Marty Gordon
NRVsports@mainstreetnewspapers.com
Little did Jonathan Marye know that having to learn French as a 10-year-old would eventually lead to a job teaching the language in high school.
Marye’s parents were missionaries to Congo and other African countries, where most of the population spoke French.
“Although my parents began their professional careers as educators, I never fathomed being the responsible adult leading students in a classroom. Their career shift to work overseas when I was 10 years old required that we learn French, which ultimately inspired my decision to study Modern Languages in college,” he said during an interview this past week.
He has spent the past five years teaching French at Blacksburg High School.
Marye is the Montgomery County school division’s teacher of the year and was recently recognized as the Region 6 teacher of the year. Region 6, also known as the Western Virginia Region, includes 15-plus divisions serving Alleghany, Botetourt, Craig, Floyd, Henry, Montgomery, Patrick, Pittsylvania and Roanoke counties.
Montgomery County Superintendent, Dr. Kelly Guempel said he believes this honor is a testament to Marye’s commitment to academic excellence and his unique ability to inspire students to reach their full potential.
“Mr. Marye embodies the very best of our district’s mission, and we are fortunate to have such a dedicated educator leading our classrooms,” he said.
Through interactive lessons, cultural experiences, and authentic language practice, Marye encourages students to explore languages beyond the classroom and see themselves as global citizens.
“Mr. Marye is an exceptional educator who does far more than teach a language: he opens doors to the world,” said Blacksburg High School Principal Chris Stewart. “By weaving real-world connections into every lesson, he transforms French from a subject into a lifelong passion, inspiring his students to not only speak the language but to truly love the journey of learning.”
He will now be reviewed by a state committee to possibly be recognized as the Virginia teacher of the year.
Marye looks back at those years when he was truly an outsider in a foreign county as teenager.
“I did not know the language and did not initially fit in at school. If someone reached out, perhaps they might discover my music taste. If only they knew how much I loved soccer, maybe I’d be invited to a pick-up game. I felt invisible, lost, and connectionless. Little did I know how profoundly these experiences abroad would shape not only my career choice, but also deeply influence how intentionally I strive to build bridges for my students,” Marye said.
His road to the French curriculum is not your typical one, and he admits he never started out to teach the language in public education. Marye graduated from Wheaton College where he studied modern languages with a concentration in French, but again, there were no plans to teach.
In 1999, he got married and moved to Alaska, working as a camp counselor and at several production jobs. He had no teaching experience when he started private teaching of French and Spanish. This led to a job at the Appomattox Virginia Governor’s School to teach a mix of the two languages.
When friends moved to Floyd, Marye and his wife fell in love with the area. They moved to Floyd in 2008.
Before coming to Blacksburg High School, he taught Spanish at Floyd County High School.
Now, he uses those early experiences in the classroom and shares them with other instructors in southwest Virginia, helping to form the Southwest Virginia World Language Consortium, which gives language teachers in this end of state an opportunity to learn from others.
“Just as I enrich my students’ learning experience, I work to support my region’s world language colleagues. In greater southwest Virginia, world language educators commonly experience isolation. Often, they are one of the only world language teachers in their buildings or even across their divisions,” Marye said.
In his teaching, Marye remembers a Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”
“I intentionally center my students, their interests, opinions, and life experiences in my lessons,” he said.
His hands-on approach has been a breath of fresh air for students like sophomore Siyah Jaitty.
“I have never had teacher like him in my life. He does so much for every student in class, and provides so many opportunities for us to experience,” she said.
One of the most impactful connections includes bringing native speakers from the French-speaking world into his classroom.
“My French II and III learners exchange letters with their pen pals at our partner school in Troyes, France. Upper-level students have engaged in a Zoom workshop with a Canadian slam poet. This fall, my learners expressed how excited they were, actually comprehending the French of a group we welcomed from Normandy, where I had traveled with students last June,” Marye said.
He is working on a grant with a history teacher at Blacksburg High School to bring an educator and 25 of his students from Lyon, France, for a day of interchange focused on 250 years of democracy.
Of course, like others in the education field, COVID affected everything Marye was able to accomplish. It was a time which had to include new ways of thinking and educating.
“The 2020-21 school year brought immense challenges for everyone in public education to figure out how to keep students connected and engaged. The novel requirements of Covid protocols, a disjointed learning environment, and anxiety-inducing uncertainties had educators asking serious questions about how to stay motivated and whether to even remain in the profession,” he said.
One of the methods, which came from that difficult time, was the idea of “La Manie Musicale,”, a music madness very similar to the NCAA March Madness Top 64 tournament. It has grown into an interactive, international phenomenon with the 2025 edition uniting over 800,000 elementary to high school students in over 15 countries. The premise is a March Madness-style bracket highlighting 16 songs from the French-speaking world where students choose the winners.
“We must connect with our students. We must connect our students to each other. We must connect our learners in a personal way to their learning. We must connect them with their local, regional, national, and global communities. It is imperative that teachers play a vital role by intentionally building cohesive and supportive classes for all of our learners, despite the grade level, subject area or content difficulty,” Marye said.
As the French instructor would say “apprendre le français devrait être amusant”, or in English “Learning French should be fun.”
