Francine Jaume loves being able to instill a love of reading and learning in her students at East Elementary School.
Jaume, 26, has been teaching second grade at the school in the Leflore County district for four years.
Jaume — pronounced, she said, like “how may I help you?” — is a native of North Arlington, New Jersey, a city perched across the Hudson River from Manhattan, New York. But she said Greenwood has become home — especially because of the opportunities to work closely with her students.
When she was growing up, her mother, Elaine Jaume — a longtime teacher and now an elementary school principal in New Jersey — put a heavy emphasis on learning and getting an education.
“My favorite memories were of my mom reading to us at night,” Jaume said. “I want to instill that love of reading in my students.”
Jaume first came to Greenwood as a member of Teach for America, a national organization that recruits college graduates to teach for two years in high-need areas. Jaume said she requested to be placed in the Delta because she’d wanted to try rural, small-town living after growing up just outside New York City and earning her college degree at the University of Maryland in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
At the University of Maryland, Jaume studied public health and was initially planning for a career in outreach and health education.
Jaume said she’d interned in Washington working late-night shifts trying to reach out to drug users and illegal sex workers in the nation’s capital in an effort to educate those populations and reduce the risk of HIV, hepatitis and other diseases spreading.
Altering her career plans to follow her mom into classroom teaching wasn’t a huge leap. As a health educator, she’d already practiced skills of planning lessons, gauging her audience and trying to hold attention. She’d also noticed the importance of education in helping improve long-term health among populations.
As an undergraduate, Jaume focused on harm reduction — an area of public health aimed at helping people make better choices. So often, education played a critical role in determining health outcomes, she said.
Jaume arrived in Greenwood for the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year. She said she was “100 percent sure” within a few months that she wanted to stay beyond her initial two-year commitment.
“I felt very connected with my students and very much at home,” she said. “I feel like I clicked with them.”
Living in Greenwood and working just outside the city limits, Jaume has grown to love the close connections with students and parents inside and outside school.
“I like being part of my students’ lives. The longer I stay, the more students I know,” Jaume said. “I like going to Walmart and seeing my students. I like knowing where their parents work.”
She also worked for a while as a waitress at the Delta Bistro, an experience she said gave her another perspective on the town.
The slower pace of life and chances for the occasional quiet moment have also grown on her. She said she enjoys being able to watch the Yazoo River from her porch on River Road and taking in the quieter sounds of Greenwood in the evening.
She also loves to take in the town during long walks with her two dogs, Poma and Harry.
“I love walking through downtown Greenwood at night,” Jaume said. “It feels like I’m on a movie set. It’s so quiet and beautiful.”
Although she feels she’s settled in well over the last four years in Greenwood, one thing Jaume said she didn’t think she’d ever lose is her New Jersey accent. “I couldn’t if I tried,” she said.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
