Intro to Radio
Download MP3Previously on Returning Student. It's the first day of school, and I'm walking around downtown Chicago with 100 of other students. Okay. It's been 30 minutes, and I've just about gotten to the corner. Every parent teacher conference was always a mixed bag.
David Geisler:I'd have 2 or 3 subjects that I was getting a's in and then 2 or 3 subjects that I was basically failing. I think I confused most of my teachers through grade school. They didn't really on my phone, kind of like holding it out in front of me like I'm doing an awkward FaceTime or something, kind of hearing the class on my AirPods. I'm honestly really embarrassed. I'm on Lakeshore Drive driving to work right now, and this is the day that I'll be officially submitting my 2 weeks notice.
David Geisler:And,
David Geisler:I do know that for the past 3 years, I've worked really hard to make this job be as much as it could be. And, I've just said goodbye to that by clicking this button. It's 9 PM, and my fiancee and I are in a small shack of a restaurant on the coast of Port Jimenez in Costa Rica. Consult Canvas for the schedule. School starts next week, and I just received my first syllabus on Canvas.
David Geisler:I go into the app and I download the PDF.
David Geisler:I think I think here we go. I think I've got the syllabus here. It was a little bit lower in the Word document.
David Geisler:This is the first time I've ever looked at a syllabus via PDF. I remember 20 years ago, you'd go into class on the 1st day and the professor would hand everyone a paper syllabus.
David Geisler:I don't see quizzes each week.
David Geisler:I look out over the water. The sun has just set, but the blue sky is still reflecting off the waves. Macy and I have been in this small fishing town for about a week.
David Geisler:This is just this one's pretty vague. This is like Monday. Responses number 3. Moving from researcher to writer.
David Geisler:We came to Costa Rica 2 weeks ago. Travel is important to Macy, and she wanted to get one more trip in before I started school. For me, all of this is new. I actually have never traveled outside of the country until this point. But a couple months ago, she found some inexpensive tickets to Costa Rica, so he got me set up with a passport and scheduled the trip.
David Geisler:Class policies?
David Geisler:Will fly home in a couple days, and school will start 1 or 2 days after that.
David Geisler:Then in the second project, students will each identify a conversation that they are interested in and follow a plan to research and compose a project. That sounds great.
David Geisler:It is beautiful here, but I do feel a little out of my element. I'm not much of a traveler even though I have nothing against it. Because of the other projects that I've had in my life, like the art gallery or podcast companies or whatever, I haven't actually traveled that much. But international travel is important to Macy and I want to support her passions as much as she supports mine. The 1st week, we found ourselves in a fancy Airbnb up in the mountains looking down on Costa Rica.
David Geisler:But the 2nd week, we set ourselves up to be in a small 6 room hotel in a tiny fishing village here in Port Jimenez. I'm more of a wilderness kind of guy, I guess. I really don't travel that much, but any downtime I have, I try to put myself in the middle of the woods where I can set up camp and just kind of find some peace and quiet and be in touch with nature. This fishing village is pretty rural. There's only about 4 blocks that actually have a paved street.
David Geisler:And, I have to admit, I I do enjoy it here. It's very beautiful. Twice a day, a small 10 person plane flies over the bay to drop a few people off and pick a few people up. It's the same plane we'll be taking to fly out of here to go to San Jose and then, of course, to fly back to America. As peaceful as this area is, I am feeling some stress as I start to look over the syllabus.
David Geisler:Identify, immerse themselves in and contribute to an intellectual conversation. Identify and evaluate a diversity of sources in library and online.
David Geisler:I just I'm just saying words. I don't even know
David Geisler:what I'm talking about. I'm literally just it's like I'm saying another language. Synthesize sources into a project that represents the complexity of perspectives involved. That's the thing when I read
David Geisler:this stuff. It's that it's like, I can technically read the words, but none
David Geisler:of it lands as as stuff that's a thing.
David Geisler:I'm not really proud of my reaction. I think I'm being a little bit of a punk, but it is how I'm feeling in the moment.
David Geisler:Points. You get points on things. 5 these are low points.
David Geisler:I don't have many good memories of traditional school, and I am a little nervous about getting back into that kind of system even if Columbia is essentially an art school.
David Geisler:But that's okay. I'm not trying to focus in on that. I just got confused.
David Geisler:I am looking forward to making more podcasts, however. And if any of these classes help me skill up, I, I'm genuinely looking forward to that.
CTA Announcer:Doors closing.
David Geisler:It's the 2nd day of school, and I'm on a red line train heading downtown.
CTA Announcer:Wilson is next.
David Geisler:After my very atypical first day, I'm looking forward to something a little more conventional. Today, I'll be heading to my intro to radio class. It's in the communications building, which is actually a new building for me. 20 years ago, I spent most of my time in the film and video building, which is about 5 blocks south of the building I'm heading towards today. I'm looking forward to it.
David Geisler:The WCRX radio station is on the 1st floor and I understand they have windows right there in the lobby that you can look in and see the DJ's working. My class will be up on the second floor. Sheridan is next. Newark's woman on the right. Hey, Sheridan.
David Geisler:The train's a little full this morning so I'm standing up looking out one of the large windows of the L train. I watch as buildings rush by. I look down and I see a dog park full of people and dogs flash by in a second. I like the red line. Eventually as the red line hits downtown it goes underground, but in this part of the track it stays elevated about 2 stories up and it gives you a really nice view of the city.
David Geisler:I feel the train slowly sway back and forth as it changes tracks to avoid some construction The entire north section of the Red Line is under construction for the next couple years. They're doing a full replacement of the track and the structures that hold the track. It should be pretty nice by the time it's done. In fact, sometimes construction causes delays so I actually got to the red line stop a little early today. Seems like we're moving along just fine so I'm going to get down to campus a little early.
David Geisler:Maybe Maybe I'll walk around a bit and explore some of the old stomping grounds. Okay. This is crazy. I, thought I'd walk around the campus a little bit and maybe check out my old dorm dorm building. It's over on Plymouth Court, 731 Plymouth Court, whatever.
David Geisler:And I I turned the corner here, and the building's still here, but it's, it's an apartment building now. Fit results 731 South 3 L Living. Boy, is this trippy? It's just this tiny this was this was the dorms. This was like the place where the dorms were.
David Geisler:And I'm taking a look here. I'm gonna look up at my actual room. It was 3rd floor. Oh, I see it right now. I see the room that I used to have my window open, and I feel like I should take a picture of it right now.
David Geisler:But this apparently isn't Columbia anymore. I wonder if they're part of the I think there's something called the super dorms that was built in the last 20 years, where maybe it's DePaul students, Roosevelt students, and Columbia students. Yeah. I'm looking into the window right now. I'm looking into the front door, and it looks like I see mailboxes and there are a lot of you know what though?
David Geisler:There are a lot of college age people walking in and out of this building. I wonder if it's a mix.
David Berner:I'll have
David Geisler:to find out. But there is there is not a single Columbia logo on here. Maybe it's just an apartment building that, like, people end up renting apartments at now to go to Columbia. I can see in the windows the gym. It looks like the gym is still the gym.
David Geisler:There's a ballet class going on down there right now. I'm gonna stop looking in there. I'm gonna stop being creepy. I see that the what used to be the commons what used to be the commons where we would, like, eat dinner and stuff is now a gym. Fit results.
David Geisler:Okay. Oh, wow. Crazy. Well, there it is. I guess I'm gonna walk to class.
David Geisler:But it is weird to be on this street again. I came by this way about 10 years ago. Just I was in Chicago and just took a lap. And I think back then, it was still the Columbia dorms. Right now, I'm walking on a sidewalk that I used to walk on every single day.
David Geisler:And there used to be, just about a 100 feet up here, there was like a a thrift shop where I bought a bunch of used furniture. Very cool. It's just inside a garage. And it looks like well, the garage door is still there, but it does not look like it's a business anymore. Plymouth Court.
David Geisler:Wow. Okay. Well, there it is. I found my way to the communications building and went up to the second floor. I've never been here before, but there's clearly a big studio in the center of the floor with a hallway looping around it.
