speakers of over 100 distinct endangered and minority languages, including Lenape, an Indigenous language whose traditional territories include what is now New York City.

This mapincludes nearly 700 languages and dialects confirmed to nearly 1200 significant sites, including neighborhoods, community institutions, restaurants, and other locations where there is, or was, at least one speaker. In terms of geographic diversity, approximately 38% of the languages shown are from Asia, 24% from Africa, 19% from Europe, 16% from the Americas, and the rest from Oceania and the Pacific.

This map comes out of the project Mapping Linguistic Diversity in a Globalizing World through Open Source Digital Tools, a new collaborative partnership between the University of British Columbia and the Endangered Language Alliance. Core support comes from the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Wall Solutions Initiative.

You can visit this remarkable resource here:https://languagemap.nyc

Le document ci-joint est proposé en français par le département de l'éducation (DOE) de la ville de New York. Il est téléchargeable au format PDF avec ce lien: MS Admissions - Fall 2021 Family Presentation_Francais.pdf

Voici la lettre de présentation du DOE:

Bienvenue dans les admissions au collège

Nous savons que cette année a été pleine de changements et nous apprécions la patience et la souplesse des familles comme la vôtre dans toute la ville.
Comme annoncé par le maire et le Chancelier, les collèges du DOE utiliseront une méthode d'admission ouverte cette année:
•Cela signifie que les programmes n’utiliseront pas la sélection ou les dossiers scolaires, les auditions des candidats ou d’autres évaluations pour évaluer ou admettre les élèves.
•Si une école compte plus de candidats que de places disponibles, les offres seront faites en utilisant les groupes prioritaires (le cas échéant) et une sélection aléatoire (une loterie).
•Les autres parties de la procédure d’admission, comme les priorités de secteur, resteront les mêmes.

Cette présentation vous expliquera les procédures d’admission, y compris ces mises à jour.

Comment demander une place dans les collèges de NYC?

Le meilleur moyen est de le faire en ligne sur MySchools.nyc.
•Créez un compte en utilisant votre adresse e-mail personnelle.
•Pour ajouter un élève sur votre compte, vous aurez besoin de ce qui suit:
•N°d'identifiant de l'élève (OSIS)
•Code de création de compte
•Les codes de création de compte ont été envoyés mi-décembre par courrier au domicile de tous les élèves des écoles publiques. Si vous avez encore besoin de votre code:
•Les élèves des écoles publiques peuvent contacter leur école primaire actuelle
•Les élèves des écoles privées ou confessionnelles peuvent contacter un Centre d’accueil pour les familles.

 Lorsque vous accéderez à votre demande personnalisée, vous verrez la liste des programmes où votre enfant peut demander une place.Cela peut inclure ce qui suit:

Votre école de secteur
Découvrez si vous avez un collège de secteur sur Schoolsearch.schools.nycou en composant le311.
Les élèves de secteur sont prioritaires pour fréquenter leur école de secteur. Cela ne change pas à cause du COVID-19.

Programmes de district
Ouvert à tous les élèves qui sont du secteur ou fréquentent l’école du district.
Si votre enfant dépend du secteur d’un district et fréquente l’école dans un autre district, il peut demander une place dans les écoles des deux districts.

Programmes desservant tout le borough

Programmes desservant toute la ville

Comment demander une place dans les collèges de NYC?

oListez jusqu’à 12choix sur votre demande par ordre de préférence, en classant au rang numéro1 le programme qui vous intéresse le plus.

oCertaines écoles peuvent avoir plusieurs programmes, comme un programme général et un programme double langue. Si une école a plusieurs programmes, vous pouvez demander une place dans plusieurs programmes.

oSoumettez votre demande sur MySchoolsau plus tard le mardi9février. Après avoir soumis votre demande, vous pourrez toujours vous connecter et faire des changements jusqu’à la date limite.

oVous pouvez aussi contacter votre école primaire actuelle qui peut soumettre une demande d’admission en votre nom.

French-language podcast competition for students: Une fois, une voix

Inspired by "Les pieds sur terre" by France Culture and "This American Life", "Une fois, une voix" is a contest to create a documentary podcast, open to Francophone adolescents across the world. Students--alone or in groups--are encouraged to inspect their own world with both a personal and sociological eye, with this year's theme of "Le travail des femmes".

