Bio - Mary Taylor

She fell in love with France and the French language in college and lived for a year in Marseilles, France, attending classes, working as a teacher’s assistant, and absorbing the culture and language. Upon her return she got a masters in French literature and soon after began teaching French, first at the middle school level, and later at Boulder High School.  Her trademark was bringing curriculum to life and loved to create inquiry based lessons that allowed students to get a feel for French culture, whether it was cooking French cuisine with students, creating and playing fun games that helped with language development, or encouraging students in World Language events around the state.  Mary’s gift was to communicate to students the richness of studying a great civilization and its literature in the mainstream of contemporary Western Civilization.  Her burning desire was to help students appreciate and enjoy the intellectual achievements of this western European nation in the works of its greatest thinkers. Many a former student has remarked that they didn’t care about learning a new language or traveling until taking her class where she brought both the French language and France to life in her classroom.

But in addition to being able to bring this knowledge to students, she was also equal to the challenge of presenting it to students in a format that they could relate to--individualized instruction--in many cases--at its best. She never gave up on any student. She often spent many hours outside of class working with students both in her school office, and at home on the weekends, in order to ensure that they would pass her class, and gain full understanding. Her colleagues also found Mary supportive and were amazed at her ability to navigate difficult conflicts without taking sides and often found solutions that could unite colleagues who could not agree.  

Mary Taylor embodied many people in one person: teacher/mentor, entertainer, diplomat, artist, inventor confidant, mother, friend, and lifelong learner. She was diagnosed with late stage colon cancer in the spring of 1988, and retired due to her health condition. She was 55 at retirement, and died three years later. This teaching excellence award was established at her retirement to honor those who follow her in exemplifying teaching excellence.