David Geisler:My class turns out to be in the back of this loop in a small lecture room. Here we go. I can see a few students sitting in some of the chairs as I walk up to the little lecture room. My heart starts to race a little. Walking through this door, it's the first time I'll be walking into a classroom in 20 years.
David Geisler:And in some ways it feels like another one of these points of no return. Will I fit in? Will I just be some weird guy in the middle of the classroom? Will I know how to take notes? Will I feel comfortable participating in the lecture?
David Geisler:All of these questions race through my mind in a matter of seconds as I walk through the door. This lecture room is only about 5 or 6 rows deep, so I try to play it cool and I find a seat in the 3rd row a little bit to the left. The professor's up front, clicking around on the computer, getting ready for the class. He's He's playing some music on the speakers to lighten the mood. He's an older gentleman, well dressed but casual.
David Geisler:I can't quite get a read on him. In fact, I can't get a read on anybody because we all have our masks on, and all I can see is a bunch of eyes darting back and forth across the room. But the professor casually chats with us as we all sit down and get comfortable. His name is David Burner.
David Berner:But the modern day radio is the term is on
David Geisler:He introduces himself, and then he goes around the class and has each of us briefly do the same. I'd say there's about 18 kids in this class, maybe 20. There are a lot of different energy levels coming off of each student, but in general, the atmosphere is very positive. Professor Boerner starts the lecture, and I find it to be very interesting. It was stimulating.
David Geisler:I didn't know that I would be so curious about traditional, conventional, terrestrial radio making. After the class, I walk up to professor Berner, and I kind of tell him about this returning student project that I'm doing. I asked him if he'd be comfortable meeting with me and chatting a little bit, and without hesitation, he says, oh, yeah. No problem. So a couple weeks later, I set up a couple microphones in David Burner's office, and we begin to chat.
David Geisler:I will admit I did do some David Berner Googling, and I all this stuff started popping up. It was actually It was scary. It was actually pretty exciting. No. It was cool.
David Geisler:I was like, oh, Annie does this? Annie does this?
David Berner:Yeah. There's there's a lot of I I just get involved with I find that I learned this probably about 10 years ago about myself. You know, I've always, you know, when I was 18, all I wanted to do was play, you know, Led Zeppelin on the radio and and play in a rock band. And that's all I ever wanted to do. But I think what I learned over time was that I just like to tell stories and whatever that story is and what form or platform it is, it's really just about telling stories, whether it's singing a song or whether it's writing a song or it's writing a novel or if it's doing a news story on the radio or whether it's doing a talk show or a podcast.
David Berner:It's just all storytelling. So to me, that's that's kinda what I do. I just think of myself as a storyteller, but just jump into different platforms to do that.
David Geisler:Yeah. That's fascinating. If I may, what was your did you have a a a creative focus or anything going through high school and or college or anything like that?
David Berner:Oh, yeah. I was, you know, I was in the I was in the band. I was in the jazz band. I was in the marching band. I was in the drama club.
David Berner:I was
David Geisler:in all that too. Yeah. Literally, all three of those things.
David Berner:A little bit a little bit of a geek in that way, I guess. But I was also, a bit of a push the envelope, kinda guy, you know, long hair, the hippie clothes, you know, that era. So I was, I was I was like the good kid who looked like a bad kid. That's kind of that was kind of what I was.
David Geisler:Good kid looked like a bad kid. I like it.
David Berner:But my but my my wife still thinks that I I tend to wanna push the envelope all the time. I always wanna push the edges. And that is part of me, but there's also a part of me that's very much just a suburban kid who's trying to do the good thing. You know?
David Geisler:You know, if I may, part of my journey here coming back to school is I'm trying to kinda reel in my push the envelope stuff and just try to play it straight for 3 years and get a proper, you know, podcast degree or radio degree or whatever it is. But that's been a whole journey for me. We can just discuss at a later time.
David Berner:Yeah.
David Geisler:I I am curious as well what, we're kinda jumping around here a little bit, but what brought you to Columbia?
David Berner:I was burned out by the daily journalism. You know, I got really tired after a while of chasing the mayor and chasing the next shooting and chasing the next fire, and and it started to become sort of rote in a way. And I got a little tired of that, and I was doing other things at the time. I was, you know, still playing music a little bit and things like that, so I had my creative outlets. But I was really getting burned up by that.
David Berner:And then there were some format changes in the radio world, and that switched me up. I went to work for a, one of my hobbies is playing golf. I just like golf. It's a very mental game and I like that part of it. And I got involved with a, a group out of South Africa that was putting together a website at the time.
David Berner:This was in the heyday of the .coms. And I was asked to be a senior writer for them and it was like a dream job for about 18 months.
David Geisler:Okay.
David Berner:You know, I would travel and I would write about golf and I'd write about that kind of stuff and it was fun, but they couldn't sustain the dotcom. All the money went away after a while and Oh, right. Yeah. So, then I I said, gee, what am I gonna do? So I went back to school and I didn't wanna go back into full time broadcasting.
David Berner:It just burned me out. So I went back to school, got my education degree, master's degree in education, and said I'm gonna teach. And I always has always had been an adjunct faculty member somewhere, always had done that. So it was always kinda in my nature for some reason. And, so I just thought I'd take it on full time, but continue all these other outlets that I had.
David Berner:And I still do radio work. I mean, I do it all the time.
David Geisler:I I think you work don't you work at a station right now, I believe.
David Berner:Right? WBVM in Chicago, a news radio station. You know, I've been doing that for a long, long time, mostly anchor work, mostly news anchor work, but, it's just I love the craft of it. I just don't wanna do it every day. I'm more like I I feel better and I feel more myself when I have my sort of toes dipped in different waters all the time.
David Berner:I know
David Geisler:what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Another fact I just learned about you.
David Geisler:Did I understand your story correctly? Did you also, to some degree, return back to school after after a number of years? Yeah.
David Berner:I did. Yeah. I was in my, goodness gracious, what was it, forties? Well, I'm 40 right now coming back. Yeah.
David Berner:Okay. So you know. So I did. I went back to school, got my master's in education. And then a few years after that, I got my MFA in creative writing because I knew that if I wanted to stay within this academic world, which also drives me crazy sometimes, but, because academia can be just so everybody wants to put everybody on the back.
David Berner:Drives me nuts. I can get into that in another podcast sometime. But, you know, I knew I was gonna need a more advanced degree to sustain it. And, you know, I'd always wanted to try to do more writing, so I thought that made sense to me. Went back, got an MFA program in creative writing.
David Berner:It forced me to buckle down and write a book that I wanted to write for a time. So that helped me because it was part of my thesis to to, you know, get this book done. And I had a great great mentor, just an outstanding mentor who I've still from time to time, every few years I'll connect with. He was just a superb writer. I mean, he just, you know, when I read his stuff, I just go, why am I trying?
David Berner:But he's, he's tremendous, and he was very helpful to me. So, yeah, I did go back to school and I'm really happy I did that. I I have to admit I really never expected that when I was 35, But later in life, I'm like, you know, this is good. This is really good. It kinda opened up my eyes again and made me focus a little better.
David Geisler:It was good. I see. You know, initially for me, my my it was it was kind of my fiance's idea for me to return. I think she kinda saw she we are definitely yin yangs of a of a force that help each other. And, I was I was I'm very dyslexic.
David Geisler:I wasn't very good at school. I was always I was good at the labs but bad at the tests kinda kid and all that kind of stuff where she has
David Berner:I have a child like that. Yeah. I've always not a child anymore. He's a man.
David Geisler:But, you know, for me, it was Macy's idea for me to come back to school and I was a little reluctant. Were you were you nervous at all to return?
David Berner:I don't know. That's a really good question. I don't know if I was nervous. There was a part of me that was like, well, what is this going to be like? I had not been in that environment, on that side of it for a long time.
David Berner:Although the setup for my masters of education degree was a cohort program. So it was like a group of us, about 9 or 12 of us that were going through the same process. We had all won scholarships to go back to school to teach in public schools. And if we taught in a public school that was a troubled public school, consider quotes around a public school, that had trouble for whatever reason, we would get some of our tuition paid for. So I got into that program.
