Posted by old WMAQ-AM listener on July 27, 2009 at 12:42:32:
Radio reporter turned teacher learns lessons from the kids
By Robert McCoppin | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 7/23/2009 12:02 AM
Former radio reporter Dave Berner started a new career while his father was dying from cancer and his marriage was falling apart.
The saving grace to that troubled time was that, while Berner was becoming a teacher, he learned as much from his students as they did from him. The result is a new book, "Accidental Lessons: A Memoir of a Rookie Teacher and a Life Renewed."
Berner had worked for WMAQ's all-news AM radio station in the 1990s, but then left broadcasting for a golf Web site, which ended up losing money.
Lost and disillusioned, Berner had taught as an adjunct at the college level, so he decided to give teaching a try full-time.
A resident of Naperville, Berner ended up at Cowherd Middle School in Aurora, close to home but a world away from the life he knew.
Students at Cowherd included a lot of poor, troubled kids who didn't read or write English well, and he frequently had to deal with gang issues.
Berner heard students talk about their brothers dealing drugs or being shot the night before.
Despite his eighth graders' rough life, Berner said, "I found out there's good in everybody. It sounds cliched but it's true. The moment I gave them any kind of respect, they gave it back."
One girl - Berner's "problem child," as other teachers called her - constantly challenged him, questioning him, never doing homework, breaking the rules. She had problems at home, and she became his project. One day, she asked Berner why he was calling her mother at home.
He said he was trying to work with her mom to get her into high school. After a pause, the girl asked, "Are you trying to date my mother?"
She actually wanted Berner to date her mother, probably because she was missing a father figure in her life.
She ended up getting into high school, and telling Berner he was the best teacher she ever had.
At the end of the year, the school has Dress Up Day, when the students can dress pretending to be someone else.
Some of the students wanted to dress as Berner, but didn't have ties, so he gave them a bunch of old ties. That day, lots of students dressed like Berner.
"Do you realize they're trying to be you?" the principal asked him. "That's really a breakthrough for these kids."
Berner, 52, with two sons himself. now teaches radio journalism at Columbia College in Chicago, and said the book is about rediscovering oneself.
"I found out what I really love to do," he said. "I found out what my passion was. And I found out about myself through these kids."
www.davidwberner.com