For a student, seeing a teacher outside of the school setting can be strange, but the students of David Burns, Poly’s Advanced Placement Psychology teacher, have to get used to it.
Mr. Burns teaches part time, coming every day for first period, and teaching seventh and ninth periods every other day.
During the time when he is not at Poly, Burns plays guitar at Disneyland in a Celtic bluegrass fusion band called Sligo Rags.
Burns’ life as a musician began a little less than forty years ago. “I actually learned to play the banjo [first]. When I was fourteen, I played bluegrass banjo, so I took lessons, I got pretty good at it, and my teacher decided that he had taught me everything he could,” said Burns. “He decided that it was natural that I progressed to guitar, so I did, and the rest is history.”
Mr. Burns feels extremely lucky to be living the life that he is. His two passions throughout his life were music and psychology, and he gets to do both.
“It’s getting paid for doing something that you love to do, something that you worked really hard to get good at, and something that you got into because you had a passion for it,” says Burns.
Being a musician and a teacher is like living a double life, Burns says. So students, don’t just assume that your teacher goes home every day thinking about his classes and grading homework. It may be surprising, but teachers have lives, too.
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