March 2019: Teacher Feature | Voulez-Vous Voyager avec Moi?

Leila Harper, Beyond the Gates Editor|March 14, 2019

Madame Borge fell in love with teaching and focuses on both French and History this year.

Madame Claire Borge teaches French and US History at Armijo High School. This is currently her 36th year teaching. Leading up to teaching students at Armijo, Madame Borge has had plenty of jobs, and not always what you would expect. Her first job was at a donut shop.

Fast forward a few years, and she was a teacher’s assistant at UC Davis while she taking graduate studies. For a brief time, Madame Borge even taught French in Paris.

Before she became a teacher, Madame Borge had a dream of becoming an archeologist. “I was thinking that that would be kind of fun. I couldn’t really be an archeologist now, but I could work on an archeological dig, that would be kind of cool.” Although, she’s already made a living off of teaching, perhaps there could be a future of raiding lost arks and exploring doomed temples.

The idea of being a teacher became apparent while attending college. “I really didn’t want to be a teacher because my parents were both teachers, so I knew it was really hard work and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the same things that my parents did,” said Madame Borge, ““But, after I finished my Master’s thesis and I was talking to people—my professors [and] my students at UC Davis—they said, ‘You should just be a teacher because you’re good at that!’

“I went to a credential program at Davis and I really liked teaching. I don’t know if there was a moment where the skies parted and, boom, I wanted to be a teacher, but it felt good, it felt natural.” From there, the metaphorical clouds parted on her life path.

During the rare moments Madame Borge isn’t teaching or lesson planning for her new History class, she enjoys spending her time swimming, hiking with her husband and dogs, and traveling. In the US; she said she really likes visiting Washington DC. Apart from friends who live there, the many monuments are a stellar attraction.

One of her absolute favorite places to go is France. “I haven’t been there for a couple of years, so maybe this summer there’ll be another trip,” she said.