ANNE-MARIE LONSDALE CLASS OF 1995 What did you enjoy most about your time at EB and why? Our amazing teachers! I will always remember Mary Havemann, Judith, Jean-Yves, Mr. Nikoloff, Libby, Coach, and all my wonderful, caring teachers from my time at EB. Please describe your current work. I work in the performing arts in multiple capacities, as a producer, consultant, facilitator, and administrator first in San Francisco and Chicago, and now in New York. I own my own business, Partake Arts, which offers strategic and capacity building services to artistled organizations, and I am also the Managing Director of The Story Collider, a science communications and storytelling nonprofit. How do you feel EB has influenced you or led you towards your choice of profession? We read so widely all the great French poetry and literature, as well as English-language classics, and this allowed me to be deeply grounded in the texts that create my foundation as a theater artist and creator. I first fell in love with theater and dance while a student at EB, and I even had the chance to direct a Molière play, The Misanthrope, when I was in college. What would you say to parents just starting out at EB? Don’t be afraid that your kids are gossiping about you in French behind your back, because they are! Please know that giving your children the gift of a bilingual education will change their lives for the better forever, and that you are 38
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offering them the world, literally. Enjoy watching their minds explode as they learn, speak, and read in two languages, and don’t feel left out. Describe your favorite EB memory. The France trip to Lyon in 5th Grade! What a wonderful experience, to get to truly live in another country, to make such wonderful connections with my host family, and to enjoy France. We went to Paris and Mont Blanc. It was the experience of a lifetime. Do you feel that EB adequately prepared you for life after EB? Do you feel you are a citizen of the world? Being bilingual from the age of four has given me so many gifts. I have been able to study and learn in French, Spanish, Italian, and Greek. I’m now learning Portuguese so that I can communicate with my sisterin-law’s family in Portugal. I travel widely and without fear, and often find myself translating for people at the pharmacy or in a café, if I can. The gift of language also made me much more adept at mathematics, which has allowed me to excel in the finance aspects of my work. I also know that being raised in multiple cultures with fellow students who speak multiple languages and come from many different cultures has made me more open, more engaged, and more committed to equity and justice in our world. Would you consider sending your children to EB? Why? Being raised in both a bilingual and multi-cultural community, I know
“…Giving your children the gift of a bilingual education will change their lives for the better forever…” that I am more deeply aware of the diversity of lived experiences and histories that make up the world. I feel that I am more sensitized to the world around me, and more able to identify problematic political and historical narratives because I am constantly comparing and contrasting the stories we are offered in our culture. Learning French and American narratives naturally offers us the opportunity to understand the complex world that we have inherited postcolonialism, and teaches us about our privilege and responsibility to the larger global community. This comes directly from a bilingual and bicultural education that prioritizes critical thinking, like the one offered at EB.
