Faculty Highlight: Madame Dupre

Credits: @vhhsfrenchduslay on Instagram

Leah Dupre, affectionately known by her students as “Madame DuSlay,” is one of two French teachers at Vestavia Hills High School. She teaches French level 1 and 2 at the Freshman Campus, as well as level 2 classes at the main campus. Every high school French student at Vestavia will take her class at some point in their study. In French 1 and 2, her students learn the intricacies of the French language, how to read and write in French, and aspects of French culture and history. They also get the opportunity to chat with pen pals from France. For our faculty highlight this week, I got the chance to sit down with Madame Dupre and discuss her experiences teaching at Vestavia and elsewhere, her love for the French language, and her interests outside of French. 

Madame Dupre has always wanted to be a teacher. In fact, she shared that she recently found a notebook of hers from second grade, in which she wrote that she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. However, she did not always plan on teaching high school. She was a college professor for many years, teaching at Tulane University, the University of Alabama, UAB, and Birmingham Southern College, and she started teaching high school after Birmingham Southern closed. She says that she “wanted to continue doing what [she] was passionate about…teaching not only the French language but teaching a part of culture and different perspectives on life, and helping students to grow through learning a language.”

Credits: @vhhsfrenchduslay on Instagram

She says that she likes teaching high school students because, unlike teaching in college, she gets to teach “more than just the subject matter, and teach someone who is growing and learning about life and about how to become an adult.” She also noted that, when she started teaching in public schools, she was told by colleagues that it would be a negative experience. However, she has loved teaching here. “The students at Vestavia are really special,” she says. When I asked Madame Dupre why she initially decided to study French, she told me that when she was younger, her sister and her friends spoke French, and they would often speak about her in French. So, she decided to learn the language so she could know what they were saying about her. She also said that she was inspired to learn the language when a French exchange student came to live with her family when she was in high school. 

Madame Dupre is not just a French teacher. When she isn’t teaching, she loves to paint or go to art galleries. “It really excites me to see all this creative work and what the mind can do,” she says. She also has a passion for literature and poetry. She writes poems frequently—in French and English—and is currently working on two books. She also loves listening to music, and says that one thing she wishes she could do is play an instrument.

Madame Dupre has a saying in her classroom. It goes: “It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong; if you try, you get a bonbon.” “Bonbon” is a French term for the treats she gives out to students who demonstrate exceptional academic risk-taking. “I think that’s what it takes to grow in a language,” she says. “You put something out there, and get feedback. You try something else, and you get feedback…it’s not in doing something correctly, it’s in the trying that you learn.” In doing this, she strives to create an environment in her classroom that is supportive of everyone. In her teaching, she tries to be empathetic and understanding of the challenges her students may face outside of school. “I teach the person and not the student,” she says. “They’re not just a student. They have a life outside of my classroom, they have a life outside of this school…I really think it's important to take into consideration everything going on in a person’s life, and not just look at them as a number or a person who should learn French.”

In her classroom, her students don’t just learn French. Madame Dupre says that, by teaching French culture, she also wants them to learn how to be more loving and accepting of people who are different. “I hope that they learn to be appreciative of differences. I hope that they learn to respect one another and other people. I hope that they enjoy how big and broad and wide the world is, and how beautiful the differences are. I was fascinated when I was a kid with this card set that I had. It was a card set of people from different lands and their traditional clothing, and it talked a little bit about their countries and what their traditions were. And I loved that. We live in such a rich world, and it’s important to understand that the way that we live in our community is just one way of living. And I hope that I transmit a little bit of that enthusiasm that I have, and that passion of getting to know the world through a different lens.”