David Berner:I was accepted into that. So that made it a little bit different than your classic sort of sit in the back of a classroom with 25 students. It probably made it much more tolerable for me at that stage of my life. I got to be, you know, pretty good friends with those people because we're all going through the same kind of thing and we were all in that, you know, mid career kind of process. So it was all it was all really a good that was a good experience in that way.
David Berner:Yeah. I don't know if I could have done maybe a lot of what what you're doing really. Oh. I'm not sure I could have gone back and sat in the back of a classroom of 20 students and gone through that. I don't know.
David Berner:Maybe maybe I could have. It's a
David Geisler:little weird. Yeah. It's a little weird. I think if I didn't have literally this project of making this show, which can kind of be a a focus for me, I don't know if I'd have the same temperament, to be honest. I think I would be maybe going quote unquote a little a little, you know, crazy, being being around a bunch of 20 year olds, being 40.
David Geisler:It's been a little weird in class where, I have to hold back a lot. I do it. I I less so with with your class because I'm I'm I'm I always feel very engaged with your lectures and I always appreciate them very much. But in some of my other classes, I'll find myself trying not to ask so many questions or not to have so much input because if I'm being honest, sometimes I kinda feel like, well, this is a little unfair. I've had 20 extra years to think about this stuff.
David Geisler:These kids are still figuring out why they even exist. Yeah. And I don't wanna, like, dominate the class, but but sometimes things are still quite interesting.
David Berner:Yeah. I I think that's that's okay, though. And I and I I I appreciate that sort of mindset, but, you know, I mean, if something's on your mind, I mean, not just in your situation but anybody who's in this situation, they they need to speak up. One of the more difficult things that I deal with with students is that they don't there's a sit back, there's a passiveness Yeah. That that really is difficult to break through.
David Berner:And I think the pandemic actually has made it worse.
David Geisler:I would agree with you.
David Berner:And, I have struggled with my classes over the last year and a half to get students to be more engaged. And I don't think it's that they're less interested. I think they're still interested in the subject matters, but they have learned to now be passive because of the pandemic. They're just not as engaged. And I can only I only know so many dances to do in front of the class.
David Berner:So I know it's like not it's really hard that's it's really hard and I think that's I know that's true for a lot of my colleagues. I know that's true. It's very difficult. It's just a much more passive experience now than it had been.
David Geisler:Do you suspect that it's because everybody spent a year and a half staring at their computer screen on a webcam call and they, you know, after you know, at least so my my my fiancee, works, has been working, staring at a computer screen for the last year and a
David Berner:half. Yeah.
David Geisler:And I'll I'll watch her. We share an office at home. And I'll watch her in a meeting and she's nodding and nodding and nodding because you have to do something to show that you're listening. Yeah. And if you're not consciously making that choice, it is easy to dial it back 50% even if you're still technically listening.
David Geisler:Yeah. I do sometimes wonder if people or even some of these students are bringing accidentally even that lack of of interface into the room then. I don't know. Do you I'm not being very clear. You know what I mean?
David Berner:I think that's absolutely true. And I think it's also true from the instructor's point
David Geisler:of view.
David Berner:I think that we can get lazy on that side too. I found myself saying, oh, I better I need to kick myself in the butt here a little bit, because it's really easy to become passive. I mean, think about it for a minute. The most active the most passive medium media out there is video or television. That's how we relate relate to it.
David Berner:We sit and ask it to take over us. Right? We become passive. If we're just listening like radio, radio is a lot more active medium because your mind is working as you're listening. With television or video or looking at a screen, you become less active.
David Berner:You become you just naturally become more passive. So we have created the situation although Zoom, you know, and all those other platforms may have been, you know, godsends in a lot of ways. We have created now another issue which is people have become less engaged.
David Geisler:Well, you know, if I may, actually I could speak to our class a little bit. That just gave me a thought. Thought. You you do a lot of, breakouts. Maybe every other week, we'll go do a breakout to work on a quick project to write a little radio script or something like that, and I enjoy those very much.
David Geisler:And what's what happens that's very interesting is is some of these other classmates that are very quiet perhaps during the lecture, when you get in a group of 4, they start having all these thoughts. Like, they're they aren't there. Right. You know? It's interesting.
David Geisler:And then and then we all come back to the lecture and everyone kinda calms down again. Yeah.
David Berner:I think that's, well, one of the reasons I do that and I know it means no secret. It's you know best practices kind of stuff. When you get students, even students who are naturally not active in a class, for whatever reason, whether they're interested or it's just their nature or whatever. When you get people in smaller groups, it's almost as if they're forced to they're kinda kicked in the butt to be more active. Mhmm.
David Berner:So for me as a teacher, to me, those those things are absolutely imperative, especially now. And even on my Zoom classes, my online classes, I do breakouts all the time in small groups because otherwise, you know, the the the screen is off, you know, or the cat's on the screen and they're not. And, you know, it just becomes they're just and and I'm not pointing a finger at anybody. I think that's just what we have become. We've become much more passive.
David Berner:Yeah. So if I can put people in smaller groups and let them almost be forced to interact and be involved is as uncomfortable as that might be for some of them right now. I have to do that. I mean, can you imagine if we didn't do those kinds of things? We'd have a whole generation anything done?
David Berner:It's funny. I do think that even in in the classroom situation well, 2 things. 1, I have some colleagues who go unnamed who will say, I just tell them to shut their phone off in class and not use the phone and put the phone down and they don't get to use the phone. I'm like, why? Why are you doing that?
David Berner:That's how they live. That's how they communicate. They look up everything on their phone. They do their Canvas quizzes on the phone. Why are you trying to turn off their phone?
David Berner:It's like figure out a way to use the phone in the class. Figure out a way to, you know, integrate that rather than tell them to shut it off. Yeah. That seems bass Ackwards to me. Now maybe I'm wrong, but that that just it's like, why are you trying to change how they already live?
David Berner:Let's meet them where they live. That seems to me to make way more sense.
David Geisler:Maybe there's a bit of I'm completely just guessing on any of this. I have no real perspective on it, but, the fact that the screen is, you know, your laptop is facing you right now. My laptop is facing me. I don't have any anxiety about what you have on your screen right now, and I don't think you have any anxiety about what I have on my screen that we're, like, keeping something. But the the trope of the kid playing the video game in the lecture or something, maybe that's where some of that anxiety comes from.
David Berner:That might be. That's a good point. That might be. And, you know, just because someone is staring at their phone or looking at their phone while you're giving a lecture, doesn't mean they're not engaged. Right.
David Berner:How do you know, not to say that they're not, there are some that are completely disengaged, but how do you know that student isn't looking up something that you just talked about? How do you know that? Maybe they are. You gotta give them a little bit of benefit of the doubt. Now there is the other side of that where students are not doing that.
David Berner:Students are completely disengaged. They're looking at some text from a friend or scrolling through Instagram or whatever they're doing or TikTok or whatever. And that sure. That's gonna happen. And maybe that's the reason or the the the the backing for that professor or instructor to say, shut off your phone because they're assuming that all of them are disengaged.
David Berner:But I tend to look at it the other way. How do you know that some of them aren't even more engaged? Now I may be naive, but how do you know that? Maybe they're not maybe they maybe they are. Maybe they're looking at something.
David Geisler:I think I think And
David Berner:and you can't sit there and call them out all day long. It's just, you know, it's it's crazy.
David Geisler:Maybe it does come down to it's a bit of a human condition. Maybe it does come down to the person will do what they will with the tools that they have. And if they if they're the kind of person that wants to, quote unquote, play a video game during class or just check their Instagram during class or if there's someone who's literally googling googling what's being talked about in the lecture, they're they're the person making that choice, I suppose, in some ways. Yeah.
David Berner:And I think that's true because I I I use this phrase a lot. And again, I don't claim to be the god of all education, but I I really do believe sometimes that you you have to you have to allow people to make their own choices. If you you can't I guess the best way to put this is you can't treat college age students, typical college age students, I'm not you, but but your your traditional college age, you can't treat them as if it's grade school. You can't treat them as if it's high school. You know, I have colleagues, again, who won't go unnamed, who wanna who wanna support students to a fault.
David Berner:Now I'm all for supporting students, but at some point you have to meet me halfway. There's an element of instructor who's dragging that student, pull pulling them through. And I'm sorry. It's you're you're 20 now. You either step up and take responsibility for what you're doing or you don't.
