For photos, check Shipley’s Instagram.

As the old adage goes for anyone embarking on an odyssey through airports: there’s a lot of “hurry up and wait.” Flying abroad comes with an ebb and flow—surges of stress met with tests of patience. So it was for the intrepid group of seventeen Shipley travelers who summoned enough serenity to face fate at the outset of their extended spring break to France this March.

Everything was ready—superstitions be damned. Nine months of preparation, passports in pockets, fond farewells exchanged, and emotions bubbling over with excitement, nerves, and wonder. What remained but to buckle up, pop in earbuds, flip open a paperback, text a final “bon voyage,” and let Dramamine smooth a descent into jet lag en route to Paris?

That’s when our two chaperone shepherds—Dr. Pidot (French Teacher and Class Dean, 2027) and Ms. Carey (former SEED Teacher and Director of Global Programs)—learned a travel truism firsthand: “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Just before takeoff, the captain’s voice crackled over the speaker—dreaded yet dulcet: a luggage truck had crashed into the plane’s cargo door, rendering it unclosable. Flight grounded. French Exchange 2025: temporarily thwarted. Understandably disappointed, the upper school students—representing French levels 2 through 4 honors—had to pause their daydreams of cultural immersion, relationship building, touristic wonder, and linguistic growth. They returned home.

It felt like stepping into an existential play—Waiting for Godot with a dose of theater of the absurd, all fittingly French. Yet the group’s courage, grace, and grit turned this false start into a prologue—a mere amuse-bouche, whetting the appetite for what Hemingway called Paris: a moveable feast.

Within twenty-four hours, our newly bonded crew was back at Philadelphia’s Terminal A and profitably airborne. On March 16, they left behind comfort zones, textbooks, and one fading memory of inconvenience—an ironic souvenir from a trip otherwise defined by rich and rewarding experience. This year’s French adventure, successful and serendipitous in its own right, joins a proud 36-year tradition.

Since 1989, The Shipley School, The Baldwin School, and Notre Dame de Mongré (a nursery to 12th grade Catholic school in Villefranche-sur-Saône, France) have partnered for a bi-annual Exchange. For one week during the March trip, all fifteen Francophone Gators were graciously welcomed into the homes of French correspondents who study English and American culture at Notre Dame de Mongré. This homestay component—still fondly remembered by alumni with lifelong penpals—is the Exchange’s core (raison d’être): a chance to build cultural fluency and lasting friendships.

Matchmaking between Shipley and Notre Dame students follows an intentional—if unscientific—blend of age, interest, language level, and personalities. The 2025 pairing recipe once again yielded strong results. For a true sense of what it means to live with a French family—joys, challenges, surprises and all—ask the Upper Schoolers themselves. A few have penned reflections in [the May 2025 issue of] The Beacon. Their voices provide the most honest, inspiring, and idiosyncratic insights. For photos, check Shipley’s Instagram.

While a chaperone’s role is to handle logistics, the Exchange is not about sweating every detail. It’s about big-picture diplomacy through relationships—and joyfully connecting in French.

Despite being one day shorter, the itinerary was dynamic and full: measured in dry, sunny skies, croissants consumed, steps taken, shops explored, and memories made. We began in Paris with two whirlwind days of sightseeing: the Palace of Versailles, gilded and grand inside, serene and sprawling outside; the literally sparkling Eiffel Tower; the Impressionist treasures of the Musée d’Orsay; the Arc de Triomphe along the haute couture haven of the Champs-Élysées; the restored grandeur of Notre Dame Cathedral, post-fire; and the bustling Latin Quarter of young philosophers. 

Free time in the City of Lights and Love allowed students independence to discover cozy cafés, while group dinners included a remarkable evening at Au Chien qui Fume—a bistro dating back to 1740. A twilight stroll through the Tuileries gardens led several participants to the glass pyramids of the iconic courtyard of the Louvre, followed by a chilly but “romantic” Bateau Mouche cruise down the River Seine to behold the nightscaped embankments.

From Paris, we headed south—past lavender fields—to Lyon, near the Swiss border where the Alps rise into view. There, in the suburbs, students became “adopted cousins,” settling into their host families’ lives.

For the rest of the week, they shadowed their French peers at Notre Dame de Mongré—alma mater of Le Petit Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry—attending classes, scavenger hunts, choir singalongs, and a festive potluck soirée at which local faculty and families swapped with us recipes, gifts, and stories. Outside of school in Villefranche-sur-Saône, the Shipley-and-Baldwin group explored two unforgettable sites.

Old Lyon offered urban hikes, secret Renaissance-era silk tunnels (used later by the Resistance in WWII), and plenty of shopping. We also traveled to Avignon, a city steeped in papal history and Italian influence, known for its fortified Papal Palace and its famous bridge—the Pont d’Avignon—celebrated in nursery rhyme and familiar song. Though the remaining section of that bridge is narrow and crowded (unsuitable for imprudent revelry) it made for a signature group photo and a lesson in French lore.

Taken as a whole, the 2025 Exchange was a spirited and transformational journey. It marked an inflection point in students’ language learning—pushing communicative skills into real-world practice, expanding cultural competence, and adding to authentic vocabularies and grammatical comprehension.

In spring 2026, we will welcome our French counterparts to Philadelphia. When Notre Dame de Mongré students cross the Atlantic to stay with their Shipley and Baldwin hosts, our entire community is called to engage. We'll show them our Shipley spirit through class activities, collegial meals, weekend adventures, school assemblies, and casual hangouts—no canceled flights required.

Thanks to programs like the French Exchange, Shipley students strengthen and apply their education in purposeful ways. With communication, they become more fully human—flourishing through connection. These relationships transcend borders of heart, mind, and geography. That is the Exchange’s allure, its promise, and its lasting legacy. To loosely paraphrase de Saint-Exupéry: “It is only with the heart that one [communicates] rightly; what is essential is invisible to the [other senses.]”