You can go home again

Young teacher gives back to the school system she was brought up in

 When Ashley Johnson was in high school, she took close notice as the beautiful new Orchard Gardens School on Albany Street was being built.

Every time she returned home during break while attending Spelman College in Atlanta, she would watch the school evolve as she drove by to meet friends or visit her grandmother nearby. She even got a  job there the summer of her junior  year.

Next week, Johnson’s experience with the school will come full circle when the 22-year-old starts her first year as a fifth-grade teacher — with the hope of giving back to the same school system she grew up in.

“I feel an immense amount of joy and peace to finally realize I’m here,” Johnson said, as she prepared her classroom Thursday, moving books, desks and school supplies around with help from her mother, Margaret, and sister, Jessica.

Though school hasn’t even begun yet, Johnson already knows what her classroom’s theme will be — “You were born to flourish.” It’s the title of a poem she got on a card from a man at her church when she was 16, and it’s a statement she has always taken to heart and has come to make her own.

“That’s my message now for my students, what I want them to leave with,” she said.

Ever since she was young, becoming a teacher has been on Johnson’s radar. As a child, she ran her own classroom on the front porch of her Dorchester home. She recalls “playing school” with her sister and friends, making uniforms, working in old notebooks collected from her teachers and even going out for recess afterward.

“She’s always wanted to be a teacher,” said Ashley’s mother, Margaret. “She’s so psyched.”