WASHINGTON — Janis T. Gabay of San Diego, teacher of the year with a crystal apple and a presidential salute to show for it, says she once thought of quitting because she saw such lack of respect for her profession.

Ms. Gabay, honored for her national award at the White House on Wednesday, declared herself optimistic about U.S. education.

But she also said, in an interview, “It is very easy to become disillusioned from all that we hear outside of education itself. It feels like oftentimes we are not supported. We’re not acknowledged. We’re seen as those people who do those tasks, rather than as professionals.”

“That disappoints me and personally even affected me at one point where I really stopped to reconsider whether I was in the right profession,” said the high school English teacher.

Ms. Gabay said she is happy she was able to shake the doubts.

Maine’s teacher of the year, Bill Nave, of River Valley Alternative School in Turner, was one of four finalists for the national award.

Nave, who was in Washington for a tour with several of his students as the announcement was made, knew in advance he was not the winner.

“Janis is very much a traditional teacher in the traditional setting,” Nave said. “I’m not traditional. I don’t represent all teachers and all education. I’m a spokesman for change,” said Nave.

As national teacher, he would have to “carry the message of education present and past rather than the vision of education future that I see so clearly, and that America needs so desperately,” Nave, of Winthrop, told the Kennebec Journal in Augusta.

Ms. Gabay said she is “very optimistic about education.”

“I cannot be a teacher without being an optimist. I have great faith in the abilities of our students. That’s my job — to tap that, to elicit that, to bring out that performance. Every student is full of marvelous potential.”

She said teachers must be seen as professionals, who if given the support and resources, can push students to become top achievers.

Gaining respect is no problem for her personally, according to one student at San Diego’s Junipero Serra High School, where Ms. Gabay has taught 10th- and 12th-grade English the past 10 years.

Steve Nguyen, 17, said Wednesday, “I am Vietnamese and in my culture, the teacher has absolute power and respect. Here, teachers don’t get much respect. But Ms. Gabay gets it from her students. No one ditches this class.”

“To Ms. Gabay there is no wrong answer. That’s why she really can bring out the critical thinking in all of us,” the student said.

Ms. Gabay, 39, was born in Hawaii and came to San Diego as a child. A graduate of San Diego State University, she has been a teacher for 17 years in all.

As 1990 National Teacher of the Year, she said, “I stand for the superior teaching that does in fact occur in hundreds of classrooms across the country.”

As teacher of the year, Ms. Gabay said she will encourage various groups during her yearlong “ambassadorship” to work together to bring about quality education.

“I think it’s easy to be cynical, easy to dismiss and say `Yeah, more goals, right!’ But we must believe and strive toward better schools,” said Ms. Gabay. “I am a prototypical teacher of the 1990s,” she declared.