We encourage you to participate in the online training "Realiser un podcast en cours de FLE" with Eric Schweitzer (information above) to equip yourself and your students with the tools for a fantastic contest submission!

The contest is open from December 1, 2020 to March 1, 2021; participants must sign up before January 31, 2021 to be eligible. Find out more about "Une fois, une voix" on our website, and sign up on the contest website here.

It's a pleausre to invite you all to join in the ninth annual edition of Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival, entirely virtual this year! Seuls en Scène introduces American audiences to contemporary French theater and takes place annually, in September, on the Princeton University campus. It is curated by Florent Masse, Director of L'Avant-Scène and Senior Lecturer in the Department of French and Italian. This year a dozen online events will highlight the fesival running from Thursday September 10, until Sunday, September 20. This ninth edition of the festival has been prepared in collaboration with the 49th edition of Festival d’Automne à Paris.

Starting this Thursday September 10, a Conversation on the state of French main festivals and theaters will launch the festival followed by a captivating documentary film on the creative process behind the show DU SALE! by Marion Siéfert that premiered at Théâtre de la Commune in Aubervilliers. On Friday, playwright Penda Diouf will read her most recent text Pistes. To prepare this reading, she has worked with celebrated Burkinabe director Aristide Tarnagda. On Saturday, we'll offer another reading specially made for us: Sandy Ouvrier and Astrid Bayiha will read a few scenes by Jean Racine during Fragments Racine. On Sunday, two live Zoom conversations will take place in the afternoon and feature Penda Diouf and Aristide Tarnagda followed by Marion Siéfert and Mathieu Bareyre.

We'll stream La Dispute by Mohamed El Khatib from Sunday evening, September 13, and the exciting Rituels series by Emilie Rousset and Louise Hémon from Tuesday, September 15. The Rituels series includes Le Grand Débat, not to be missed in this election season! The festival will end with the show for all audiences Rémi by Hector Malot, directed by Jonathan Capdevielle.

During week 2 of the festival there will also be live Zoom conversations: with Mohamed El Khatib on Wednesday, September 16, and Jonathan Capdevielle on September, 20. The conversation with artists Émilie Rousset and Louise Hémon will be prerecorded and available for streaming on Friday, September 18.

All online events are free and open to the public. They're accessible on the festival web pages from the days when they start streaming. On average, most online offerings are available for three days, except for the opening Conversation on the state of festivals and theaters in France, and Fragments Racine).

Registration on Eventbrite is required for the live Zoom converstions (link below).

- Here is the festival web pages on the site of the Lewis Center for the Arts: https://arts.princeton.edu/frenchtheater/ and those maintained by the Departement of French and Italian: https://fit.princeton.edu/

- The Eventbrite link for registration to the conversations: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/seuls-en-scene-princeton-french-theater-festival-11090010440

- And our festival promo video!: https://vimeo.com/454847678/582b426956

We look forward to seeing you soon!

All the best

Florent Masse

Princeton University
Department of French and Italian

When asked if the story—her story—depicted in the recently published memoir and ode to the immigrant experience, Immigrant Dreams, created in her a feeling of solidarity and connection to the immigrants of today, Barbara Goldowsky responds, "Absolutely."

Ms. Goldowsky's personal narrative takes us from Dachau, Germany, where she was born, to Alsace-Lorraine, where her family lived between 1941 and 1945, and then back to Dachau as World War Two and Hitler’s dictatorship were about to end. After emigration to the United States in 1950, Goldowsky’s young adulthood was spent with already-settled family in Chicago. She attended public schools and junior college and then studied at the University of Chicago where she became interested in creative writing and literature, inspired by the Beat poets published by The Chicago Review. Later, while raising a family and living on Long Island, New York in the  1980s  she was able to build the writing career that had germinated many years before.

In recalling her youth in war-torn and then liberated Dachau, a town most known for the infamous concentration camp located on its outskirts, Ms. Goldowsky describes "a charming medieval town" that was an artists' colony for decades, evident in the streets named after painters and writers. About 11 miles from Munich, which contained an artists' colony of its own, Dachau was within the American Zone of occupation following the war.