David Berner:Yeah. I I I can't keep helping you out.
David Geisler:You know, if I may, offer an observation, as someone kind of stuck in the middle as an adult going to these classes and observing, the professors and the students with with almost equal distance, I have noticed that the classes that I have where the professor, is engaged with the class, trusts the class, and is frankly creating a conversation, those students are engaged, you know. Yeah. You'll see that. You'll see you'll see them you'll see them come out of their shell a little bit. And then there's classes where the where the professor isn't so and and and the the students, I'm observing them receding or retreating a bit.
David Geisler:You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So I think you do try I don't I don't know. Who who are we to truly decide?
David Geisler:We're just kind of pausing right now. But I think, yeah, you do trust the student. You try to create engaging conversations and then they show up for it, I think.
David Berner:Yeah. I think you have to I think that that's a good way to put it. You have to sort of trust that the student is gonna meet you halfway. You have to almost believe that that's what's gonna happen. Now if they don't, you may remind them that you need to meet me halfway, you know, which happens and I'll be happy to do that.
David Berner:But at some point I'm not gonna continually remind you to do that. I mean, I I don't mean to dismiss you know my job, that's not what I mean. It's just the job is a collaborative effort teaching college. I truly believe that. And if you are not gonna meet me, I can't do anything for you.
David Berner:I I just had I just had a conversation on my intro to journalism class. I said the administration is not gonna like me saying this, but I'm gonna say it. Since your degree does not matter as much as being able to come out of this class being able to write a 300 word story much better than you did when you came in. Because when you go to get a job, they're they're gonna look at your resume. They're gonna see that you graduated from Columbia and then they're gonna say, what have you published?
David Berner:Let me look at it. And that's gonna be the thing that's most important. Not whether you got an a or b or a c in intro to journalism. Nobody freaking cares. Mhmm.
David Berner:Nobody cares. And I see students so locked into grades sometimes. And I get it. I get it because the grades are locked to, you know, loans, their grants, their I get it. It's part of the system that we've built in this country in academia.
David Berner:If if I were the god of all education, I'd have no grades. Right. Because that's they gets I have a student in my intro to journalism class who asked me about one point.
David Geisler:Like to try to get that extra point in something?
David Berner:I said I said, buddy, that's not gonna matter. Right. Don't worry about that one point. Are you able to write your story better than you did yesterday? That's what I'm worried about.
David Berner:Don't care about the point, man. Let it go. Mhmm. You know, there's there's so much of that anxiety, and we've we've done that. We've systematically done that to students.
David Geisler:I think it's because it's what? Because it's it's it's an ease it's the easiest way to quantify if someone's learned something because, you know, maybe that's where it comes from. I actually love your perspective on this stuff. I've spent the last 30 years of my life with the same prerogative, quite frankly. And part of that was because I I had a very strange experience going through high school where some classes I was I could just nail and get a's and then I absolutely was getting f's and d's in other classes.
David Geisler:Mhmm. And so sometimes I was put I was and a year later, put in the enrichment classes. So I had That doesn't surprise me. I had the emotion the emotional journey that I had in high school was I felt like I was a genius and a moron, and I had to process all of that and figure out how I fit into the whole thing. And my reaction was to basically say this is this doesn't work, you know.
David Geisler:I was actually a bit of a punk coming out of high school, challenging grades. I I I I was almost trying to work against grades and all of that. And I have to be honest to a large degree, I've kept that mindset through my adult years. And one of my my challenge in my journey through coming back to school is, okay. Okay.
David Geisler:As an adult, can I relax a little bit and try to fit into the system a little more? I have to confess, I've also wondered, I don't know, you know, we don't have to go down this this road too much, but I've also wondered, like, am I kinda losing my am I compromising my spirit a little bit in doing this? Yeah.
David Berner:I I I can understand why you would think that. And I and I, you know, what you went through in high school sounds a lot like what my younger son did. Perhaps. Yeah. My older son was much more focused on the grades and the, you know, and and and whether he's gonna get an a or b and that that extra point that he needed.
David Berner:And every every single teacher in my my younger son's classes would say, really good student in class. He makes great discussion. He has great feedback. He works with people collaboratively well, never enhancing homework, and never passes the test. So did he learn something then?
David Berner:He probably did. He probably gained a lot, but we're measuring it by whether he got the a, b, or c in the final. Yep. That there's something off about that to me because I'll I'll give you a great example. I I at least I think it's a great example.
David Berner:Okay. I've been watching recently the documentary, The Beatles Get Back by Peter Jackson.
David Geisler:Oh, sure. Yeah.
David Berner:Okay. And I knew a little bit of know about The Beatles. I grew up in that area a little bit. So I'm and I'm, you know, I'm a fan and all that, but I had always known that but I was reminded of this in the in the, in the documentary. I'd always known that Paul McCartney cannot read or write music.
David Berner:He has no clue. It's all about what he produces. He would fail every single music class that we teach at Columbia. He would fail. Think about that for a minute.
David Berner:So Paul McCartney is a failure? I don't think so.
David Geisler:I don't think that's
David Berner:true. So what are we actually measuring in class sometimes? What are we really measuring? I hope we're not measuring memory because that's dumb. Okay.
David Berner:Because we have a computer in our hand now. If we want anything we wanna look up, we can look up.
David Geisler:I'm I'm assuming you've been teaching in the radio department for the last 18 years. Yeah.
David Berner:Right.
David Geisler:Yeah. Has that has that changed for you over the years in in any way, or is it do you find your strategies are pretty much the same?
David Berner:Oh, you mean my strategies as a teacher?
David Geisler:Yeah. Yeah. Actually, let's do that first. I I
David Berner:think they have. Yeah? Yeah. I think I've become, you know, when I first came, I thought I played by the book a little bit more, because, you know, you're a new guy, you're trying to fit in, you're trying to do the right thing. But I think over time, I've become less and less, about the established way of doing something.
David Berner:I've become less and less believing in that. And again, it's just my take. I'm not saying that this is the got all be all explanation or the new wave of education or anything, but this is just my experience. I think we have done a lot of students wrong by how we, how we teach at the higher level. I think we are stuck in many ways in the in the same thing we've been doing since the 19 sixties.
David Berner:And I I think that instructors, administrators, academia in general has to continually look at this differently. Now, are there best practices or the things that have worked for years years years? Yeah, there are. Sure there are. But I still think we have a lot of instructors who get stuck in the old ways.
David Berner:Now at Columbia, I think it's a little bit different. I think at Columbia College, we're we're a little more open to those kinds of new approaches or maybe trying something completely different or or, pushing a student in a different way. So I think in a lot of ways, Columbia does a pretty good job of that, but we have our we have our issues. We we stick to, like, stuff that's been around a long, long time. And some of it is still okay, but there's a lot of it that's not.
David Berner:And, and, you know, what's the purpose of education? K. That that if you even had that conversation, you would have a million concepts and ideas about that. Some people say I mean, a student might say because I wanna get a job. Right.
David Berner:You know? K. Right? Well, some of that's true. Yeah.
David Berner:Some of that's true. Then there would be the academician who might say, well, it's about knowledge. It's about gaining knowledge and taking that knowledge with you in very highfalutin kind of thinking. Right? Well, some of that's true.
David Berner:Okay. But neither one of those is exclusive. And there's still some who have a very strong, exclusivity to one end or the other end of that that pendulum. To me, it's not about getting the job. It's about setting you up to be able to do all the things you need to do to get the job you want.
David Berner:You know, I really wish that I would have thought differently when I was back in my undergrad days. Oh, yeah. I wish I would have thought differently and just took knowledge for knowledge sake a little bit.
David Geisler:You know, something that's been sobering for me is that I've come back to my my grades were so bad when I left Columbia because I I did quote unquote disrespect the the grades, I guess, you could say. I had come back on academic probation in fact. Because I guess I was like a 1.4 or something by the time I actually left, junior year. I would go to classes that I wasn't in and I'd skip classes I was in. I was a total I thought I was really mixing it up.
