PROFILES

Anne Marie Prophete
FORMER TEACHING STAFF SUPERVISOR

She walked into her first Springboard to Learning classroom and spoke… French.

“The children had never seen a black person who spoke another language,” recalled Anne-Marie Prophete, 78, who spent some time recently reflecting on her 25 years as a Springboard teacher who specialized in the culture of Haiti, her original home.

Madame Prophete, the children called her. Or just Madame. Either way, her warm smile and inspired teaching made her a model for what Springboard specialists can provide to students in St. Louis Public Schools.

Madame Prophete was a newcomer to St. Louis in the 1960s. Married to a physician, Beau Manoir Prophete, she lived in the Central West End and began teaching French at Our Lady of the Pillar, the elementary school that feeds into Chaminade. As her family grew - eventually the couple had five children - Madame looked for a way to teach part time. Through her involvement at the International Institute she ran into Kay Parvis, who was already involved with Springboard. Mrs. Parvis encouraged her to think about sharing her knowledge of Haiti with Springboard students.

“Kay told me, ‘since you're already doing it anyway [talking about Haiti in the community], you might as well get paid for it,’” Madame said. “I found it was not easy for me to communicate in English, but Kay said, ‘They will love you exactly the way you are.’ And they were so happy to have me.”

At first the Midwestern students had trouble understanding Madame’s mellifluous accent. “So I told their teacher, teach them how to listen and they will understand what I am saying,” she said.

Over time, Madame’s Springboard duties expanded from teaching once a week to teaching four times a week. Her students participated in Springboard’s annual Dance Festival. Eventually she also took on the role of supervising and counseling other Springboard teachers, something she did for ten years. “That’s how I really came to know St. Louis - from driving around from school to school.”

Springboard became like a second family, Madame said. When she retired in 1996, every Springboard teacher and staff person used images from his or her specialty to create a square for a quilt. This beautiful artifact now hangs in her livingroom. “I told my children when they moved my things from our house to this smaller place, I have to have a place where I can hang my quilt,” said Madame, whose walls are also filled with photographs of her family - her husband, three daughters, two sons, and nine grandchildren.

Asked what wisdom and advice she would pass along to today’s Springboard teachers, Madame Prophete answered without a pause: “Teach the children to listen. You are not there forever, sometimes only one or two years. But if they have learned to listen, they can learn from everyone.”