At the gymnasium (academic high school) she attended in Munich, English language instruction was offered and Goldowsky learned the basics of grammar and vocabulary.   After arriving in Chicago, she was able to spearhead her family's effort to learn the language. Her mother did not speak English and her younger brother had barely learned to read and write in German when the family arrived in the U.S.

This learning helped, but didn't insulate her from the difficulties of acclimating to American life when she, aged 14, her brother, aged 8, and her single mother moved to Chicago, sponsored by her aunt and uncle.

The author's high school in Chicago had a newspaper, but she didn't join out of a reticence to express herself in a native setting in her new language. She soon, though, became enamored of journalism and newspapers by reading The Chicago Tribune, which her uncle subscribed to and "was always there," she remembers. "I was very up on the news." 

Her next step was, in Ms. Goldowsky's words, "another immigrant dream fulfilled", when  she received a scholarship, "thanks to a very perceptive and wonderful journalism teacher" at her junior college. The scholarship, a foreign concept to her, provided an education her family could not have otherwise afforded.

Majoring in political science with the aim of becoming a news reporter,  she attended the University of Chicago, and continued her discovery of American and British literature which had started as a young adult. Although she was familiar with all of Grimm’s fairy tales, American children’s literature was still foreign to her. “I had to catch up with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn,” she recalls. When she moved on to reading the poetry of T.S. Eliot, she encountered a language that, she termed, was "so rich."

"I'm not sure I put it in words for myself, but I really enjoyed reading in English," the author of Immigrant Dreams says. Of Eliot's works, she says, "I understood maybe half, but I saw the cadences and the beauty of it."

At her university's bookstore, she picked up a copy of the school literary magazine, The Chicago Review, and started reading contemporary writers such as Allen Ginsberg and the Beats. She found the courage to walk into the magazine's offices and obtain a position as a staff member in the late 1950s. 

Just like that, she was "plunged into the Beat revolution". Without question this was an eye-opening experience, especially for a new immigrant learning the ropes of her new country's language and literature. 

She acknowledges this and observes that it was "a real education" because "the language was changing." This was thanks to authors like William S. Burroughs, whom The Chicago Review wanted to publish but ran into difficulty with the university’s administration due to the controversial nature of his writings.

Her firsthand account of this era, which saw her and other editors resign from the school magazine to found their own countercultural journal, is detailed in a piece she wrote for The Chicago Review in 2019, a memoir entitled Beat Poets and Zen Buddhists on the Midway.

Returning to why Ms. Goldowsky has written this memoir, Immigrant Dreams, now, she tells me a story about her late husband.

As she's gotten to be a grandmother, her family has told her "Oh, you've had such an interesting life. You should write all that up!" When she reflected on it, she thought her story would be nice for her family to read, but didn't think it would benefit a wider public.

"But then came the election of 2016. “And shortly after, we began to see this poisonous climate of hatred against immigrants. The Muslim ban; parents tried to hold on the their children as they were dragged away [at the U.S.-Mexico border]."

"One day," she says "I walked past the photo of my late husband that hangs in my room," explaining that she always says hi to him there.

"I suddenly heard what he would say. In my mind, he would have said, 'Okay, you have a problem. So, state the problem, look at it and, then, don't sit there—do something!” 

"So his mantra was take action."

As a result, Ms. Goldowsky said she saw what action she could take, and that was to write. She began to cull the autobiographical essays she had started to write on Long Island, all the while thinking of herself and her brother coming over in 1950 and how different their story would have been had it happened now.

She wondered aloud to me how things would have been different if she and her family had been people of color, unable to integrate more easily into a predominantly white society once they learned English.

But still she thought, "You know, that's what I can do. I can write."

And Immigrant Dreams was born.

Article written by Andrew Palmacci for NewYorkinFrench on September 6, 2020

Order now: Paperback

The lived personal and professional experience of Tammy Oberg De La Garza and Alyson Lavigne did much to spur them to the thinking, writing and teaching that has produced their first book together, Salsa Dancing in Gym Shoes.

Buoyed by personal narratives from Latinx students-turned-educators and scholars, as well as the authors' own journeys as the spouses of Mexican-Americans, Drs. Oberg De La Garza and Lavigne currently serve as Professors of Education at Roosevelt University in Chicago and Utah State University, respectively.

