Thread by @tressiemcphd

I just ran into an old college professor at the coffee shop. Let me tell you how memory works. I was looking for my car. I cohost where I parked it. Yet, I saw the profile of a man in a mask from 500 feet and shouted, “Larry Nessler?!” Same person. Same brain. 😂

What a treat! Not only is it one of the small joys of being home. It is also truly awesome to see your old teachers when you turned out okay 💅🏿

I haven’t seen him in nigh on 12 years or so. I remember his classes like they were yesterday. His was the first class where I could *see* the craft of teaching. He was this middle aged white guy teaching at an HBCU. That can go wrong lots of ways, trust me.

And his advanced classes were pretty tough because they were novel to us. He is a trained cultural anthropologist. And he taught what I called language math ie linguistics. I loved it but it was a bit of a challenge. We were often frustrated in class.

Larry did this thing when we were agitated about a grade or an assignment where he would let you rant and then calmly say, “I hear you.” He would say it until you believed him. Worked almost every time! I was amazed. I stole it for my own pedagogy.

It would be easy to see us as angry but he chose to see us as frustrated, which makes more sense but not all teachers have that kind of sense. The other thing I remember is that “I hear you” did not mean “I agree with you.” Most of the time he followed it with, “but no.”

I learned that most of the time people want to be seen. And it’s okay to set standards as long as you try to hear people’s frustrations.

Of course there is a stupid typo. I hate the future.

Anyway, he counted my gray hairs and told me aging is pretty cool. I eventually found my car.