“God put me on this Earth to be a teacher,” says Tanya Middleton Burton. Today, she teaches fifth grade at Rozelle Creative and Performing Arts Elementary, but when she first entered college, she was a business major. “I wasn’t passionate about that,” she says.
Her passion lies in educating students, and her career spans 23 years, with a few years taken off to be a stay-at-home mom to her sons, Carter and Jalen, when they were little. She’s called Rozelle optional school “home” for the last 13.
Her interest in becoming an educator may have sparked when she was the neighborhood babysitter as a teen. But she really credits her parents, who were both teachers, with helping steer her in that direction while she was a student at what was then Memphis State University.
“One day my mom said, ‘What do you love to do? You’re really good with children, just take a few education classes,’” Burton says. “And here I am.”
Sometimes teachers will place disruptive or troublemaking students at a desk close to them so they can keep an eye on them. Burton calls the one in her classroom the “teacher’s pet desk. Students really try to do their best work to sit at that desk,” she laughs.
You can hear the joy in her voice when she speaks of her students, and, she says, that’s something that hasn’t waned since her first job interview. She still recalls what the recruiter said: “I would love to have you be one of my child’s teachers.”
Burton’s enthusiasm is reflected in the numerous teaching awards and accolades she’s earned over the years, including having her students score in the top 95th percentile of proficient and advanced writers on standardized tests.
But it’s the impact on their lives long after they’ve left grade school that she finds so rewarding.
One such student, Sakinah, who happened to be the niece of a teacher who had a profound impact on Burton, came to her years later expressing her positive influence. When Sakinah was in college, the two crossed paths, and she told Burton, “You made such an impression on me that I want to be a teacher, too.”
That’s a huge compliment. And as for making that career switch from business to education, Burton says, “It was was the best decision I ever made.”