David Geisler:I thought I was really proving a point. But, and I learned a heck of a lot and I got an awesome job out of my, like, the things I literally learned at Columbia. Yeah. Irreplaceable. You know what I mean?
David Geisler:That's that's part of what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Yeah. It's trick it's tricky. It's interesting.
David Geisler:So so then coming back and trying to play it a little straighter this time around, I had to come in and deal with the fact that I'm on the edge of being kicked out if, if, if I have the same proclivities. But Well,
David Berner:see, there's something there's something really beautiful about that to me. A a being on the edge of being kicked out. There's something that's really appealing about that to me. I don't know maybe I got like that Anthony Bourdain gene where I just want to piss people off or something. I I just I there's a part of me that believes that, you know, taking it to the taking it to the edge of something is is a good thing.
David Berner:It's okay. It's okay to buck the system. It's okay. I mean, if we if we all colored between the lines, if the whole culture colored between the lines, we would not have any advancements.
David Geisler:I agree completely.
David Berner:It's just not in in any way in engineering, in creative world, in anything, we'd have no advancements. We need the people who push the envelope. We need those people though they're important. We need the person who you know quit school on academic probation and we need those people. I I really believe that.
David Berner:If we were all straight laced and, you know, it and it's no. I don't want that.
David Geisler:Because it has been a little emotional for me to to play it a little straighter and I'm kind of doing it because I respect and love my fiancee and she's coming from a certain perspective and and I'm and I'm actually still learning a tremendous amount. Well, a lot of nice takeaways from this conversation so far. I do find myself agreeing with a lot of what Professor Boerner has to say, but it's also interesting how simply talking about some of these topics can give you new ideas on the matter after the break professor burner and I speak a little bit more about how the radio and podcast industry itself has changed over the past 20 years. We end up coming to some pretty interesting conclusions. We also dig into some of professor Berners' other artistic passions and what one might find when they try to balance their passion and their career.
David Geisler:All of this when Returning Student returns.
David Geisler:Welcome back. I'm currently sitting in a chair, opposite David Boerner in his office on the second floor of the communications building. Professor Boerner and I have been chatting for about a half an hour.
David Geisler:We've talked about school in general, our thoughts on quantifying education. However, we begin to let the conversation meander a little bit, and we start talking about how the radio industry has changed. We start talking about what it means to even have an artistic life and to pursue a passion and to try to mix that with your career. It's always interesting when you do these long form interviews with people because after a while, everyone starts to really relax. And sometimes, in my opinion, that's when you can really get some of the good stuff.
David Geisler:Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed what professor Boerner and I spoke about in the second half of this conversation. Another thing that this that the show that I'm using the show for is to explore the very kind of almost on the nose, but obvious fact that media and radio and audio entertainment is also changing very much right now and over the last, I guess, you could say 10 years.
David Berner:Usually. Yeah.
David Geisler:Would would in with with the bit of time that we have left, would you like to kinda speak about that a little bit?
David Berner:Yeah. I well, radio definitely is shifting. Radio, traditional radio with the terrestrial tower and all that Mhmm. Will be around forever. It's not gonna go away.
David Berner:Yeah. It's just gonna its its influence is different now. You know? I grew I don't wanna sound like an old man saying this, but I grew up in the days where radio, the influence of radio was very strong. You would wait to hear the, you know, the new Beatles album or Rolling Stones album because that was the only place you could ever hear it.
David Berner:Right? So it had it had a very very strong influence. It had very much it had a influence on the culture, influence on economy. It it did. It just doesn't have that anymore.
David Berner:There are a lot more platforms out there where all these things can be done. News, information, talk, you know, whatever you need, music, can comes in many different platforms now. So we have choices. Nothing wrong with that. But it but and that has lessened radio's impact, its influence.
David Berner:It's not gonna go away. It's still there's still the most used medium, news media in the world above and beyond social media still, but its its influence is different. And the pie of revenue has shifted. You know, it used to be that a big percentage of that revenue would go to broadcasting. Well, it doesn't anymore.
David Berner:It goes to social media. It goes to web. It goes to whatever. So the pie has shifted and that's freaked out some of the people in the radio industry. Right.
David Berner:Because they're like, wait a minute. I we used to make 80¢ on a dollar. Now we're making 40¢ a dollar or whatever it is. I'm just making up numbers. So they freak out.
David Berner:Right? What radio did very very poorly for a number of years when the web started to become more influential was that it kept saying, oh, well, that's just a fad. We're gonna be fine. We're gonna be fine. We're gonna just keep doing what you're doing.
David Berner:Well, they didn't shift, and then they got to a point where it was like do or die. You need to make some changes or you're you're gonna go away. So they've begun to do that, the industry, and I think some parts of the industry have done a good job of that. Some of them have are late to the game and maybe too late to the game. And what I mean by that is to integrate other media into your radio.
David Berner:I tell students all the time, don't just learn to talk in the radio. Learn to edit video. Learn social media.
David Geisler:Yeah. That that the mixed media thing that would not mixed media. The multimedia really that was happening is part of that. I'd like to say that in in one of the themes that happen a lot in our lectures in class, that that you speak to is how the skill set in in many ways is still largely the same even if it moves from a live show to a podcast to other forms that the the trade is still there, which I I find that interesting.
David Berner:Yeah. Yeah. The skill set's the same. In fact, I tell people all the time, you may have gotten a radio, degree from our program, which is very unique program to get a radio degree, but the skills that you learn can be shifted into so many other different places. You know, not only the the technical side of it but the presentation side of it.
David Berner:The the skill level being able to to speak to people or to or to invent or to shape content in a way that someone wants that content. Those are all skills you learned in the radio program. And those are not, you know, they're not only radio skills. You know? They're they're they're a wider birth.
David Berner:And I think our program has shifted over time to to relate that, to do a better job at that. I don't think we are quite there yet, but where it should be, but I don't wanna get into all the support or non support we get from the college, but that happens. Well,
David Geisler:Well, you know, let me let me say this. When I was I kinda came into radio through the back door because I originally went to school here for a film degree. So I I I left school with film knowledge and kind of found podcasting very organically out there in the world when it was essentially being invented, let's just say.
David Berner:Right.
David Geisler:In fact, it kinda happened just a couple years after my leaving school. In fact, I was working in television and the concept of podcasts was super new when I when I found them. I I somehow I read the right blog articles or I saw the right television shows, but I learned about podcasts very early on. And at the time, I remember that it was that we did not have iPhones yet. It was still just Ipods and there were like kind of just not third party pieces of software, but it was just, you know, little hacker communities were making these these pieces of software that would read code and then put the MP 3 file on your iPad and your iPad would just think it was an album.
David Geisler:It was, you know, that's really how it started. Yeah. And I remember I remember seeing that as as a person still thinking about film and video and working in that medium and I immediately was like, holy moly, this is the future, you know, code that can deliver content. By the way, that's the exact same stuff that that Hulu and Netflix and all that stuff works off of now. All the streaming services use a similar structure.
David Geisler:And I got very excited about it. Once the iTunes 4 point 8 update came out when we were starting to get iPhones and it was like podcasting was recognized as a word even really because before that it was really niche. There was maybe 10 10 pocket. 1 of the first podcasts I ever produced was the 14th most popular podcast on iTunes during that update. It was one for my art gallery, but there was only about a 100 podcasts out there.
David Geisler:So you know what I mean?
David Berner:How many were there?
David Geisler:Yeah. Nobody was making them yet. Anyways, so what happened was I I spent I spent the the next 15, 20 years of my life doing podcasting as a hobby, not recognizing that I was really I was almost I was approaching it as a film person just without the video. And one of the things that I'm really grateful for for what I've even been learning in my 1st semester here is that I think my I was leaning into the the the the craft and the skill set of radio making. I didn't even realize it.
David Geisler:You know? That's what, like, honestly, even my class with you is teaching me that.
David Berner:That's interesting.
David Geisler:Yeah. I went into your class on day 1 and I thought, okay, okay, intro to radio. This guy seems great and, you know, I'm I was interested in the lecture right off the bat, but I thought, okay, okay, We'll just get through this and I'll get back to that good old podcasting. But, there's not a day that goes by where we we watch some video or we watch we get an interview with the person who's working at a radio station and, like, my brain starts firing. I realized, like, oh, maybe I've liked this this whole time.
