A former classmate has shared a vivid memory from David Cassidy’s school days — a small but telling moment that revealed the young performer’s creative instincts long before the world ever heard his voice. According to the classmate, Cassidy was once kicked out of a math class for one very specific reason: he kept scribbling melodies in the margins of his workbook instead of solving equations.
The incident happened on an ordinary weekday morning during a lesson that, by most accounts, was slow and quiet. Students sat hunched over worksheets, the classroom filled with the faint scratch of pencils and the patient drone of the teacher trying to explain fractions. Cassidy, seated near the back, appeared focused at first glance — pencil moving steadily, eyes fixed on the page.
But the classmate said it became obvious something else was happening. Cassidy wasn’t writing numbers or formulas. His page was filled with shapes that looked like uneven musical bars, small clusters of syllables, and arrows pointing from one line to another. Every few seconds, he tapped his pencil rhythmically against the desk — not loudly, but just enough to form a subtle beat.
“It was like he was somewhere else,” the classmate recalled. “Everyone else was doing math. David was clearly hearing a song.”
The teacher, noticing the tapping, walked toward the back of the room and asked Cassidy to share his work. Instead of equations, she found melodic fragments, rhyming lines, and half-formed verse ideas scribbled inside a math textbook that, by school rules, was absolutely not meant to contain anything artistic.
Her response was swift. She closed the book, placing her hand firmly on the cover, and asked Cassidy to explain himself. He shrugged, trying to hide a grin, and admitted he’d “gotten bored and started writing something that felt more fun.” The teacher, unimpressed, pointed him to the hallway and told him to wait outside until he could “rejoin the class with his mind on math instead of music.”
Cassidy picked up his books, walked out, and leaned against the wall, still tapping a faint rhythm on the spine of his notebook. The classmate, who could see him through the door’s narrow window, said he didn’t look embarrassed or upset — just mildly amused, as though he knew he’d chosen the better of two worlds.
While Cassidy waited in the hallway, the class continued, but the moment had already become the quiet highlight of the morning. Students exchanged glances, some suppressing laughter, others shaking their heads knowingly. Everyone had seen him drift into creative daydreams before, but this was the first time it had earned him an official dismissal.
According to the classmate, the teacher eventually stepped into the hall to speak with him privately. She held the math book, opened to the scribbled pages, and asked if the melodies were something he “planned to take seriously.” Cassidy simply said, “I don’t know — they just come to me.” The teacher sighed, handed back the book, and told him to return to class on the condition that he stop turning math exercises into songwriting sessions.
He agreed, but the classmate admitted that for weeks afterward, faint melodies continued appearing in the margins — smaller and more discreet, but still present.
“It wasn’t rebellion,” the classmate recalled. “It was just who he was. Even in math class, the music wouldn’t leave him alone.”