To the Kid Who Walked Out Of My Class The Very First Day I Taught

Perhaps if you had known I was running across the main quad. In cowboy boots.

Perhaps if you knew it was my very first day of teaching.

Perhaps if you knew I wasn’t nervous at all until I got to the classroom only to find it empty and locked, realizing then I had the wrong room.

Perhaps you would have stayed.

Purdue Campus

I ran up the stairs to the 3rd floor, turned to go down the hall and saw you coming out of a classroom. You walked towards me a little slowly; I could almost hear you thinking, “Is that her? No...can’t be...is it?”

I said, “I’m pretty sure you’re gonna wanna turn around and go back to class.”

When I get nervous, very nervous, the Texan in me comes out. I may have even said, “go back to class, pardner.” Who knows; it’s all a blur, really.

Part of me could not believe this school was going to let me teach. Somehow I thought teaching assistant meant I would assist someone. I was teaching a class I never took as an undergrad to students I never met in a building I’d never been in, in a city I never imagined. No wonder I was late.

Milton Kessler, my favorite professor.

I had no idea how to be a teacher. My favorite professors were my poetry professors, who were all greying Jewish men of varying height and girth, but all with a much deeper voice and a command of the room I knew I did not have.

But this was new to you, too, Ryan. This was your first day on campus, having moved into town over the weekend. How did you know you could leave a class? What in you made you think, “Look, I’ve got better things to do than to wait around for some teacher to show up…” and get up--the only one in the class willing to do it--and leave the room? The other students were shocked.

In that way, you saved me. I was late and sweaty and clearly out of sorts, but that’s not what they noticed. They saw you come back into the room, a sheepish "she-caught-me" grin. I had disciplined my first student before I even stepped into the classroom.

I write my name on the board, turn and say, “Good morning. Let’s begin. It’s pronounced ‘burn’.”