David Geisler:Maybe this is what and I think it speaks to that that that kinda similar skill set a little bit. Yeah. And so I think in some ways, what I'm trying to get to here is what happened was, Macy and I found quote unquote podcasting degree at Columbia through the radio, department here.
David Berner:Yeah.
David Geisler:And it was literally that word that made me go, oh, maybe I should go back to school. It wasn't until I saw that word Podcasting. Podcasting. Yeah.
David Berner:Because that's
David Geisler:I was like, this is what I love to do. But I thought, okay, maybe I should maybe maybe school I mean, podcast didn't even exist last time I went to Columbia.
David Berner:Yeah. Sure.
David Geisler:And I appreciate, if I may, that to a certain degree, Columbia has recognized this enough to where in which there are literal podcasting classes now right in line with the radio classes. Yeah. I I really appreciate that. I'd say
David Berner:We we really believe that that's important because, it's, you know, we can't get stuck. You know, traditionally, what academia should be is ahead of the curve of the industry. We should be ahead of it. The difficulty with that is now as as we referred to earlier, 15 seconds ago, something's changed. Right?
David Berner:So it's really, really hard to stay ahead of the curve in a creative field like this. So we we try, but we're always like, oh, we better we better do this, we better do that. So I think we do at Columbia. I think we do a pretty good job of that. A pretty good job of trying to stay on top or at least in front of the industry.
David Geisler:If I may, I think so too.
David Berner:Yeah. We've done the very we did the very first, I guess it would have been called a podcasting class as a sort of in between the semester little class, mini class, if you will. Years ago, we called it emerging technologies because, you know, it was podcasting, satellite radio, all those things that were emerging at the time. Yeah. And nobody really knew what they were or what it meant or how they were gonna flush out.
David Berner:But we wanted to stay on top of it a little bit because we knew something was gonna come out of it. Right? So we we try we try to do that. I don't think we meet it perfectly all the time. I think it's really hard for any, any institution to keep a past, you know, sort of in front of the industry these days.
David Berner:I think it's really hard.
David Geisler:Yeah. I know it is interesting how you can go to well, you know, I actually I think I think I could say one more thing about it. One thing that I've appreciated that was true to Columbia 20 years ago and I'm finding it to be true again here is that most of my professors are working in the industries that they're Yeah. Lecturing in, that they're teaching in. Yeah.
David Geisler:And I I hope this I'm not putting too fine a point on it, but fact that I can go into your class and you can literally speak about the things you did that week, does help me feel like I'm getting an education that is on the pulse, if I may.
David Berner:Yeah. Well, that that's Columbia's, you know, that's Columbia's baseline. A lot of other institutions have modeled us. We'd have been doing this for a long time, meaning having practitioners be part of the, the academia here. Mhmm.
David Berner:That's that's I mean, that's Columbia's model, and we've been doing that for decades. Now when you hear it, it sounds a little cliche because everybody's doing it.
David Geisler:Oh, yeah? I didn't know. I don't know.
David Berner:Everybody's well, they're saying they're doing it. They're trying to do it. I had an interesting, exchange the other day. I won't get into it too much, but it tells you a little something about why academia is still slow to change. I had a friend, apply for a job at a local institution, and he had been a journalist for 30 years and a well known journalist.
David Berner:If I said the name, some people might know it. And he sent in a resume to teach part time and he told him, I know we can't take you because you don't have a master's degree. And he said, I've been doing this for 30 years. I said my name on the street. Half of the people would know me.
David Berner:Mhmm. And that doesn't mean anything. Now there's something wrong with that. Okay. So Columbia has recognized that there's something wrong with that, but I have to say, Columbia over the last few years has been much more about the degree
David Geisler:Oh, really?
David Berner:Ever has before. Oh, really? Yes. So there's nothing wrong with the degree.
David Geisler:I think
David Berner:I think a degree is sort of a hoop you jump through, an important hoop you've jumped through, and it does mean something. But just like I said before about whether, you know, it's it's a grade or not a grade. There's somewhere in the middle that's right. A lot a lot of academia is still stuck on will you have a degree, Meaning that, you know, I can teach but I can't do. You've heard that before.
David Berner:Right? There's still a lot of that out there. Now at Columbia, that's that's just not the case. Almost everybody here, including adjuncts, can do the work to some extent. Some can do it better than others, but but most of us can do.
David Berner:That's not true at most institutions of higher education. It just isn't. So Columbia's model, that is still good. Although, I have to say the needle has moved a little bit toward the academic side over the last 10 years.
David Geisler:10 years or so. See, that's that is interesting to me because I don't have any I can't, I I have been absent for 20 years. You know what I mean? I didn't even couldn't even feel it necessarily.
David Berner:You know, I came from my my background, my my youth. I came from a very, you know, classic middle of the road, blue collar town. My dad, you know, very, very down basic stuff.
David Geisler:Are you guys from the Midwest?
David Berner:Yeah. Well, we grew up in Pittsburgh, south of Pittsburgh. And, you know, I've I've lived in it. I had a great, you know, home life and all that. My parents were wonderful, but, you know, we were a blue collar family.
David Berner:I mean, I didn't know what that meant when I was 8 years old, but, you know, I know now. Mhmm. You know? And I was the first one on my my entire family to ever go to college. So to me, I was like, this is brand new and nobody knew what to say to me.
David Berner:Like, well, when you go to college, you should do this. Right? I was making it up as I went along. So for me, a lot of my true education quotes around it came after college. You know, the experience of living away from home and all those kind of things are good.
David Berner:Now I think those were all, you know, life affirming, life changing in a lot of ways. But, you know, my real education didn't come until I started to really, you know, maybe in my thirties or into my forties. Yeah. I started to say, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is what I am.
David Berner:Oh, this is interesting. My my whole reference to the world and creative life became different. You know, when I was growing up, I just got through school, played the guitar, you know, hope maybe a song that I played, some girl would look at me twice. You know, I mean, that it's all I cared about. I didn't care.
David Berner:I didn't know what else to know. I you know, it's the world I lived in. Right? That's all there was. And but when I said I was going to college, you know, everybody in my family thought I was crazy.
David Berner:My mother was the one who said you're going to college. So I just assumed, oh, okay. I'm going to college. Right? I never would have thought about it.
David Berner:I never would have because nobody else in my family ever did. And this is the
David Geisler:this is coming out of high school?
David Berner:It's coming out of high school.
David Geisler:Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
David Berner:So my my mother just said you're going to college. So my point is, I don't think I really started to realize that I had all this stuff that I wanted to say in whatever way it was gonna come out until I was in my thirties or forties. I mean, I played in a band and wrote some songs and we, you know, played around, you know, town and stuff like that for a while. We were nothing special, but it did open my mind up to storytelling a little bit more than what I had been doing. So that was it was always there.
David Geisler:Is Is that when you started writing a bit more? Yeah.
David Berner:I started writing a bit more. When I started to really write was when I went through my, master's of education program because I come home from the school that I was teaching in, the public school. And I would tell my my sons the story of that day, which was very unlike what their world was like because I was teaching a quote unquote troubled school. And when I would tell them some of the things that I experienced, they were like, my my oldest son said, daddy, you're writing this down. And I felt like a fool because I wasn't and I was trained as a journalist.
David Berner:Okay? Oh, wow. So I started to backtrack and said, you know, maybe I ought to be writing all this down. So I just kept notes and that became my first book, you know, that experience. It happened to be a very personal book because it was also the same time I was going through a divorce.
David Berner:My father was dying, and I was changing careers and facing these students whose worlds were either dangerous, turned upside down, poverty, whatever they were. All this was going on at the same time. So it was a year of that. And I didn't I didn't know that it could be a book. I didn't have any idea.
David Berner:In fact, I saw but I I said, well, it was all almost cathartic to write it all down in a way when I look back at it. At the time, I didn't think of it like that. But, when I looked at it, it it it helped me understand what, you know, what stories could be more because before that, they were just concepts to me because I was just a blue collar kid from the suburbs. You know, I I was like, what do you mean storyteller? What is that supposed to mean?
David Berner:You know, my my cousins were going to work in a steel mill. You know, they storytelling? What are you, weird?
