media by Elly Brooks

English teacher, Mary Burnham, reads her novel while her freetime during period 7 Nov. 14. Burnham loves to read novels, “Song of Achilles” and “What My Bones Know”, for fun and also with her two book clubs she participates in. “My favorite book is Song of Achilles,” Burnham said.

As you walk into the classroom, students are greeted by a big smile covering the face of Mary Burnham, AP Seminar and English I Honors teacher. 

The room is covered with pictures, dotted candles burning and stuffed animals littered about. She welcomes her students with open arms, asking about their day and how they are.

As she starts talking, she doesn’t jump right into content, but exchanges light and easy small talk with each of her students, giving students a second to catch their breath from the last class and take a break. 

Burnham has been teaching English for 19 years: two years at Rocky Heights Middle School and seven years at Rock Canyon, with the earlier parts of her career spent teaching in California. She grew up in both Wheat Ridge, Colorado, and San Diego, California. 

Burnham attended college at UC Irvine, California, experiencing very studious and educational college years. 

“It was very studious, and academic, and I very much value my education, but it was not a social experience,” Burnham said. 

During her childhood, Burnham grew up with three sisters. Her adventurous older sister, whom she was closer to due to age, grew closer and got into all kinds of mischief together. 

“My older sister had an unchaperoned 16th birthday party. I don’t know why my parents decided that was okay,” Burnham said. “I was only 11, and during the party, she decided to go pick up her boyfriend, who lived in Cherry Creek. While driving back, my dad’s truck broke down. She didn’t even have her license yet and I was back at the house supervising this massive party.”

She has been married to her husband, Tony Burnham, for 27 years. The pair met each other at Bojo’s up in the mountains, when she started working there, she and him were coworkers–even despite their managers telling them to stay away from each other. 

“The manager of the store interviewed me and he said, ‘We’re gonna give you the job, but you have to stay away from Tony Burnham.’ Then they told him, ‘We hired a new hostess, but you have to stay away from her.’ That just obviously intrigued both of us too much, obviously. Then, it was love at first sight. As soon as I saw him I was, ‘Oh, I’m head over heels in love’,” Burnham said. 

During her career, Burnham did lots of fun projects with her kids, but with those projects some crazy stories also accompany them. 

“So, a couple many years ago, I used to do this project for The Tell Tale Heart project where kids would make these really neat creative projects. Then, one year when school started, I couldn’t figure out why my room smelled so terrible. It was the worst smell you could ever possibly imagine like something was dying. So, I figured out that it was mostly coming out of my closet in my classroom. I went digging in there and then I realized a kid had used a real turkey heart in his Tell Tail Heart Project, and it was making the whole classroom smell,” Burnham said. 

Along with her love of teaching, Burnham also enjoys reading, with her book clubs, with her family and also while teaching at school. 

Her favorite book, “Song of Achilles,” has always stuck out to her, and remembers it to this day. Her current read is “What My Bone Know,” exploring an interesting story about trauma and PTSD. 

“It’s interesting. It’s about this lady who used to work for this American light on NPR. She tells a story about how she has been healing from complex PTSD and being abused as a child. Also, experiencing epigenetics, which is when you’ve experienced some kind of complex trauma, can actually change your DNA and it can be passed on to kids. She has that on top of being abused, they did all these studies,” Burnham said. 

Burnham’s love for books, her classroom, family and teaching allows for a fun and loving classroom kids can come to.