Ms. Rebekah’s class helps her students learn French with a “very hands-on learning environment,” says freshman Rebakah Duda. From French jeopardy to listening to French songs and learning the lyrics, her students always have their eyes to the front. Ms. Rebekah also likes to occasionally bring in fresh baked goods for her students, such as pies and cookies.

Sarah Rebekah is the French teacher here at Santa Fe High. Born and raised in Hays, Kan., she moved to New Mexico in 2014 for a job at Capital High School, where she taught both French and Spanish.

She started teaching at Santa Fe High in 2019 and brought along her own special way of teaching. She said, “You can learn anything with an open mind. You can learn something from a flower, a child, even a rainbow.” 

Ms. Rebekah was originally inspired to learn French because she used to work at a French restaurant and wanted to learn to pronounce the labels on wine bottles correctly. Also, one day a French family came in to eat and they had a bilingual daughter, whom she thought was the cutest thing ever.

Ms. Rebekah has had a varied education. She studied French at La Sorbonne in Paris, Université Laval in Québec, Institut Catholique de Paris, and University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She studied psychology and social work at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., and received her Master’s in learning and teaching at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn.

Ms. Rebekah’s teaching career started in 2007, in Kansas, at a public French immersion school called Académie Lafayette. She also taught in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at Princess Nora bint Abdulrahman University, the world’s largest university for women.

Before she started teaching, Ms. Rebekah had an interesting job selling Jean Paul Gautier, Thierry Mugler, and Robert Clergerie clothing at an exclusive store in Manhattan. She always had a love for fashion and still does. She said, “I used to want to live in London when I was young. I loved the bell bottoms and mini skirts.”

She also used to be a hair model: “I wanted to be a clothing model, but I wasn’t tall enough…. You have to be tall to model,” she said.

In her free time, Ms. Rebekah likes to go to the dog park with her dog, Sun Ra. She also likes to swim.