BURNS continued from 19 “This school has so much history. That’s why I love it; the feeling I get when I walk though the doors in the morning,” she said. As it has for the past four decades, the high-performing magnet school draws students from throughout Richmond County. Burns, who grew up in south Augusta, attended elementary and middle school at the K-8 facility before earning her diploma at nearby A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet School. Burns attended both Paine College and Augusta University after graduating in 2006, but she never completed her degree. She acknowledges she was rudderless as a young adult, neither building a sustainable career nor working toward he childhood goal. “It was a period of time where I just wanted to do some soul searching,” she said, adding that she worked various jobs in Augusta before moving to Atlanta. “I always ended up in some kind of training role, which is a form of teaching. I think maybe around this time I decided to go back to school. I said, ‘I know this is my calling.’ It was something that I prayed about. It was something that was continuously revealed to me.” She finished her degree at Troy University in 2016, taking a job teaching first grade at the DeKalb County School District’s DeKalb Academy of Technology & Environment in Stone Mountain, Ga. Burns was enjoyed living in suburban Atlanta and partaking in its big-city amenities. Then she got homesick. “I was in Atlanta for five years,” she said. “I loved the school that I was at. I loved the kids. I loved the team. I loved the school administrators. I definitely enjoyed my time there, but I just knew I had this feeling like a year before I moved. I was just ready to come back home.” She would take note of Augusta’s booming economy when visiting her mother and her stepfather, who was a former ROTC instructor at Glenn Hills High School. Burns, who grew up attending Augusta’s Mount Cavalry Baptist Church (she’s now a member of Tabernacle Baptist Church), believes in the affirmations as described in Proverbs 18:21, which says “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” One night she made an affirmation: “If I move back to Augusta,” she said. “I will work at C.T. Walker Magnet School.” Two months later, a job for a first-grade teacher opened at C.T. Walker. She applied and was offered the job “five minutes” after C.T. Walker Principal Aletha Snowberger got off the phone with her principal at DeKalb Academy. “I do believe this is God’s plan,” Burns said. “I do believe it was already divinely ordered.” Burns said she enjoys teaching first graders because they are at an age where their “foundations are built.” It’s not always easy transitioning children from free-form kindergartners to structured students, but the challenge is what makes the job worthwhile. “I will say I have my moments, just like any other job where you get frustrated and tired, but I look forward to coming back every day,” said Burns, whose desk nameplate reads “Today Will Be Awesome.” “It does not feel like work at all. I love my students. I love what I do. I love when they have their ‘aha moments.’ It’s just really heartwarming to see someone six or seven years old look up to you.” Science, she said, is her favorite subject to teach because of the inherent opportunities for exploration. She said children enjoy learning about the natural world around them, such as weather patterns and how plants grow. She said children are essentially the same as they were when she was their age. With a few exceptions. “The real difference I see in kids today is the technology. If I ask ‘What did you do last night?’ They will say, ‘Oh, I was playing on my iPad,’ “ Burns said. “I remember when I was in first grade, I wanted to finish my homework so I could go outside and play. I was riding my bike. I was racing. I was jump-roping. I was playing with kids in the neighborhood. I don’t see a lot of that anymore; kids staying outside until the sun goes down and actually get a lot of physical activity.” Burns said she has enjoyed getting reacquainted with her old school, which earlier this year was recognized as a Blue Ribbon School, an honor bestowed by the U.S. Department of <strong>Education</strong> on only 362 schools nationwide this year. The award brought back memories for Burns, who had just left middle school when C.T. Walker was named a Georgia School of Excellence in 2003. She’s also indulged in nostalgia by thumbing through old yearbooks and class pictures in the school’s library, and showing students where her old classrooms used to be, and giving history lessons about the school’s principals, whose portraits hang on a wall in the school’s main corridor. But most of all, Burns enjoys being surrounded by colleagues committed to carrying on the legacy of the C.T. Walker school, a place that has left an indelible imprint on her life. “The teachers are here for the development and nurturing of students. That’s one of the reason I wanted to teach here is that I loved the teachers when I was a student here,” Burns said. “I do feel as if I was not only taught academically, but I was nurtured.” <strong>1736</strong>magazine.com | 76 1117_T_76_AM____.indd 76 10/25/<strong>2019</strong> 12:59:30 PM
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