David Geisler:Yeah. Yeah.
David Berner:They thought I was crazy. Yeah. You know? So I don't think I really learned what that meant or what it was inside me that was all about that until I was older.
David Geisler:Yeah. Interesting.
David Berner:Yeah. I I think it took me decades to figure that out because I had no I had no mentors. You know, my dad was great. My dad was a musician. He could play pretty well.
David Berner:He's okay. My mother loves to read. So I had all these nice creative world around me in a little way, but they were basically blue collar, you know, families. You know, just work, get your job done, go to church on Sunday, watch the football game, get up and do it again. You know?
David Geisler:Yeah. That's yes. I, I can relate to that very much. Wow. That's interesting.
David Berner:So I didn't know that there was this other world of being creative truly until I got older. I mean, I had I had my toes in it. Yeah. But, you know, like I was in the drama at school. So I had my toes in it, but I didn't know what that meant.
David Berner:I didn't know what how that well, how do you make this into life? How do you turn this into, you know, what you are? I didn't I thought it was just a club that I joined, you know. I didn't see it as a part of me.
David Geisler:I think my entire twenties was me trying to even figure out how to find that that type of lifestyle. The lifestyle of trying to to be able to express yourself and be able to create things.
David Berner:Yeah. Yeah. I think
David Geisler:I was totally lost in my entire twenties. I kept trying to make it work. I tried to find a way to to to express. But,
David Berner:well, hopefully, coming back to school, you know, you you for you has sort of allowed you you know, has given you permission to to to explore that more.
David Geisler:You know, it's interesting. I actually thought that it might be quelled a little bit coming back to school. I was worried that I'd be put into Tupperware, so to speak. That I'd have to go to these classes and just do the thing and start thinking like everybody else. I don't think that's what's happening.
David Geisler:In fact, I've I've found myself to be, I feel like I'm being given fuel going back to school, which I appreciate. I'm very I'm very grateful for that experience. I did not think that that's how it
David Berner:went down. Think that's only because of your age or where you are in your life? Do you think the 20 year old is necessarily not feeling as if they're being put into a Tupperware?
David Geisler:Oh, I I really appreciate that question. It's a great question. I think it's definitely part of my age, but more so I think it's, I guess it's, I guess it's experiences. I almost said experience because every 3 or 4 years for the past 20 years of my life, I would, I would, I would make a creative endeavor choice and it would work for a little while and then it wouldn't, you know. Then you say, okay, okay, I gotta bite the bullet and go get a regular job for 2, 3 years and then I'd work some corporate thing and then I'd go have an art gallery for 3 or 4 years and he'd say this is the time.
David Geisler:I'll I can make it where, you know, then in in the last 20 years it's just been a pendulum for me of making these choices back and forth of a creative endeavor and something one for me, one for them kind of thing as the filmmakers say. And But that's okay though. I was okay with it. In fact in fact, I was okay doing that for the rest of my life. There was a version 6 months ago, I guess 8, 9 months ago now where I thought, yeah, I'll keep on podcasting and I'll just do that in the evenings.
David Geisler:Every evening, it'll be the thing that feeds me. It'll be the thing, I mean, feeds me emotionally. Right. And then the job during the
David Berner:day My wife always says if if it feeds your soul, you gotta keep doing it. Yeah. No matter how, you know, no matter how that looks to the other side of the world, because everybody else in the in in America, in our capitalistic system is like, well, are you making money?
David Geisler:Right.
David Berner:That's the second question. Right? Well, the reality is bullshit on that. Mhmm. Because because if it feeds your soul, that's, you know, worth a lot more than the money.
David Geisler:And then the trick is finding something in the middle because I've certainly had times in my life where I was literally eating a bag of potatoes for a week because I was you know, the financial, payoffs just weren't there for some kind of creative endeavor. And then there were times where I was doing a job that didn't feed my soul at all, but, you know, I was paying my rent, you know. And so finding something in the middle really is the trick. And I did I didn't I within the last 5 years, I guess what I'm trying to say is because you asked me, is it the 20 year old or the 40 year old who who might be able to find fulfillment in going back to school essentially, if I may. Right.
David Geisler:You said it slightly differently, but I think I'm I'm getting the gist. And I I think it's a little sad to say, but I have to admit that I think those years where I was doing the jobs that didn't feed my soul and I'd have to have my laptop top out at the meeting that was boring in the corporate office and and having stints of that, as as frustrating as those experiences were when I was in my thirties and and and even twenties to some degree, I feel like it maybe taught me some patience. I don't know. It's very strange.
David Berner:Okay. Yeah. Sure.
David Geisler:So my tolerance now for, so let me put it this way. The paperwork to simply come back to school was more than my brain was ready to handle. It was it was it was a hard no. And and if it wasn't for my my fiancee who, is very skilled with with with navigating those kinds of things, it wouldn't have happened. And so I'm a I feel I don't know.
David Geisler:I don't know if I could have done it on my own. I don't think I know for a fact that that 6, 7 months ago when we were just picking my schedule, just picking the classes, I think I still was a little bit of a punk. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I like that. I don't even know if I need to do this.
David Geisler:I have to admit, I think I still had a lot of that in me.
David Berner:Yeah. That's okay though. That's okay because, I mean, I, you know, I'm a big believer in continually questioning, you know, what you're doing or what you're thinking or where you are or all those kinds of things. But, you know, sometimes not not all of us have the opportunity or blessed enough or talented enough to make a living out of being one thing creatively. Yeah.
David Berner:So, you know, there's a very small percentage of us that can do that. I mean, there are great novels out there that people know their names that are also teaching because that novel that they sold or those 2 or 3 still isn't enough money to make them live a life. Okay. And I can name names that everybody knows that that's true. Yeah.
David Berner:Right? So there is a there is a little bit of a straddling that has to go on for most of us. You know, go go take care of the bills, but don't don't give up your soul, you know, that thing that feeds your soul. Right. Don't don't give that up.
David Berner:Just find a way to work that into your life. It doesn't have to be your main job, but it can be it still could be part of your life. Mhmm. That's why I get really upset because in America, they don't do this in any other country but America. They'll say the first thing they do when they meet somebody, when you and I first meet, you know, we're at a party, we're at a cocktail, and I've got, you know, a whiskey sour to make it sound like an old man.
David Geisler:I would have a vodka
David Berner:rugs. Okay. Well, I wouldn't have a whiskey sour, probably Manhattan. But, but if I'm standing there I'm standing there with it and you're standing there and we'll say, hi, David. How are you?
David Berner:Nice to meet you, David.
David Geisler:So what do you do? Right.
David Berner:Isn't that the question we first ask? Yes. Right? And it's not like I could say, well, you know, I write novels or I do a podcast, but that's really not what they're asking. Right.
David Berner:They're asking you, what do you do to make money and sustain the lifestyle that you have? Right? Yes. That's a very American question. You go to France, you go to Spain, you go to even England, they don't ask you that question.
David Berner:That's very American. Like, that is our identity, what we get up and do from 9 to 5. There's something messed up about that to me. That's how we identify people. They say, so do you know John?
David Berner:Oh, yeah, John. You mean the insurance agent? Yeah. Right away. Not, oh, the guy that does a really cool Christmas decoration.
David Berner:You don't you don't say it that way. You say, oh, the insurance agent. Right? That's mostly how we identify people, how they make their money.
David Geisler:I think those seeds go back to grades in grade school. I mean, I really think it's like the the literal quantifiable numbers, and that is the value, and that is the success. I think there's something I think there's some connections there.
David Berner:Yeah. That's a really good point. That's we kinda went in full circle. Yeah. I think that's kinda true.
David Berner:But but that question, I know I have a, you know, a colleague, a former mentor who is an expat, lives in Denmark, they would never ask you that question. What do you do for a living? Mhmm. They don't that's not that's not important. That's a very American question.
David Berner:We we have a very different sensitivity to that.
David Geisler:So your sons are what? In their twenties, almost 30? So it's been a while? You've been coming? Yeah.
David Berner:It's been a while.
David Geisler:So that was so you had children before teaching. I'm putting the timeline together now.
David Berner:Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh.
David Berner:Yeah.
