Andrea Burk: Teachers Touching Lives Finalist

Teachers Touching Lives

      

When you get a kindergarten teacher that has been teaching for 36 years, you know one of two things to be true: she’s either crazy or your child has just been blessed with the woman by whom all future teachers will be measured. With Andrea Burk, you get the latter.
Once your child becomes one of “Burk’s Bunch”, they have just entered not only a classroom of learners, but a family full of love, laughter, wonder, imagination, and dreams. Sure, Mrs. Burk can tell you of academic progress, current teaching trends, and the like, but her eyes light up when she tells you about the kindness she sees, the ability to collaborate to solve problems, or how the children take care of and love one another. She so faithfully demonstrates love, joy, patience, and forgiveness to each child that this sense of family weaves its way through to how the children treat each other.

Mrs. Burk’s energy and zest for meaningful teaching and learning NEVER slows down. With her years of experience, she could easily recycle things that have worked in the past and coast through, but she doesn’t. The last day of the first semester, when many classrooms have taken down trees and cleaned up in anticipation of the break, Andrea’s tree is still glowing, FULL of hand made ornaments, and her tables have been rearranged to transform the room into the Polar Express for one more glorious day of fun. The stories of the commitment Andrea has as she devotes herself to helping her babies love to learn are legendary throughout Helena. There was the year that she converted her room to a baseball field the last week of school to keep students engaged until the end, or the time she turned the room into a campsite- complete with thematic reading and math stations that complemented learning requirements, or the countless Mother’s Day Teas she has hosted throughout the years. All of these things are well beyond what’s required to do, but she enthusiastically does them because she LOVES her babies. This year, in a time of so many changes, fears and uncertainties, Mrs. Burk has once again made her kindergarten classroom a place of safety, wonder, imagination and learning. To the woman who sets the bar unimaginably high for all future teachers, THANK YOU, and may you be blessed over and above for all you do.

Nominated by: Ashley Belew, parent of student