Currently in her second year at Saint Francis, Ms. Dominique Salapare brings her contagious energy to every class and club she’s involved in on campus; her passion for English makes her class a favorite for many of her students. She teaches AP English Language and World Literature. Ms. Salapare moderates the Unity Dance Crew and co-moderates The Lancer.
The Lancer: When you were a student in high school and college, what was your experience like?
Ms. Dominique Salapare: When I was in high school, I was the biggest nerd, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. I think I tell my classes that a lot, that I was such a big nerd. In my first year, all I did was read and talk to people, those were the two things that I did. I read, I did my homework, and I talked to everyone that I could ever possibly meet. So think about Ms. Salapare now but on steroids. I wanted to know everyone’s name in my classes, I wanted to have a conversation with every single person, and I wanted to know them and their favorite color. In my freshman year, I would make a birthday card for everyone. Mind you, I went to Villanova Preparatory School, a small Catholic private school in Ojai, Southern California, so we had 200 kids—nothing like Saint Francis. So, Saint Francis was, for me, even when I came here as a teacher, a whole new world, because there are 2000 of you guys and 300 educators. I knew that I loved English; English has always been my favorite subject. It’s the thing that I’m most passionate about: I love reading, I love writing, and I did spoken word poetry, and it’s a little cringy now that I look back at it, but it was something that I loved doing. Thinking about the entire high school experience, the other piece that I think of is—and this actually informs the way that I look at you guys and the way that I approach school—that school was never the only thing on my mind. I had classes, and I had my upper-level classes and the college prep classes that I took, but I was always beefing with somebody. I was either beefing with my best friend, who’s still my best friend now, but we had our trials and tribulations. I might have been beefing with another person who was on Student Council with me. People beefed with me because I, again, think of Ms. Salapare on steroids, I was really high energy all the time. 7:30 in the morning, high energy, and 5:00 at night, high energy. So I was actually kind of obnoxious, and I own that. And so that took up a lot of headspace and heart space for me. Those are the favorite things that come to mind when I think of my high school experience.
TL: What activities were you involved in during high school?
DS: I was part of our poetry club, and I was in Student Council for three years and then stopped. I was in sports. Hard to believe, I know, but I did volleyball for my first two years, then stopped, and then I was actually on varsity basketball my junior year as a benchwarmer. I spent a lot of my time at my library: I volunteered at my library, I tutored at the library, I worked at the library, I sorted books, and I ran events, like community events, when we did arts and crafts with little kids. And I sang for church. So, I’m a singer, I love to sing. I don’t think I’m ready for The Voice, but I have sung in church choir my whole life. So when I was little, all the way through high school and college, I sang every Tuesday and every Sunday.
TL: What led you to become a teacher? Was it something you always knew you wanted to do, or more of a gradual realization?
DS: The first one. My mom has this picture that I drew when I was in third grade, and the prompt from my third-grade teacher was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And I drew a picture of myself as a teacher. I drew a little picture of me and a little blackboard and some students and some desks. It was a poor drawing, but my mom showed it to me the other day. So since third grade, I’ve known that I wanted to be a teacher. I think it was because I had really good teachers growing up. In elementary school, I loved all of my teachers; I had a good relationship with every single one of them. My fourth-grade teacher, I got her coffee every morning. I didn’t go buy the coffee, but I would go to the teacher’s lounge and get a cup and bring her coffee every morning because she was kind of disabled, so she couldn’t move. And then all throughout high school, I loved English, I loved people, and I loved my English teachers specifically, and they were the ones who were the most supportive for me in my journey. They were the ones that I went to, that I knew I could talk to about anything. When I was stressed out of my mind about life and about college, and when I was beefing with people I would go to. I still remember her, Julie Hedrick, my freshman-year English teacher. I would go see her every single day, and I would tell her a joke every single day. And so those were the moments that made me want to be a teacher. I wanted to be, and I still want to be, hope that I can be that person for youth and teenagers now.
TL: What makes Saint Francis special to you as an educator, and how do you think that reflects in students’ experiences?
DS: Where do I start? I’ll start with a small story about before I even came to Saint Francis. Well—once I was signed on—they gave me a yearbook from the year before I signed on, and they said, “Here, you might use this to get to know some of the kids.” And I was like, okay, sure, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into. So I opened the yearbook, and I just looked at the cover, and all it said was, “It’s a lot.” And I go, huh? And then I start flipping through the yearbook, and I’m like, whoa, it’s a lot. I think every single one of the students that I get to know and love, they’re doing so much, because they’re capable of so much. And I think that’s part of what makes this community so special, is that there’s so much love, there’s so much talent, there’s so much capability and potential. And I love that you guys, as students, see that within yourselves and I get to work with educators who hopefully help you see that within yourselves also. I’m impressed and blown away by that piece of the Saint Francis community. During Open House, when I was taking families around, one of the most common questions that came up was, “Hey, is there a place for everyone here?” And I was like, yeah, actually there kind of is, right? There are five million clubs, not literally, but there are five million clubs you could join. Aside from clubs, there are all these different affinity groups that can hopefully help make this place feel like home. On top of that, I firmly believe that my job as an educator is to make the four walls of this classroom feel a little bit, if not, like home, feel safe—feel like a place where you are welcomed and you are loved, and where your teacher is genuinely happy to see you. I work with really great co-workers. I think I get to brag about that, and not everybody gets to brag about that, but I have great co-workers. I love my English Department and I learn from them every single day. I think that’s what makes us special, too. I’m surrounded by professionals who not only help make me a better teacher but also help me become a better person. I know I can go to Mrs. Joslyn, or you know, I can name five million people. I can name the whole English Department, but especially Mrs. Joslyn, because she’s my roommate. I know I can go to her at any point in time, not just with English troubles or teaching troubles, but I can go to her as a person and a human and she’ll be there for me. And I get that sense from all the co-workers that I have gotten to know so far. So that’s another special thing about this place.
