Overcoming Life on the Streets to Teach Literature: BRIDGEWATER, Mass. — Before he taught English at a Massachusetts college, before he completed two terminal degrees at the University of Iowa, before he took courses at a local community college, Dr. Jerald Walker was a drug-abusing dropout running the streets of Chicago, committing petty crimes.His five years living an urban nightmare ended right after a drug-dealing friend who had just sold him cocaine was fatally shot in another deal at the same place. The close call got his attention but he says that was not what turned his life around.
“I think it was the values instilled in me by my parents,” says Walker, an associate professor of English at Bridgewater State College. “They never left me. They were just buried.” Those values, taught by his blind parents, are simple enough: hard work, honesty, decency, respect for self and others.
