Cover story:

Awakened again

A teacher moves from empathy to prayer to gratitude

Can a teacher ever have too much empathy?” asked the middle-aged administrator with the black slicked-back hair on my first interview for a teaching job. He asked it with a smirk, seeming to enjoy watching me squirm at the small table as I probed my mind for some form of an intelligent response. My trickling fountains of sympathy were overflowing back then—fresh from student teaching at an urban school in Waterloo, Iowa.

Randy Bergman shares empathy and math skills with middle-school students in Hammond, Wis.

I had come into direct contact with children of all races, refugees from war-torn Bosnia, impoverished families and abusive homes. Twelve-year-olds who had no one in their life to truly call mom or dad or a real place to call their home consumed my thoughts. I was with these children for just a short time. So my hesitant answer to this man’s question was a reluctant but somewhat confident: “Yes, a teacher can become so filled with emotions for his students that it may get in the way of his ability to teach.”

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