Christian Teacher of the Year: Rachel Burrow turns heads with ability to inspire students’ love of God, country

How many Americans today have even read the Federalist Papers, much less talked about them at dinner parties? How many on the street could even say what they are?

As Ben Stein might ask: Anyone? Anyone?

Yet, students in Rachel Burrow’s 8th grade history class at Bob Jones Academy in Greenville, South Carolina have been known to go home and seek out the 85 essays by Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay that made the case for ratifying the U.S. Constitution.

On their own. Not as a class assignment. She simply inspired them to want to know. 

This isn’t just a teacher. This is a world-class motivational speaker. For both God and country. 

With an audience of 8th graders, no less. 

And that’s just one reason Rachel Burrow is one of just 12 instructors across the country named 2024 Christian Teacher of the Year by the Herzog Foundation, publisher of The Lion. 

Coincidentally a graduate of Bob Jones University in Greenville, Burrow uses skits, costumed role-playing and Continental Congress debates with real-world talk of taxes – not just names and dates – to bring American history alive for her eager-to-learn middle-schoolers. 

“I want them to love history,” she tells The Lion. “Do I want them to know facts? Yes. Do I want them to know things? Sure. I want them to leave my class going, ‘I want to go learn about that on my own. I see the need to know more about that.’  

“I want to give them a glimpse of it, so that history is not a dull textbook that they were forced to read and answer questions on and get a good grade on, and then when they leave my class they never open a textbook again – because unfortunately, that’s how I was taught history. I was taught history through: read the textbook, answer these questions, lecture for this long. And it was very dry. It never came alive.  

“And so, I feel like first – especially the level I’m at, for 8th grade – I want it to be fun. I want it to come alive.” 

But even more important than the love of country in Burrow’s classroom is the love for God. 

Burrow admits being dogged by a haunting humility that even had her calling her husband during her visit to the award-bestowing Herzog Foundation this summer and telling him, “Why am I here? I have no idea why I’m here.” 

Still, she has to acknowledge the overwhelming support she gets from grateful parents. 

“I think the feedback that I’ve gotten back the most is, ‘My kid loves you. And you’ve helped them love history.’ 

“And it’s such a simple feedback. But you know, boy, isn’t that why we’re teachers – for us to make an impact? 

“And sometimes it’s so discouraging. Satan’s lies can be so loud, like, ‘You’re not making a difference. You’re not good enough. That lesson was terrible.’ That’s what I hear [in my head] a lot. But when someone says to me, ‘Oh, my kid loves you and you have sparked a love of learning and a love of history,’ that’s where it’s like, OK. That’s great. I feel like mission accomplished.” 

As the child of two Christian educators – “I saw what a difference it made in other students’ lives as well as my life” – it’s that relationship with Jesus that comes first and foremost in Burrow’s classroom. 

It all starts with humility. 

“I believe that a biblical worldview first begins with a recognition of my failings and hope found only in my heavenly Father who desires a relationship with me,” she writes in an essay for her award. 

“By loving my students, I hope to give them a glimpse of their heavenly Father’s deep abiding love for them. In and out of the classroom, I strive to engage and love my students while sitting with them at lunch, talking in the hallways, and going to their extracurricular concerts, games and events. 

“Building these relationships allows me a greater opportunity in the classroom to speak into their lives with Scripture and hopefully demonstrate the love of our Father whose love is ever abiding.” 

Burrow disciples her students in part by admitting her own vulnerabilities. 

“I think I’m authentic with kids [about] my struggles in my Christian walk and that I haven’t arrived,” she tells The Lion. “It allows them the freedom to say, ‘You know, Ms. Burrow, I’m struggling here.’ And I’d be like, ‘I am too. We both need Jesus, you know?’” 

Burrow takes inspiration from Jesus’ method of discipleship to guide her in her own. 

“How did He make disciples? How did He go about it? I think He met people where they were at, and He loved them so fully that they knew nothing else than to follow Him.” 

Burrow’s colleagues see her discipleship in action, which they look up to even above her lofty teaching abilities – which is a key attribute at a school whose mission statement is “Eternity matters more.” 

“Rachel deserves to be recognized for how she teaches her content in the classroom but more importantly how she loves and supports her students and their families,” Bob Jones middle school Principal Larry McCrum writes of her. 

“I have witnessed multiple times students running to get to her class because they were excited about what they were learning within her classroom. I have asked her students what makes her class so exciting. 

“The consensus is not the content she is teaching but rather how she is teaching it. She makes learning exciting without jeopardizing our high academic standards.” 

Having been the principal’s daughter while growing up was a confusing, confounding paradox: On the one hand, her father was understandably stricter with her than other students, while on the other hand her peers saw her as the principal’s pet. 

But her parents’ love, and love for God, was omnipresent, and Burrow would “marvel” at her music-teacher mom’s ways. 

“More than anything, I knew that they chased after Jesus, and they loved Jesus. They passed on that faith to me in the way that they lived; my mom especially lived it out, and I saw her live it out.” 

It’s the same legacy she’s leaving her Federalist Paper-reading students. 

The Christian Teacher of the Year honor is part of the Herzog Foundation’s Excellence in Christian Education award series. Each of the 12 winners will attend a special professional development and recognition event in Washington, D.C.