With the support of Ms. Adam, our Junior School Administrative Assistant, we tried to find a novel way to express a very important message to all of you.  After countless hours of navigating our recollections for quotes from multiple origins, philosophical concepts, books and more, we arrived at the conclusion that the best way to say thank you to all of you for an amazing year of learning, sharing, and overcoming challenges was to say.....

In December 2017, December 2018, and November 2020 I quoted Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and philosopher whose contributions to research in Mathematics and Epistemology was outstanding. In 1656 he wrote in The Provincial Letter, Letter XVI: “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter." In the past this was one of my favorite quotes when I tried to justify why my Weekly Newsletter was... short. Once again, it...

Exactly one year ago, we were shocked by the terrible attack that took place in Afghanistan, stealing from young girls their right to live, and terrifying many more by stealing their right to be educated. This fight is far from being over, and the terrible and choking tragedy that took place at the gate of Sayed Al-Shuhada school in Afghanistan on Saturday reminds all of us that the right for education is a privilege that not everyone has access to, but a privilege that we should all fight fo...

The final JS Parent Coffee will be held on Tuesday, May 24th at 6:00 pm on campus and also streaming. Parents are invited to join in person, on campus, for the Parent Coffee and will also be able to participate in parent-led school tours with an opportunity to peek inside your child's classroom. A JS Parent Social will be held outside in the tents following the Coffee. Space is limited to 250 parents (adults only please). Please claim your spot and RSVP here.  Note that proof of COVID vaccina...

"It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it." Most people believe this quote is from Oscar Wilde, published in his famous book The Decay of Lying (1889). In 1952 the “Wilson Library Bulletin” published this quote in one of their editions, assigning the words to Oscar Wilde. In 1987 the “Great Falls Tribune” of Montana used the same quote as an epigraph to an article, while crediting Oscar Wilde once again. A quick search on the internet ...

In 1962 the United States performed its last atmospheric nuclear test (though it would go on performing underground tests until the early 1990s) and, in 1963, the world’s nuclear powers signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty outlawing atmospheric testing altogether. The world's militaries radically rethought their approach to nuclear testing due to a fundamental discovery by a Japanese woman, Saruhashi Katsuko (1920-2007), a scientist who demonstrated that radioactivity from the tests, far from b...

Last Wednesday three UNIS parents, Cecilia Dones, Jorge Aseff, and Erin Russell joined us at school for a unique "Talk Show" dedicated to the topic of Technology @home. We invite you to watch the recording using the link below. During the "Talk Show" we shared data with the audience and, as promised, you can find some of the information used during the presentation here: Teen Social Media Statistics 2022 (What Students and Parents Need to Know), The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens an...

On Wednesday, April 27 at 7pm, the Junior School in collaboration with the Parent Association will host a unique town hall about children and technology at home. This town hall, by parents, with parents, and for parents will bring three Junior School parents together with the Junior School Leadership for an open discussion about the usage of technology at home, and how parents are navigating the digital world with their children. For this first town hall under this new format, Erin Russell, p...

In the fall of 2017 I shared with Junior School parents our views on Peace and what led the UNIS JS to have developed the concept of the Peace Table (1). Today, I could go back to the etymology of the concept of "Peace", which ironically exists only because of the existence of the concept of "Conflict". I could also highlight one of the main missions of the United Nations being the maintenance of international peace and security (2). I could also re-explore our school mission (3), which clear...

Michel de Montaigne is a precursor in progressive education - already in the 16th century. I will attempt to translate his main idea from one of his major philosophical essays, the book 16, where he is evoking the role of the teacher in these words: "I would […] that at the very first, he should, according to the capacity that he has to deal with, put it to the test,  permitting his pupil to taste things, and of himself to discern and choose them, sometimes opening the way to  him and sometim...

The Student-Led Conferences for our JA to J4 students will be held this week. They were implemented in the Junior School in 2016 and have been through a few iterations since then. Two years ago we were not able to roll out this very important milestone in the learning journey of our students. UNIS closed just a few weeks before we were scheduled to bring parents and students together to reflect on the learning experience. Given the complexity of organizing Student-Led Conferences, and conside...

