My Favorite Teacher is at Monta Vista High School

Sometimes playing favorites is a good thing, or so it turned out for teacher Joe Kim, regional winner of the Barnes & Noble My Favorite Teacher Contest.

Kim was presented with a NOOKcolor eBook Reader and a $500 Barnes & Noble gift card, which he promptly used to buy coffee drinks for all the students who showed up at Friday's award presentation ceremony at the Barnes & Noble on Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose.

Kim was nominated by his student Evaline Tsai, who wrote an essay entry that told of how Kim's teaching and influence helped her become a better math student.

"It was a lot of one-on-one teaching, which was really different from my past math teachers," Tsai says.

Kim deflected praise giving credit instead to Tsai saying it was her writing ability that won the regional contest, and placed Kim in the running with six other contestants for the national winner. Kim did not win the overall contest but walks away knowing that his work makes a difference.

"It's really an honor. I'm not sure if I feel like I deserve it or not," he says.

"I didn't know (Tsai) actually nominated me at all," Kim says. "And the morning she told me she nominated me she told me I was a winner and I was even more surprised, and when she told me what I won, I was like 'yeah.'"

But April Scott, principal of Monta Vista, says he surely does deserve the recognition.

That the nomination came from a student is even more important, she says.

"Teachers give day in and day out because they believe in what they do," Scott says. "Very rarely do teachers hear back...and when it comes back completely unsolicited it makes even more sweet."

Scott says she can identify with Kim's surprise at winning because Scott says she was shocked when she found out that she was named principal of the year by Fremont Union High School District earlier this year.

The My Favorite Teacher Contest asked students Kindergarten through grade 12 to nominate their favorite teacher by writing essays, as Tsai did, or poems or thank you letters to illustrate how the teacher has a positive impact on their lives.

Watch the video to see Tsai read her award-winning essay.