Hello everyone:
I was teaching at the College of Southern Maryland many years ago. The students were lovely folks, but I did have the occasional “unique” student. Such was the case with a fellow I will call Nolan, which I assure you was not his real name.
On the first day for each of my communication classes, I asked students to introduce themselves to the class and tell everyone one special thing about themselves. We had all the students sharing their names and backgrounds; most of them were fairly ‘business as usual’ comments, until we got to Nolan.
Nolan announced his name and then said, “Yeah. The judge gave me a choice between prison or college, so I choose college.” The room was silent. My thoughts immediately became “Oh, goodie goodie gumdrops. The judge gave you a choice and you picked my class.”
Nolan was a very pleasant student, for the most part. He was a big man, he had dreadlocks that went down to his waist, and he sported multiple tattoos. Based on the look he gave me on the first day of class, I never got close enough to see what they said.
He also had a presence in the class. When he spoke, everyone listened, kind of like that financial investment company that used to advertise that when they spoke the place went silent. Such was the case with Nolan.
An advantage of having him in class was that, whenever there were noisy students in the hallway, I would ask Nolan to tell them to hush. I don’t know exactly what he said, but within seconds of his stepping into the hallway, there was no sound. There was always instant silence for the rest of the class.
I never found out what Nolan did to get in front of the judge, and he never offered to tell me. All things considered, having him in class worked out well for both of us. He got a very good grade, and I had this story to tell you.
Best,
Dr. Sheri