Victoria Kelly, a math teacher at Pearl River Central High School, has been selected as Nissan of Picayune’s Teacher of the Week.

Kelly teaches Algebra I, II and advanced placement Calculus and has been teaching in the Pearl River County School District for the past eight years. She has been a teacher since 2003.

Her favorite part of teaching is seeing her students have those “ah-ha” moments.

“There is something amazing that happens when a student gets a concept that they had been struggling with previously,” Kelly said. “I also love it when former students come back to visit and tell me all the wonderful things that they have been doing since graduation.”

The most important thing she wants her students to take away from her class is that mistakes can be the best way to learn.

“You have to accept your mistakes and grow from them,” Kelly said. “The most important thing in life is to become the best that you can be.”

A unique thing that her students may not know about her is that she is passionate about math, a trait that has caused her peers to refer to her as a nerd or geek.

“In the last few years I have embraced those words and have transformed them into positive things in my classroom. I encourage all of my students to embrace their inner nerd, even if what they get nerdy about isn’t math,” Kelly said.