Plenty of pedagogically sound material and information is injected into this very readable tome, which takes the work of these university professors, who met while working at Roosevelt University, in cross-cultural communication and intercultural competence and mixes it with reflections from Latinos who began on the student side of the classroom and have become practitioners in their own right. The resulting admixture is distilled into a case for more equity and accessibility in K-12 and university education across languages and cultures, not only in the U.S., but applied worldwide. 

And this is exactly what our current times and the future of pedagogy require. When asked about this—specifically whether their book is even more relevant now than when they started writing it, Dr. Lavigne responded: "Yes, absolutely. I think one of the shifts that I'm seeing in working with principals and teachers is that equity is now the first question that they're accessing and that's in regards to Black Lives Matter. In combination with Covid-19 happening, there's no way that this issue [equity] can be the second or third or fourth question that we ask as a district or schools. Teachers are asking: "Is there equitable access to resources?"

"I'm currently in Utah and [there's the question of] Native communities and to what extent they have access to even the basic health needs during all of this, in addition to the things that we're requiring for remote learning like computers. And, maybe having folks at home who can support that learning and problem solve issues with them. It is long overdue for this to be the lens through which we approach learning."

Dr. Oberg De La Garza added, "Leading up to this book, the work that Alyson and I did before, was really exploring how students perceive care from teachers. Until they know you care, they don't care what you know.

"You could be a phenomenal teacher, but if there's a break in the relationship between the teacher and the student, the student is not going to benefit as much as the student who is in sync with the teacher, who feels like the teacher and they are one and the same."

The title Salsa Dancing in Gym Shoes is itself a metaphor for bringing one's own approach into a teaching situation with Latino children, particularly as a white educator, and having those implicit biases and methods hinder the learning attempted by those students.

To illustrate both this title and theme of their book as well as the importance of learning compassionate teaching, Drs. Oberg De La Garza and Lavigne cited their favorite examples of pivotal educational moments shared by the Latinx authors whose stories add vibrance to the book.

Dr. Oberg De La Garza was struck by Sarah Rafael García's account of being put on the spot to pronounce the English word "chair" and producing "ch-ch-chair". The experience was made worse by Ms. Garcia's teacher forcing her to stand up in front of the class to do this as an English Language Learner. Ms. García had a panic attack as a result. She has since become an educator who uses this personal memory in her own work and personal life to better approach socio-emotional learning and bilingual learners' specific challenges and vulnerabilities.

For her part, Dr. Lavigne mentioned the writing of Laura Guzmán-DuVernois and her class discussion prompt in a heritage language classroom of the different ways to say "kite" across the Latino world. This meta-linguistic awareness, the chance to acknowledge that even within one language there are a variety of norms, was the gem for Dr. Lavigne. Even in her own home, her children ask about different alphabets and pronunciations among and within languages, which she loves to talk about with them.

To watch kids realize that there are differences between languages and discover that different languages align in different ways to mathematical thinking and reading— is a gift, according to Dr. Lavigne.

Both authors have, in addition to their university work, experience in K-12 education, Dr. Oberg De La Garza in teaching diverse classrooms in Chicago and Dr. Lavigne in observing classroom teachers in Arizona. They agreed that there's a disconnect between what teachers are studying and what's being taught in higher education and what K-12 teachers are doing in the classroom. The two worlds, the authors feel, could be more connected and embedded.

And this is not just a U.S. problem. With another colleague, Dr. Lavigne collected data in the Netherlands on teaching practices and found that K-12 teachers desire more support from universities and other players in teaching diverse youth. She states "There's a gap between K-12 and university teaching. K-12 teachers are doing really important work that no one's studying [at the university level]."

Article written by Andrew Palmacci for NewYorkinFrench on August 4, 2020

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In the 20th and 21st centuries, it is often the United States that is cited as the country most effective at engaging in cultural diplomacy. Or, the U.S. is touted as a major exporter of "soft power" to the rest of the world. But, in Jane Flatau Ross' Two Centuries of French Education in New York, it is France's efforts to spread influence abroad with culture—in this case education—that is given the spotlight. Dr. Ross, through a look at her own internationally flavored life and long career at the Lycée Français in New York, examines the global network of French schools abroad. She focuses on the subject through the lens of K-12 schools in New York from the early 18th century on, particularly focusing on the 20th-century Lycée Français and an earlier precursor.

