Biography
Burns served in the infantry during the Vietnam War. He then served in the Baltimore Police Department for twenty years. Following his retirement from the police force he became a teacher in the Baltimore public school system. Burns has said that he stumbled into teaching with little preparation because of the intense demand for teachers in inner-city schools. Burns taught seventh grade. Psychologically, he compared the experience of teaching to the Vietnam War. He found the experience profoundly challenging because of the emotional damage that the vast majority of his students had already experienced before reaching the classroom. He saw his primary role as instilling caring behavior in his pupils. He felt his major impact was in giving the children an example of an "adult who's consistent, who's always there, who always comes through with what he said, then that's a new world for them."
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