Rex

I'll call him Rex.

He arrived shortly before the class started and grabbed a seat in the back of the room. A large, muscular man, he resembled a shaggy cross between a biker and a pirate.

I was teaching Equal Employment Opportunity, a topic that can spark some controversy as the class tackles case examples on quotas, harassment, and investigations. The audience was composed of supervisors from public and private employers and had the usual mixture of talkers and silent types. Rex was one of the latter.

I always encourage questions and told the class to feel free to interrupt and not sit on their questions. Rex didn't ask a thing, but his body language was expressive. He sat with both arms folded and either stared off into the distance or hit me with a look that indicated I wasn't high on his list. Normally, I would have gone over to talk with him during one of the breaks in order to see what he was thinking, but each time I was intercepted by other students who had questions they didn't want to surface in front of the others.

The class went on and I tried to put Rex out of my mind. I looked at him occasionally, but purposely decided to keep him from throwing me off of my game. The rest of the students were attentive and enthusiastic and deserved an effective presentation. I kept wondering, however, what would cause someone to sit through a class in such a manner. Perhaps he was ordered to attend. There may have been some personal burden completely unrelated to anything - or anyone - in the room. Try as I might, Rex remained in my thoughts. With every case example and every quesion I wondered, "What is he thinking?"

The session finally came to an end. Several students came up and talked to me as they handed in the evaluations. I noticed Rex lingering in the back. After all of the others had departed, he snatched his paperwork and walked up.

Here it comes, I thought.

He towered over me and held out his hand. "I just want you to know," he mumbled, "that I really enjoyed this class. Didn't think I would, but it was really interesting."