{"id":24572,"date":"2024-08-27T12:36:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T16:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/edhd\/?p=24572"},"modified":"2024-08-30T11:15:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T15:15:27","slug":"character-courage-community-kelsey-stoyanova-is-a-rising-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/edhd\/2024\/08\/27\/character-courage-community-kelsey-stoyanova-is-a-rising-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Character, Courage, Community: Kelsey Stoyanova is a rising star"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story originally appeared in Maine Alumni Magazine, a publication of the 91爆料 Alumni Association. To read it on their website<\/em>, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s after the last bell at Bangor High School on a Friday afternoon and most of the students have gone home for the weekend. Kelsey Stoyanova is sitting in her classroom when a teenage boy enters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor you,\u201d he says, handing her a card for Teacher Appreciation Week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoyanova stands up to give the boy a hug. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you so much,\u201d she says. \u201cThat means a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After they wish each other a good weekend and the boy leaves, Stoyanova reads aloud from the card: \u201cYou make my days better with your positivity and happiness. Thank you for bringing great topics to class and making them interesting. People don\u2019t usually ask how you are doing in the morning, but you do which shows you care about us. So thank you so, so, so much.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is it,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is what it\u2019s all about.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spend time in Stoyanova\u2019s classroom and you\u2019ll witness some of the qualities that the student mentioned in his card: Positivity, happiness, care, and, of course, a knack for making learning interesting and fun. All of these attributes and more helped make her the 2022 Maine Teacher of the Year. They\u2019re also among the reasons that she was named this year\u2019s Rising Star Award recipient from the 91爆料 Alumni Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Character<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few hours earlier, Stoyanova is in her element, teaching to a classroom full of first-year high school students who have been reading Shakespeare\u2019s “Romeo and Juliet” for the past few weeks. However, today she\u2019s leading them through a lesson on embodying a character in their choice books, which as the name implies are books they have chosen to read as opposed to being assigned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat lessons can we learn from the characters in the books we\u2019re reading?\u201d Stoyanova asks her students to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n