Pascale Setbon - The Language and Laughter Studio

Pascale Setbon is a Paris-born educator based in Brooklyn, and the founder of Language and Laughter Studio. For nearly twenty years, she has been building something specific: a school where children are treated as whole people, where their inner life is taken seriously from the moment they walk through the door.

 

Language and Laughter Studio lives at the corner of Vanderbilt and Fulton in Clinton Hill, where JR’s black-and-white stencils of children line the facade and where architects Chris McVoy and Beth O’Neill reimagined the interior as a direct expression of what it means to educate a young child. The walls curve. Convex outward, they draw children through the central Garden; inward, they hold each classroom in an embrace. Nothing is hard-edged here, because childhood isn’t. Light comes in through etched glazing that diffuses the sun, foregrounds the trees outside, and gives children the sense that nature is never far. Cork floors. Translucent panels of recycled acrylic in lilac, olive, fuchsia, color that teaches by being present, not by being explained. This was a collaboration between three fields, as Pascale describes it: education, architecture, and fabrication. Each one in service of the same thing, making every living being in the space, child or plant or animal, feel recognized and alive.

 

That is not incidental. It comes directly from how Pascale thinks about children. The idea that a child’s behavior is always a communication, always an expression of something real. LLS is built on the premise that children are not to be managed, not to be corrected into compliance but to be seen. The work of the teacher, then, is to stay curious about what a child is trying to say, and to build the kind of relationship where that child feels safe enough to say it.

We visited Pascale after school, once the four classrooms had emptied. We found ourselves inside a space that had clearly been designed to hold something. We asked her a few questions. We left with many more.

 

What’s in your glass at 6pm? 

Sparkling water. For clarity.

 

How do you take your coffee? 

With oat or almond.

A hotel you could return to every year. 

Some kind of boutique hotel in London. 18th century, lots of rich beautiful fabrics. History behind.

 

The scent you associate with home. 

Couscous. Pachuli. Woodie scents. Palo santo.

 

Your ideal temperature to sleep. 

69

 

What’s always in your carry-on? 

Essential oil. Menthol eucoliptus. Lip balm. Pearl glasses.

 

A drink that reminds you of summer. 

Cosmopolitan or lemonade with ginger.

 

The song thats playing in your head right now. 

Another brick in the wall.

 

A city you want to visit. 

Istanbul and Tokyo

 

What’s on your bedside table? 

Hundreds of books, essential oil, linen spray.

 

The last great meal you had. 

Place des fetes.

 

A fabric you reach for without thinking. 

Linen

 

A place you disappear to. 

My dreams.

 

The book you recommend most. 

How to love - Thich Nhat Hanh

 

A ritual you never skip. 

Meditation. I was trained by Sadhguru.

 

What does comfort look like to you? 

Soft envelope around yourself. Kindess. Strength.

 

The color you wear most. 

Navy.

 

A bar that gets it right. 

The pebble

 

The first thing you notice in a room. 

The energy

 

Whats your next trip? 

You tell me.