Patrick Berger teaches economics to middle and upper school students. He also heads an eighth grade MUN elective and is the freshman grade dean.

What’s a piece of advice you wish you had heard when you were in high school?

Your mom is a human, too. It took me a long time to realize that I should have empathy for my parents.

What’s one thing you hope students take with them long after they leave your class?

I want them to be sassier. I get bothered when kids come to my class, passive and meek and mild mannered. I want them to be able to bring the heat. 

I’m going to be in your hometown for the next 72 hours. What should I do?

Hometown: Union City

You should go to Tapioca Express. Our specific franchise makes the best popcorn chicken in the Bay. There’s also a great Buddhist temple that hosts festivals with green tea ice cream, as well as taiko drumming.

What sparked your interest in economics?

I tried to study poli-sci in college and I was a little bored by it just because it felt too familiar. At the end of the day, I don’t think economics is the most interesting topic there is, but it’s incredibly important. It’s not innately the most exciting thing to study, so my classes are largely based around finding ways to use games and markets to have a good time.

What’s your favorite restaurant? What’s your order?

Restaurant: Shandong

Location: Oakland’s Chinatown

Favorite Dish: Sesame Paste Noodles

It’s amazing and the sesame paste noodles are probably the greatest thing any human has ever ingested in their lives. Every time I go there, I’m a really annoying customer and will go to other tables and yell at them if they haven’t ordered it.

Restaurant: Zach’s Shack

Location: Portland, Oregon

Favorite Dish: Hot Dogs

It is an Alt-J-themed bar that sells Chicago style hot dogs. It’s unbelievable and it’s so specific to me. No one else will enjoy it. I think it’s the greatest thing in the world, and the owner once sent me a message on Instagram, which he signed off by saying: ‘my brother in hot dogs,’ and I think about that a lot when I really need some confidence and love.

Did you have any particular interests or obsessions as a young kid?

Debate. Much, much more than any of the kids we have here. In my school, there really wasn’t anything else. So every weekend, every afternoon, every week of every break was just debate.

Who’s your role model?

My friend Daniel who was my senior patrol leader in Boy Scouts. He taught me how to skateboard, he taught me how to record music, and was the state champion of an event I did in speech and debate, so he ended up being my inspiration.

What is the biggest difference between teaching eighth graders and high schoolers?

I like my eighth graders more because they like themselves more. But, they’re wild animals, so it is more calming and relaxing to teach older kids. [With older kids] it is rarer that I come home and tell my wife, “oh my God, I just had the best class ever.” Pretty much every time I teach eighth grade, it’s “oh my god, the best class ever.” or, “oh my God. I had the worst class ever.” Every class in high school it’s more like, “This was fine.”

What’s your Harry Potter house?

Hufflepuff. The only life goal that has meaning for me is the pursuit of community and love, seeking knowledge, power, or moral superiority are where all the other houses went wrong. 

What has been your favorite moment at Nueva?

I was in Taiwan. We were at a green onion farm. One of my favorite kids that year was named Colin Cham ’23. This kid was such a goofball. We’d pick the green onions, and then they’d make it into a pancake and they would give it to you. We had all finished with the activity and had some time to kill and were sitting around, but [Colin] started going around just trying to make conversations with the workers there. He didn’t speak perfectly, but he tried his best and he ended up finding a corporate spy of someone that China had sent to work in Fremont, just next to my hometown. The idea of this kid, instead of being bored, found this guy, [who] was living five minutes from where I was living as I was growing up, is crazy to me. 

Can you describe your time at Nueva through the lens of your facial hair?

I’ve been waiting for this question. There’s three phases. Phase one is security. Initially I grew a beard because I got hired when I was 22 or 23, and the next youngest teacher was either 30 or in their 30s. I was basically the same age as the kids I was teaching. I was really insecure at parent teacher conferences, and so I grew a beard to pretend like I was older. Phase two: I was just not in a good period of my life, and so it was no longer an insecurity—I just wasn’t feeling good, I didn’t take care of myself. Phase three, the good times, that’s where we’re in right now. No beard.

If you could go on any of the HS trips what would it be?

New Orleans with Chelsea, but Chelsea’s gone this year, so mainland China with Ting and Wes. 

If you were given a million dollars how would you use it?

I wouldn’t do much with it. I would still work at Nueva. I’d maybe do one or two less classes. I wouldn’t buy a house, and I would go to the same restaurants. I would bring my Italian friends and family here to visit much more often..

If you could create a MUN committee on any topic, and had infinite time to develop and then carry it out, what would that topic be and what would that look like?

My favorite book is called Red Rising. Spoiler: the first trilogy is a revolution which ends with a nice little neat bow tie where they throw out the villains and the good guys take over. The next trilogy is like what happens post-revolution after the dissolution of a caste system. It’s this really, really interesting look at the challenges of developing and running progressive liberal societies. I would have a MUN Committee of the Senate in the Republic, where different members represent both political beliefs and ethnicities.

Why MUN? What interests you about it?

I wanted the intellectual challenge, but I wanted a little less of the ego. I think in debate, the only way I do well is by the person I’m sitting across from doing poorly. It’s a hundred percent zero sum and I hated that because when I went out into the real world, I found that little else is. This is the Hufflepuff in me. I think that life is better and happier when we collaborate. I love that MUN is not an assessment of who’s the loudest voice in the room, or who proved everyone else was idiots, but who actually found interesting common ground to collaborate with each other. 

What is at the top of your bucket list?

I want to speak much better Italian than I do right now.

What part about being ninth grade dean do you enjoy the most?

I love how similar to eighth graders [the ninth graders] are. I love that they genuinely have emotions, they’re happy and they’re angry. I think the older kids get, the more their emotions seem to have a dimmer bulb switched on. They’re just a little less happy when they’re happy. A little less sad when they’re sad. I love the raw intensity of experiences and I love that it’s so uncertain. You have no idea what these social groups are going to be like in a couple years. 

Who among your Nueva colleagues would you want to do an Escape Room with? Why?

I think it would be fun to do an escape room with Wes. But it would be more memorable to do it with Andrew because he wouldn’t try to escape. He would just start destroying pieces of the surrounding to live there, and I think that’d be great.