In 2016 the Oscars made a bold attempt to fix one of its longest-standing problems: the winner's "thank you" list. They offered the nominees a chance to list everyone they wanted to thank in advance of the ceremony. The winners’ lists began running in a ticker on the bottom of the screen as the winners were making their way to the stage. The main idea was first to give the winners more of an opportunity to say the things that really mattered to them, ensuring that they wouldn’t be cut off jus...

The Student-Led Conferences for our JA to J4 students are approaching. They were implemented in the Junior School in 2016 and have been through a few iterations since then. Given the complexity of organizing Student-Led Conferences, and taking into consideration the constraints put on us by the pandemic, last year teams of teachers, team leaders, homeroom teachers, specialist teachers, language teachers reflected on the fundamental purpose of Student-Led Conferences and the organization that ...

Last Saturday evening, I was honored to be invited to Jon Batiste's exceptional musical experiment: two hours of pure improvisation on stage. Inspired by his experiences and events in his life, he sat at the piano and let his fingers express his emotions, without speaking a word. While everyone in the room was aware of Jon Batiste's outstanding achievements - Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, and Golden Globe Awards for the Best Original Score “Soul” last year - fewer that night at...

After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in 2015, The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace (IFLAC) adopted “The pen is mightier than the sword” as their main slogan. The evident idea behind those words, as indicated by the Cambridge Dictionary, is that “thinking and writing have more influence on people than the use of force or violence.” It not only stands for the freedom of speech, whether offensive or not, but also stands for the idea that words have been, are, and w...

Like many educational institutions around the country at UNIS we are celebrating Black History Month. Lamar University, like many others, will do the same with a series of events organized and sponsored by a variety of organizations, departments, and clubs that highlight and pay tribute to the achievements of African Americans and important events that contributed to U.S. history. To launch their program, Taliah Belcher, a senior accounting and finance major, recently shared on the University...

On Monday, November 20, 2017, our Newsletter was dedicated to the question of Technology in Education, on teaching and parenting perspectives. We wrote that as "we become what we behold, we shape our tools and then our tools shape us" (1), we need to help our students understand how technology impacts their lives, how this technology is shaping them, and how we can empower them to build a better world where technologies are not designed “to extract attention from people which erodes society”,...

Semester 1 Report Cards for Junior School students will be published on Friday, January 28 at 5:00pm on the Veracross Parent Portal. We encourage you to review this report card with your child to celebrate his/her achievements during this past semester and engage in conversation about their potential growth. Friday, February 4 is the deadline for questions about a specific JS teacher’s grading. Please contact the teacher directly by email no later than the 4th. Your child’s academic achieveme...

This coming Wednesday, January 19at 7:00pm, don't miss our JS Parent Coffee featuring very special guests! After our well attended film premiere of "A FLY ON THE WALL: SCIENCE AND DESIGN ENGINEERING" during the last parent coffee, this Wednesday we will celebrate the JS students learning French and Spanish in Language B and the faculty who teach them. It's an excellent opportunity for you, the parents, to join classes with students from PreK to J4  who are learning a foreign language at UNIS....

After one week of fully remote instruction for all we are heading back to campus with those students whose families have chosen for them to learn at school, while the others who have chosen the fully remote option for the remainder of this period will connect using the same links that students used during the week of January 3. As Dr. Brenner informed the community in his most recent emails, our protocols have been updated to adapt to the new COVID-19 variant: Updated Quarantine and Testing R...

Michael Phelps, former American competitive swimmer, is known for being the most successful and decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals. He overcame many challenges, not only in sport but also in his personal life, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with which he was diagnosed at about 10 years old, and major depressive disorder. While he was a naturally gifted, talented, and skilled swimmer, his successes are the result of his hard work. He has said: "There w...

This coming Wednesday, December 15, don't miss our next JS Parent Coffee featuring very special guests! Rose Fico, JS Sustainability Coordinator, will share with attendees the ongoing sustainability projects involving our Junior School students. Vanessa Go, science teacher, and Javier Alvez and Francesca Zammarano, design engineering teachers, will welcome you into their classes with your children! These teachers opened their doors to our camera last week and during this webinar we will share...

As a reminder, all UNIS families may opt for Remote Learning during the week after the Winter Break, January 3 - January 7. To sign up, simply fill out the form included in this newsletter by December 15. If you do not complete it on behalf of your JS children, they will be expected to attend in person. Note that it is not possible to mix both in-person and remote learning during that week. Please be sure to carefully review travel guidelines and restrictions if you are planning on traveling ...