David Geisler:I had
David Berner:children before teaching. I see. Holy cow, dude. We've collected pardon me.
David Geisler:We collected a lot of stuff here. This is amazing. Thank you so
David Berner:much. Yeah. There's a lot stuff. There's a lot of stuff. But I, you know, I, you know, and I and I continue to go back to what you're talking about creatively.
David Berner:I continue to try to put my toes in water. I have a a good friend who's a musician, much better musician than I am. He has a recording studio in his basement. He goes, I've written some songs over the years. I I I only do it for my own benefit.
David Berner:I it's for me. I don't really care if it gets out in the world. But he heard some of them and he goes, we need to record those. We need to layer them. We need to overdub.
David Berner:We need to do stuff. And I'm like, oh, I can do that. Let's do that. So here I am at 65 years old going into a freaking studio playing, you know, music that I've written and overdubbing it. You know, that's something I wanted to do when I was 20.
David Geisler:Oh, isn't that funny? I mean, not not funny in a hotdog. Why is that That comes around there.
David Berner:Yeah. So I said that the other day. I'm like, oh my god. This is like what I dreamed about when I was 20. Here I am 65.
David Berner:You know, the technology to be able to do that now is a lot, you know, better and simpler and more efficient. You know, you don't need to go to a studio somewhere to do that. That's a good point. So that part of it has become easier. And this guy is a really good musician, and he's he's reminding me to practice with a metronome, you know, and things like that.
David Berner:I come my god. I haven't used a metronome since piano lessons when I was, you know, 10. So, as long as I continue to move forward creatively even even in education, and I would say that to you, any student, don't settle. Keep learning creativity. Keep moving your creativity needle.
David Berner:Push it. Push it. Push it. Push it. Push it.
David Berner:Because it, you know, for me, it's kept me young. Here I am 65 going into a rock and roll studio. I love it. You know, I was like, what? Yeah.
David Berner:You know, that makes no sense. I mean, if I'd have said that when I was 40, it's like, that's not gonna happen.
David Geisler:So I I have you next semester. I think we've we've talked about
David Berner:this a little bit Oh, God, David.
David Geisler:I think what was it? I don't think it's writing for radio. I might have you for that next year. I think it's
David Berner:Running for radio, I'm teaching next year, but I'm also teaching storytelling and documentary.
David Geisler:I've got I have you for storytelling next semester. If I may, quite frankly, I look forward to it.
David Berner:I I really I
David Geisler:really enjoyed the class so far.
David Berner:Great. I'm looking forward to it too. I I love that. It's one of my one of my my most fun classes.
David Geisler:Oh, yeah? Will we record actual audio in that
David Berner:class? Yeah. Yeah.
David Geisler:Oh, great.
David Berner:Alright. Yeah. You you you you you write, then you narrate, you figure out a way to soundscape it, You know?
David Geisler:Oh, I'm looking forward to this.
David Berner:Yeah. That's so what I'm what I'm trying to get people to do is to learn how to use the spoken word in a store in storytelling for audio only. That's what so it's sort of like little like, Hourglass says this. They're little movies for the head. That's what you're doing.
David Berner:You're creating a little movie in that person's head.
David Geisler:You know, even for this side project, this returning student project that I'm doing right now, I'm not actually writing my narration or anything until next semester. I hope some of the skills I pick up in this class will certainly help me with that.
David Berner:Yeah. I might. You know, the soundscaping is always interesting because, well, obviously, you know software, so it's not something you need to worry about. But, a lot of students, like, don't know software, but they don't know the aesthetic. Like, where does the music actually come in?
David Berner:It's like it it you know, they'll it's it's like scoring a movie. Yes. It's like it's you want that right there, not there. Right? You want it right there.
David Berner:Okay? It's like and that's a really hard thing to for them to grasp. I have some students who picked it up, but that's a tough one. They're always like, well, you said to do it at the end of the sentence. Like, yeah, but not at the end of the sentence.
David Berner:Like, it means you need to, like, find that spot where that soft moment and then you need to create reflective moments. Give the listener time to catch up with what you just said. Don't move on quickly. Give them a second. If you just said, I shot my mother, don't just jump into the next sentence.
David Berner:You need you need some reflective moment here for the audience to say, what? You know, they're they're not understanding that. That's an aesthetic that that I find doesn't come naturally to most people.
David Geisler:I hope, if I may speak personally, I hope some of my film, things will come in.
David Berner:That'll help you.
David Geisler:I've certainly done music for small short films and all that kind of stuff and all that.
David Berner:Absolutely gonna be crucial help for you.
David Geisler:I'm genuinely looking forward to this.
David Berner:Yeah. That would be very helpful.
David Geisler:Well, thank you. We went overtime today. Thank you so much for No problem. For giving me your time.
David Berner:It was fun.
David Geisler:It was fun for me as well. I really truly appreciate it. And I I think if all goes well, we'll be speaking again in the spring or something and we can explore even more themes and concepts and all that.
David Berner:I'll be here in some shape or form.
David Geisler:I love it. We'll be chatting again in a couple months and I really appreciate that. And, David, thank you so much. I, I I've I've enjoyed our time together today and I I'm I hope I'm not sucking up, but I've also enjoyed it's been a highlight for me being
David Berner:in your classes. That's very nice of you to say. I I don't take those comments lightly. That means it means a lot to me, but it also it's more important that it means something to you. So
David Geisler:It's one of the it's one of the classes that I go home and then I I I brain dump on my fiance for an hour of ideas. And then, oh, and then this and then we saw this and then I think about this and we could try this. I think I might try this.
David Berner:Tell her I'm sorry.
David Geisler:Will do. Will do. Alright. Well, thank you so much.
David Berner:So my name is David Burner. I have been teaching at Columbia now for, I think, it's 18 years. I never keep track of this kind of stuff. My background is in radio mostly. I'm a musician.
David Berner:I have written books. I've written novels. I've written nonfiction books. Without elevating my nature, I'm I'm a little bit of a renaissance man. I like to have a little bit of a lot going on.
David Geisler:I'd like to thank David Berner again for his time. He was a great interview, and it was a really fun conversation. In fact, we actually talked on Mike for about another 30 minutes, and I just kinda had to trim the whole thing down. I think I like that point he made about how a degree is kind of a hoop you have to jump through. It's interesting with school and grades and, art, because how do you quantify something that can't be measured?
David Geisler:But you still have to somehow put something in a record on a piece of paper to prove that the that the thing has happened. I get it. And I'll jump through as many hoops as I need to jump through over the next 3 years. I really appreciated his point about needing to pursue your passions, and he got me really excited about radio storytelling next semester. I I can't wait.
David Geisler:I wonder what we're gonna do. So I have many conversations in front of me. Right now, I think we brought some interesting points to the table here. In the next episode, you'll learn how Macy and I got everything set up for coming back to school. I'll talk a little bit more about how we met and what led to this choice, and then I'll speak with a friend of mine whose opinion I hold very dear.
David Geisler:Alright, everybody. I'm David. I'm a returning student. I hope you have a good one, and we'll see you next week. Next time on returning student.
Speaker 6:There's a certain amount of fear. Maybe that's too strong of a word. Whenever you have a hobby that you enjoy doing, like writing scripts, you know, and then understanding that if I start putting money into getting better at this Yeah. You're going to want some financial payoff to a certain degree.
David Geisler:I wanna explore something here, and I don't know where it's gonna go.
Speaker 6:Times have changed from what they used to teach to what is relevant now, I guess. So we were still using clips. We were using DV tapes. And now, like, like, I don't know because it's been so long since I've been there. I can't go into a television studio and know what's going on because the technology is so insanely different now.
Speaker 6:Like, I would have to retake a bunch of classes.
David Geisler:Returning Student is a production of 65 Media. You can find the show notes for this episode on our website returningstudent.com. The show's hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, David Geisler. Links to the music used in this episode can be found in our show notes as well as on our website. If you liked the show, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends.
David Geisler:I'm gonna be doing this for a couple years, so let's find out together how all this is gonna go. You can follow the show on Twitter and Instagram at returning student. That's student spelled s t d t. Alright. I'm David Geisler, and I'll see you on the next episode of Returning Student.
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