TL: What is the most rewarding and most taxing part of your job?
DS: The high and low, what revs your engine and grinds your gears. Easily, the most rewarding part is this, [referencing Coco and Skye] is getting to know you and getting to love you and the hugs, the warmth, the love, the smiles. I feel like I get so much affirmation from you guys. I know I’m a giver of affirmation, but it’s nothing in comparison to the love and affirmation that you give me. The rewarding part is that sometimes I feel like I treat some of my classes as my therapy sessions, where I tell all these different stories. But what that does is then it lets all of my students feel comfortable telling their stories too. I love getting to know these pieces of your life that aren’t just related to the grade. Grading is probably the most taxing piece. If any educator sees me in the Welcome Center, I usually have a big stack of journals or a big stack of papers to finish grading. The most taxing piece is the heavy workload that comes with being a good teacher or being a teacher in general. That’s the hardest part, but honestly, students, you guys make it easy.
TL: What is your teaching philosophy and how do you exemplify it in the classroom?
DS: Teaching philosophy, easy at first, but sometimes hard to maintain. I took a dance class when I was in college, and it was called cardio dance. That dance class had three rules: move your body to keep your heart healthy; it doesn’t matter if you get the moves wrong, just dance; and have fun. And so I tried to make those three rules a part of the classroom. So one, come in knowing that this is a place where you will be loved and have fun, but also know this is a place where I have high expectations because I know that my students can do it. I know they have the capabilities to do it; it’s called asset orientation. I’m looking at each and every one of the people who come into my classroom, not just as students, but as humans who have great capacity, who have all of these different funds of knowledge, or these things that they know that are not just textbook things, and we can use that in the classroom.
TL: What advice do you have for students who are unsure of what they want to do in the future?
DS: First, I think life is long, and if you don’t know what you want to do yet, that’s really okay. Even though I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be, I didn’t know all of the details. And anything could have changed, anything still can change, right? I have a lot of different friends who went into college or went into life thinking they were going to be this one thing. The advice that I would have is to give yourself grace to move and shift and change because we really don’t know the entire outline. And it’s scary not to have the entire outline ready for you. It’s not like an essay where you know where it begins and ends. So I guess the best piece of advice is to be gentle with yourself, to care for yourself, and to make space for you to try something different because that’s where you might find where you belong.
TL: Now we have some lightning-round questions. Everyone knows that you are an amazing baker, what is your favorite thing to bake?
DS: My favorite savory thing to bake, have you ever heard of Brazilian cheese bread?
TL: Pão de queijo?
DS: Yes, okay, that’s my favorite savory thing to bake. My favorite sweet thing to bake would be blondies, dense chocolate chip blondies, or even pumpkin blondies, because they’re just chock-full of butter. Those are the best things to make.
TL: What new recipes have you tried out recently?
DS: I recently tried pumpkin cinnamon rolls, because it’s pumpkin and autumn season. Actually, for newspaper next week, I was thinking about baking some more things, and I wanted to try pumpkin blondies. I also want to try making, this one would not be for newspaper, sorry, but pumpkin croquettes. They’re Japanese and deep-fried; it’s like a pumpkin mash on the inside with bacon and onion.
TL: If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be?
DS: Oh, easy, cardio dance teacher for life. You guys haven’t seen me in the Zumba classroom, but I would teach Zumba. I would teach Zumba to seventy-year-olds or I would do cardio dance for college kids.
TL: What is the best book you’ve ever read?
DS: That one’s hard. My heart is so tied to Jane Austen. I love Pride and Prejudice, but the best ever, in the whole wide world. [Pauses] I really love There There. I’m biased. I love There There by Tommy Orange, I really do. Oh, anything by Rainbow Rowell. She writes this really good YA book called Eleanor & Park. She also wrote this book called Landline. It’s a sci-fi, dystopian thing where someone picks up a landline and they can call someone from the past. It’s very cool.
TL: If you could only listen to one singer for the rest of your life, who would it be?
DS: One, only one? Gosh, that’s so hard. Someone I don’t get tired of. Can I choose two? The Lumineers or Hozier. For some reason, they give me comfort, and I just never get tired of them.
Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
