Most seventh graders can tell you their favorite subject, name a hobby, and describe their weekend plans. Maya Daskalov can do all of that — in Japanese. Her mother, who grew up in Japan, has made a point of keeping the language alive at home. "My mom tries to use as much Japanese as she can so I can remember," Maya says. Her father, who is originally from Bulgaria, is more relaxed about it. English is fine, he tells her. Maya is working on Spanish and French on her own, through Duolingo, because apparently two languages weren't enough.

She is 12 years-old and in seventh grade at Byron Middle School.

Maya's parents met at UW Plateville , two people from opposite ends of the world who landed in the same college town. Her mother now teaches at a Montessori private school in Rockford. Her father is an aerospace engineer at Collins Aerospace, also in Rockford, building components for aircraft. Maya has two older brothers — a senior and a sophomore at Byron High School — both of whom play soccer.

The family travels seriously. Every summer, they try to alternate between Japan and Bulgaria — visiting her maternal grandparents in one country, her paternal great-aunt and great-grandmother in the other. A trip to Bulgaria once extended into a side visit to Barcelona, where Maya remembers the colored glass rooftops of the architecture vividly. They've done road trips to Key West, to Yellowstone, where buffalo wandered close to the road, and to Mount Rushmore. "It was really amazing," she says of Rushmore. "The statues are huge." She describes Bulgaria as beautiful and outdoorsy. Japan, she says simply, is "beautiful and has amazing foods."

At school, Maya's favorite subject is language arts — fitting, given her comfort with words in multiple forms. She's been named Student of the Week once this year and once last year, and Student of the Month this year. She's modest about what earned her those recognitions. "I think it's just having decent grades and helping others," she says, "and if that catches a teacher's eye." The perks are modest but appreciated: a small pin for her bag and a lunch line pass. Student of the Month means she gets to use it all month long.

She plays soccer through the park district, competing against teams from Winnebago, Oregon, and other area towns. She's a midfielder — up and back, the position that asks the most of your legs — and scored three goals during the indoor season this past winter. Her team just started its outdoor season, and she's quietly confident about it. Outside of soccer, she rollerblades in her neighborhood after school when the weather cooperates. She's thinking about pediatric medicine as a future path.

Earlier in her school years, Maya was briefly homeschooled. Online learning covered second grade during COVID, and her mother taught her through third grade before she returned to school for fourth. She talks about it without much drama — it was calm, flexible, and ended quickly each day. Coming back to a classroom wasn't a hard transition. She's been here ever since.

When asked what she'd tell readers about how to be a good person, Maya doesn't reach for anything complicated. "Keep going no matter what, and eventually you'll get the biggest reward possible," she says. She means it practically: work hard at something long enough, and you get good at it. Put the same effort into friendships, and those last a long time, too. And if someone is mean to you? She doesn't roll her eyes or shrug it off. "I try to talk to them and ask why," she says. 

"There has to be a reason." It's a remarkably grounded answer from a 12-year-old. Then again, a kid who has navigated two languages, three countries, and a world that is considerably bigger than most of her classmates' has probably had some practice figuring people out.