Northern Nash art teacher selected as top finalist for national honors
Jan 29, 2024 Rocky Mount Telegram
Northern Nash High School art teacher Shelly Maloney is a 2023 National Society of High School Scholars Educator of the Year finalist.
Maloney has worked as ceramics and visual arts teacher for 10 years in Nash and Wilson counties. At Northern Nash High School, she teaches fundamentals through advanced methods creating pottery and other visual arts.
Maloney, who learned of being named to the list last month, said it was an honor to have been selected as a finalist.
“I’m really honored. I was really surprised,” Maloney said. When asked why she got into teaching and why she sticks with it, she replied, “I get to do what I love every day, and it doesn’t feel like work,” Maloney said.
The National Society of High School Scholars is an honors and scholarship program co-founded by Claes Nobel and James Lewis. It offers a lifetime of benefits, pairing the highest performing students worldwide with high school and college scholarships, events, connections, internships and career opportunities.
Program spokeswoman Sarah Ciuba said Maloney is teaching students that their art can impact people’s lives in a positive way.
“Each year, Maloney’s intermediate pottery students create miniature sculptures. They fire them, glaze them, and spend a month perfecting them,” Ciuba said. “At the end of the project, they are each given tags to place on their sculptures for the recipients that will be receiving them and they leave the sculptures out in public areas for total strangers to find. The tags have a note letting the recipient know the sculpture is theirs to keep and that someone wanted them to know they are loved. Maloney now sees her students’ sculptures around the community, even sitting on a desk at the bank.”
Students in Maloney’s classes learn how to use their art as a way to spread joy to others and as a healthy emotional release for themselves. She leads various clubs, including the National Arts Honor Society, the Pottery Club and Positive Impact, which provides community service art projects for the school, the community and local businesses.
Maloney was selected as a top-10 finalist because of her hard work and dedication.
“Whether it’s in the teaching of preschool children, community mural projects or painting ceiling tiles for cancer patients, her students use what they learn to change the world for the better,” Ciuba said. “As they mature, many choose to go into professions other than art, but no matter where they end up, they keep the life lessons they learned in Maloney’s class.”
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