1781 was a happy year for Mozart: he was going to marry Constance Weber, and, leaving, without regret but after many adventures, Salzburg and his employer, the "abominable" Prince-Archbishop Colloredo. Mozart established himself in Vienna as an independent composer. He was 26 years old. The new emperor, Joseph II, who had just succeeded his mother Marie-Thérèse, wanted Mozart to develop German opera, and to compete in terms of quality and lyrism with the Italian operas. Even if Mozart had alr...

With the Thanksgiving and Winter Breaks ahead of us, some of you have reached out for clarification concerning the quarantine protocol for our Junior School students in light of vaccination now being available to 93% of our Junior School students. If my child has received one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, does he/she need to quarantine after the Thanksgiving break if we travel internationally? Yes, a student is considered vaccinated 2 weeks after the second vaccine shot is administered. During W...

This coming week, Wednesday through Friday, you will have the opportunity to meet with your child's teachers for our traditional Parent Teacher Conferences. Again this year, the conferences will be held using Zoom, our video conference platform. In this newsletter, you will find important information and a link to the instructions to book appointment with your child's teachers if you haven't done so already. Conferences with the Homeroom Teachers and Mother Tongue Teachers (20 minutes) could ...

After our one week October break, we are looking forward to welcoming your children tomorrow. In the meantime, we are pleased to be able to share the digital resources we used during our UN Day celebrations to capture images of our students in photos and videos. We hope you enjoy viewing them with your children before heading back to school. You will find also in this newsletter very important information about the school's procedures in case of quarantine or sickness. A group of J1 parents s...

Last week we shared a close-up look at our PreK Students with the first episode of "a fly on the wall". It was a wonderful opportunity to see where everything begins at UNIS. Today, we step aside again and allow Nicolas and Matias Corona (Tut House students) the opportunity to be this week's Newsletter Chief Editors and place the spotlight on their wonderful project, part of the CAS Program (Creativity, Activity, Service) and one of the three essential elements that a UNIS student must comple...

Dorothy Wordsworth (1771 – 1855) was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. She was fascinated by nature and kept notes in her diary about encounters with her majestic surroundings. She never expected them to be published. However, the exceptional descriptions of nature through the filters of her experiences and emotions could not be kept for herself. In her notes, she consistently emphasized the importance of nature for our spiritual...

Our third and last round of Back to School information will give all of you the opportunity to learn more about the support we provide to our students in the Junior School, either with Academic Support in Literacy or Mathematics, Social-Emotional Support, or the specific support we provide to our English-Language Learners. This Tuesday, October 5 at 7pm, we invite you to a JS Parent Coffee dedicated to this support. It will be hosted by Pascal Vallet, Junior School Principal, Alessandra Camil...

Our Back to School Night series continues this week. Parents will have the opportunity to join our Specialist and Language B Teachers this coming Wednesday, September 29 from 5 pm to 6 pm. You will find more information below. Many of you joined the Back to School Night "Meet and Greet" with Homeroom Teachers and Mother Tongue Teachers last Wednesday. Walking the JS hallways and observing our faculty connecting with you on the screen was reassuring evidence that the pandemic is not defining u...

This coming week, on Wednesday, September 22, we will welcome parents for our "traditional" JS Back to School Night. And, before going further, I will address the few parents who will question the usage of quotation marks around the word "traditional". The quotation mark, also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks, are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. They are also used to inf...

The Approaches to Learning were developed by the International Baccalaureate (IB). It is intended that through the ATL, students develop skills that have relevance across the curriculum that help them "learn how to learn". The ATL skills can be learned and taught, improved with practice, and developed incrementally. They provide a solid foundation for learning independently, and with others, and represent the skills that students need in order to become self-regulated, intrinsically motivated...

The history of the Olympic Games dates back to ancient times and has its roots in Antic Greece, around 3000 years ago. Every four years, sports competitions are organized in Olympia. In 1894, Pierre de Coubertin launched his renovation project and in 1896 the celebration of the 1st Games of the modern era took place in Athens. Since their creation, the Olympic games have been an opportunity for athletes around the world to push their limits, offering memorable and outstanding physical achieve...