Professor of History at Ohio State University, Alice L. Conklin offered the following in praise of Dr. Ross: “In this wonderfully engaging book Jane Ross restores to view a little-known dimension of French educational rayonnement in the US.  A must read for anyone seeking to understand the cultural ambitions of global France today.”

“Jane Ross has written a marvelous history of the Lycée Français de New York, bringing to that analysis deep insight gleaned from three decades teaching in the school,” added Herrick Chapman, Professor of History and French Studies at New York University.

It is true that this work of combined history and memoir is unique, in that few scholars have looked at specific “global school” models. The author’s case study of the Lycée Français de New York (1935-present) and other French schools in New York explores how the French national education systems functions not only beyond the hexagon of France itself, but also beyond the strictly colonial “civilizing mission” that was advanced by French schools in both French colonies and former colonies.

The recently published Two Centuries of French Education in New York was born out of Dr. Ross' work in the International Education doctoral program at NYU’s Steinhardt School. While engaged in her studies there, she initially thought her dissertation thesis would revolve around heritage language learning. She had founded the French Heritage Language Program, an educational resource for Francophone immigrants to the U.S. shortly after her retirement from a career of 30 years at the Lycée.

It was only when the teacher and scholar began to pull material together for her doctoral thesis that she realized that the story of French schools and the history of the Lycée in New York would be fertile ground for research and eventually for publication. That suited Dr. Ross well, as she was "more comfortable with an historical perspective as opposed to an anthropological and statistics-based approach." She was, in fact, educated as an historian, holding undergraduate degrees in History and French from Swarthmore College.

Upon completion of her thesis, one of her committee members suggested she add some personal elements to the writing. This advice was based on that professor's own scholarly work on peace and conflict studies in Afghanistan, in which she interspersed theory with anecdotes from her time on the ground in Kabul.

It took some adjustment of tack, but Dr. Ross states, "I think the most enjoyable parts [of writing the book] were the snippets of personal family history that I added after the thesis was completed. I felt I had more freedom to make the book more personal and hopefully more interesting for readers who might find the more technical or academic aspects less vibrant."

On the contrary, the distilling of French educational history in New York is compelling, particularly including the profile of the 19th-century Economical School that gives insight into the operation of an international, bilingual school in the early days of the American Republic. In fact, Dr. Ross "greatly enjoyed the research into [this] school."

One of the first sections of the book lays out the origins of a global French education system and, to be sure, French education itself. This posed the most challenging research for the author and educator: "The most difficult parts were those concerning the technicalities of the French government's relationship to the schools abroad. While the schools themselves," she adds, "and specifically the Lycée Français de New York, each have a history of their own, they fit into an administrative structure that almost seemed to exist in a parallel universe."

While at the Lycée, the writer of Two Centuries of French Education New York reflected that she "never thought [she] was a part of this "cultural machine", a machine of cultural diplomacy to be exact, which was a true global phenomenon."

"But, I was," she observes. "That was why the Cambodians were there; why the Iranians came after the Shah fell; why Africans were there and why they were sometimes not there." 

“The Lycée creates a cultural outpost with people singing La Marseillaise. It is important to France. I just thought it was a school."

Dr. Ross found working with the international student body the most enjoyable and rewarding part of her 30+ years at the school. "I loved being part of the school, the variety of families and interests they had." 

She taught Turkish students who escaped over borders and walked through deserts to eventually reach the shores of the U.S. Other students were Africans who were the children of diplomats or the children of the diplomats' chauffeurs. Even the French families from the Hexagon were diverse in many ways. She tells me she remains close friends with some of the families.

The ultimate reward for teaching at the Lycée Français for Dr. Ross was, in her words, the "feeling that I had an impact on students who would be [living] all over the globe."”

Lastly, I ask her to sum up the French philosophy of education. She responds, "Education is the creation of citizens."

Then, her own philosophy. She responds unequivocally: "Education makes us human."

Article written by Andrew Palmacci for NewYorkinFrench on July 9, 2020

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