Michael Berg is a biology teacher at Crockett Middle School in Irving, but that isn’t the only thing he does. He is currently the extraordinary leader of the Crockett Middle School Dance Club, a safe place for kids to get together twice after school.
"I was getting into learning hip-hop off of YouTube and felt like I had more things I could teach them," Berg explained. "In fact, one of the first dances I taught my kids was one I learned off of a video, and it was way too difficult for all of us, but we did it! That year I auditioned for the Dallas Cowboys Rhythm and Blue. I didn’t make it, but it wet my appetite for hip-hop and from there, I learned all I could from local classes and online and it has spiraled from there."
Berg eventually made the Dallas Cowboys Rhythm and Blue team and still finds time for class and dance club.
An NBC 5 Today producer found the dance club's videos, which have tens of thousands of views on YouTube. She decided to air a Halloween-themed video on air one day. Berg saw that clip air and said it was overwhelming for he and his students. The group being noticed for the work they have been doing.
This is much more than just a dance club for the dozens of students who participate.
"Dance Club is a free after school club open to any students of Irving ISD. Our school is a Title I government funded school, and our children come from very low socioeconomic and underprivileged backgrounds," Berg said. "Most of our students are on free lunch. But that’s not who they are. These are normal kids trying to do the same thing as any others. They are growing and encountering challenges and struggling to beat the stress of working through school and dealing with their own problems. In Dance Club I currently have about 40 beautiful kids that just want to learn to dance because it’s fun, and there’s no judgment that can usually come with Middle School."
Berg said his own life is filled with anxiety. One of the most important lessons he said he has learned is to find ways to focus on the now and just take it one day at a time. Recently, Mr. Berg said he had a very emotional afternoon with the dance club students. An afternoon that proved these kids rely on dance club and Berg.
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"Once in a while, instead of dancing, or instead of curriculum, the kids and I unload our problems onto paper," Berg said. "It does not matter what we talk about, and it does not matter what we write, as long as we are honest so that the exercise gives us the most emotional value. For 10 minutes, we do not talk, we just write. We do not put our names on the paper so that no one will know whose paper is whose. I’ve had kids write about everything from the pain of not having a boyfriend or girlfriend, to going home every night to a parent dealing with drugs and alcohol and having to be the adult of the household at 12 years old. When we are finished, and we have taken our problems 'out' of our mind and placed them on something physical like paper, we physically “dispose” of them. We crumple them up and throw them away to symbolize that we are bigger than these problems.
He said he wants the students to know they have the ability to beat whatever they face, as long as they focus their attention on the right things.
"After that, on another paper, we push ourselves to find 10 positive things about our day. It can be big or small, but the only rule is we have to have 10," Berg said. "Most of them will struggle to find 10, and that’s when I remind them of things like they are part of the district’s only dance club, one that performs everywhere around Irving, or that they have a dance club teacher that loves them and will do anything to see them happy. And the most important one we all write down is that we are worth it. That’s one even I struggle with. That of course is when the tears start flowing, for both of us usually."
Berg also has big dreams. He hopes to go back to school to become a doctor.
"Right now, doctor or teacher, something that becomes ever more apparent in my life is that making time for things that treat your soul is of the utmost importance," he said. "I feel good when I dance. I feel cool, and I can use emotion to express in a way no one else can express. I struggle a lot with my own self-confidence and being able to really feel movement to a song that really excites something deep within yourself is intoxicating and cathartic. I would say I am so passionate about it because I feel so good when I dance that it makes me feel like everything will always be OK.
"But, more importantly, I want my kids to know that same feeling," he said.
