IRMO, S.C. — Inside Dr. Kendrick Barnes’ sixth-grade English Language Arts class, lessons come to life in full color.

“This classroom speaks to my personality. There's lots of colors in here to represent just different perspectives. Everything is not always black and white. Life is not that way. So different colors can be different things. And it just shows that one way is not always the way, and that's what I love and why I teach ELA,” says Dr. Barnes.

Dr. Barnes designed his classroom at Irmo Middle to spark creativity.

"Every day I wake up, and I'm fulfilling my purpose of being a teacher. So, I know that I want to do this for a very, very long time," says Dr. Barnes.

And that purpose started young. He remembers 'borrowing' pages from his teacher’s grade books.

"I would go home a

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