Longtime Edgecomb Eddy School teacher Jennifer Gosselin is reluctant to take credit for being named to Maine's “Starting 9” team of extraordinary educators.

When she's throwing out a ceremonial pitch at a Portland Sea Dogs game June 14 in connection with the award, she'll feel like she is doing it on behalf of everyone at the Edgecomb school, she said.

The awards, which come with a $500 cash prize, are a collaboration between UNUM and the Sea Dogs, Edgecomb Eddy's Dean of Students Lisa Clarke said.

“We're all part of a team here,” Gosselin, 49, of Boothbay said at the school May 23. “We're very close, and we all work together very well.”

Gosselin has taught in Edgecomb for 18 of the 27 years she's been a teacher. This school year, she switched jobs at the school after 17 years teaching kindergarten. She now works with small groups of students from kindergarten through sixth grade, on math and literacy.

“I was anxious to do something fresh,” she said.

She was still teaching kindergarten when it moved to all-day. That made it more of a challenge to keep students interested, but the school found success with scheduling kindergarteners' art and other classes known as “specials” in the afternoon, she said.

Another teaching challenge has been the increased academic rigors for younger grades nowadays. “It's more than just the ABC's and 1-2-3's,” Gosselin said. Today's kindergarteners now learn things their predecessors didn't get to until first grade.

Working in Edgecomb as long as she has, first at the former school and now the current one, Gosselin gets to see her past students develop their personalities and grow as learners as they move through the grades.

“I had them for the first year when they were little children, but I get to see them all seven years,” she said. “I've always loved watching them go on and grow up, seeing how far they've come.”

Clarke nominated Gosselin for the “Starting 9” award.

“She's a rock solid employee,” Clarke said. “She's thorough in whatever she does. She's consistent, she's professional, a real team player.”

“Jennifer really is the type of teacher who can do any job and do it well. She has a great sense of humor, and she's always pleasant to students, to co-workers and to parents,” Clarke said May 22.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.