She's The Bomb: Kelsey Mann

Usually I write about someone more well-known or that has a big online prescence for this feature on my blog, but this time I wanted to highlight a really incredible young woman that I met two years ago and who found her way into my heart and mind quicker than any teacher ever has. I'm talking about my junior year AP English teacher, Kelsey Mann. As I've told her many times, from the first moment I walked into her classroom on the first day of my junior year, I knew "This lady is gonna be freaking amazing." Throughout the year Ms. Mann listened to me one on one about a lot of my academic and personal concerns, which I felt comfortable sharing with her because I had watched her be as expressive and emotionally vulnerable with our class on multiple occasions.
She always asks her students to consider various points of view in the novels they (sometimes reluctantly) read and knows how to reach out to the ones that just can't find their place in the classroom. Kelsey is a stellar activist and advocate who definitely succeeds at relating current events to classroom material. There were some of my peers that I never expected would be engaged in class but with Ms. Mann cleverly tying lessons about dramatic irony or character archetypes to sitcom episode, I saw their eyes light with interest. That is truly a teacher super power.
 It truly breaks my heart to know that I won't have the pleasure of seeing her every weekday now that I'm graduated from high school but I certainly have faith that one of the most influential people in my life will continue to open young hearts and minds in a way that nobody else really can.