I’ve been thinking about Mr. Shaw a lot lately.

I have no idea why. I just am.

Mr. Lance Shaw was my eighth grade history teacher when I was living in Verona, NJ. But before I had him in eighth grade, I heard about him in seventh grade. All the eighth graders would tell us how awful he was. That he was relentlessly brutal, demanding. That he worked them ragged. The horror stories about Mr. Shaw were legendary and if you wound up getting him, then God help you.

When I got my eighth grade schedule and found I had Mr. Shaw as a teacher, my heart sank. I cannot tell you how much I dreaded the class.

On the first day, we filed in, and every student was nervous. We’d all heard the horror stories. Once the bell rang, Shaw surveyed us a moment.

Then he said the following:

“I have two rules. The first is that you will address me as King Shaw or Your Highness.”

We all exchanged confused looks.

“And the second rule is that you will spend from now until the end of the school year telling all the seventh graders what a terrible and terrifying teacher I am. I want you to petrify them.”

That’s when we realized. It was a joke. A massive school-wide joke. Shaw was, in fact, a perfectly nice guy, a great teacher, and had a snarky sense of humor. He had been using his students to spread awful rumors about him so that new students would be terrified of him at first and then love the notion that, No, Shaw’s not a bad guy, we’re just hosing everyone else in the school.

And naturally when we got out of the class and went to lunch, the first thing we did was terrorize the seventh graders about Mr. Shaw.

I’ve no idea whatever happened to him after that, of course, but I hope he stuck with teaching. He was great.

PAD