Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: March 01, 2010

SUBJECT: Good Hope Senior Biko Robb Researches Senior Project in Paris

CONTACT: Susan Kraeger Director of Development The Good Hope School 170 Estate Whim Frederiksted, VI 00840 340-772-0022, ext. 103 340-772-4626 FAX skraeger@ghsvi.org

Good Hope senior Biko Robb spent the month of January in Paris, France as part of his senior project, attending the Lyceé Claude Monet – a public high school in Paris – for three weeks. During his visit, Biko explored ways to set up an exchange program between the two schools that would allow a senior from each school to spend a month at the beginning of their second semester at each others school. His senior project advisor and French Teacher Ms. Schill provided the contacts for the visit including a former student of hers who is currently pursuing their doctorate in Paris. Mr. Robb, who had traveled to France his sophomore year with Ms. Schill and a group of students during spring break, became intrigued by the idea of being able to offer the opportunity to a Good Hope and Claude Monet student to exchange places for a month and decided to pursue the idea as his senior project.

During his stay, Biko was fascinated by many aspects of French culture and education, and he immersed himself in the experience. He discovered that French students are encouraged to choose a path of core classes in science, economics, or the humanities. With his choice of science, Biko took classes in physics and chemistry, biology, calculus and discrete math. He also studied philosophy with a focus more on ideas than the philosophers, and was fascinated by a course in geographic history that showed how boundary lines the world over shifted as a result of wars and political upheaval. He took careful note that students are encouraged to take more than one language and that his fellow students spoke better English than he did French!

He thoroughly enjoyed the variety of commerce – the open-air markets that “sold everything you could ever want”– and the number of individual shops selling just cheese, meat, wine, or bread, as well as the diverse foods available – Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Greek and Czechoslovakian, as well as French – all of which enhanced his time there.

Availing himself of the public transportation system, Biko purchased a travel card for the time he was there that allowed him access to all forms of transportation including the metros (underground trains) and buses in Paris. He traveled the city taking in the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral and Sacré Coeur Basilica, and the Louvre Museum for which he had received a “treasure hunt list” from Good Hope Art Teacher Phyllis Biddle of not-to-be-missed paintings including Manet’s “Olympia” and DaVinci’s “Mona Lisa”.

Particularly impressive, Biko noted, was the fact that France is the largest per capita producer of nuclear energy, and the United States has asked French scientists, as innovators in that technology, for assistance in the repair of several U.S.-based nuclear plants. “The country is also very energy conscious,” he noted, “and there are two switches on the wall – one for lights and one for current – that allows for the complete cessation of energy use when you are not in the room.”

Also intriguing to him was that each of the school’s classrooms had an atomic clock so there were no discrepancies in the time as you went from class to class!

As to his original goal to establish a student exchange program for high school seniors to spend a month in each other’s schools, Biko learned that differences in the two systems would not support the plan. “French students spend their senior year studying for a six-day exam that impacts their future studies, so they cannot possibly take the time to be away for a month especially mid-year,” explains Biko. “An exchange program so late in their education would not work for them.”

However, Biko’s ties to France remain strong. He hopes to spend his junior year of college in a study abroad program in France, and this summer will host his Parisian pen pal of two years here on St. Croix for a month.