Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning

Dying to love is the most tragic, heartbreaking story about the strength of a couple faced with cancer and the will to live. Barbara is a strong woman who fears death and fights to leave behind lessons of love because she wants to leave the world knowing her family will be ok, especially her husband. The tragedy is how much she lived and loved life. It is the most intimate love story I have ever known. The love her husband has for her is the love we all want for ourselves. I have never known a greater love story. Rose Lisboa

In Dying to Teach, Jeff Berman presents a story that will touch anyone who has gone through a serious illness with a beloved family member. He is honest about his emotions and I found it quite moving. There is a section of photos in the center that made Barbara a real person - not a character in a book. It is also important reading for anyone trying to write meaningfully about personal experiences, as well as for teachers of writing. For the sake of full disclosure, I must admit that my daughter was a student of Professor Berman's, and I have heard him speak on this topic.

In reading the other review of this book, I was a taken by surprise. As a past student of Jeff Berman, I can honestly say that the other reviewer's concern of students telling Jeff what he wanted to hear for fear of grading is absurd. His point is not to compliment himself, but to show readers how emotions have an important place in the classroom, and in writing, it is difficult and confining when professors expect emotion to be kept out of the classroom. Writing is theraputic. "Teachers and students who are not ashamed to be moved to tears, who respond to reading and writing assignments with genuine empathy--are those who are most profoundly affected by education." I can attest to the truth of this statement. All of Jeff Berman's books will teach the readers how to become better writers and more empathic people in every day life.

I wanted to like DYING TO TEACH more than I did, for the author, I firmly believe, wants to help others and unveil the compassion lodged within each of us like a beating heart. Unfortunately, the book is far too long and Professor Berman dwells on the tragedy of his wife's death until he comes up with thee idea of using it as a teaching tool, which I thought pretty crass. He says that this is what his wife would have wanted, but I don't know. He quotes copiously from his students' papers. "I sought to transport [my students] to a different emotional realm, one that involved nothing less than the contemplation of life and death." The fifteen students who heard Jeff Berman deliver his eulogy for Barbara might have felt otherwise, but they would have seemed like monsters if they responded in any way other than as they did. When he asked them, "Was it appropriate for me to read the eulogy for my wife in class?" 13 of his 15 students responded vigorously, Yes, Professor, quite appropriate. I feel that this sampling might have been skewed by grade concerns. And also common etiquette and human decency. So then he prints pages from his students' essays, all of them thanking him profusely for allowing them to cry and to feel. I hate to say Bah humbug, but if he cut out half the compliments to himself that his students felt compelled to write, the book would have been a heck of a lot shorter and a heck of a lot more appropriate. "Teachers and students who are not ashamed to be moved to tears," he learns, "who respond to reading and writing assignments with genuine empathy--are those who are most profoundly affected by education." Case definitely not proven if you ask me. And yet I hesitate before slating this book because I do believe some impressionable students and teachers might improve their empathy by reading it. In that way it would be a suitable memorial for the exquisite and charismatic Barbara. As Professor Berman reminds us, Emerson once said that a foolish consistency if the hobgoblin of little minds.