Anne Marie Prophete
FORMER TEACHING STAFF SUPERVISOR

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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.”