Interlude and breaking the 4th wall...

In 2016, Trump was elected. Russians hacked. Brits Brexited. A civil war in Syria erupted. The Zika virus broke out in Brazil. Lead contaminated the drinking water of Flint, Michigan. The 42,000 deaths in the U.S. from opioid overdoses also merit inclusion in this litany of exceptional events.

Breaking the 4th Wall

At this juncture in writing this history of French American + International, I will pause and break the 4th wall. For starters: history is not what happened. What happened has gone. History is the story telling that historians do. The historian selects from the vestigial traces of evidence in order to weave a coherent plot. This involves making judgment calls about what is significant and meaningful and what is not.

This story was composed in 2022 to celebrate the school's sexegennial. By the time we get to around 2016, even dramatic events like, say, the failed coup in Turkey, fall into the realm of current affairs rather than history. It is only with the march of time, and some appropriate critical distance, that such events will become the stuff of history. That is also a truism for more recent happenings at the school.

While we are on the subject of impartiality and critical perspective limitations, I should add that, as the author of this story, I was present in the school as an educator and administrator–to some degree, able to speak truth to power and be privy to Board business – throughout the second half of its sixty years. There are losses and gains incurred when inviting a living witness to tell the tale.

In later years, another version of this story, encompassing an even longer time period, will be written. It might be in Homeric, Joycean, or Proustian mode. Notwithstanding its genre, what is missing from this current iteration is the full cast of colorful characters. Melinda refers to the 4,000 or so enrolled students, their parents and grandparents, faculty and staff, governance and alums–at any given fleeting instance–as “a village.” Former Board Chair Josh Nossiter prefers visualizing the school as an aircraft carrier–with its relentless steady momentum and monumental turning circle.

The school is much more than an evolving curriculum bound by a core vision. It is a thoroughly human affair. Imagine for a moment a hypothetical assemblage of every smart, adventurous, international teacher that ever touched the life of a French American and International student during the six decades from 1962 to the present day. A potted history would not do. It would necessitate a tome in the mode of an epic, episodic, 19th century novel (Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities comes to mind) to portray this moving cast of colorful characters, working and playing together, and living life to the full – in all its bittersweet capability and fallibility – through tumultuous, changing times.