I want to tell you a story about one of my old high school teachers. Never in my life have I had a teacher that was more effective in his craft. I probably learned more in his class than I did in a dozen other classes. In fact, everyone in the class learned more in his class than in any other. There was a reason for this, and that reason was fear!

It was the first day of the tenth grade and about halfway through the school day when I entered Mr. King's sophomore English class. As is usually the case, every class has a class clown, and our class clown made himself known right away. As Mr. King was writing on the chalkboard, this kid was goofing off and trying to impress the young girls when all of a sudden his popularity died down and the once laughing faces of his adolescent audience became sullen all at once. When the clown turned to see what was the matter, wondering who could be stealing his spotlight, he came face to face with Mr. King, who had the most intense look of disgust and anger on his face that you would have thought he was about to explode (literally). Mr. King screamed the phrase "sit down and shut up!" so forcefully that the kid's hair actually blew back from the breeze coming from the outraged teacher's mouth. Well, that was all it took to put the fear of Jesus into every kid in the class. Mr. King spent the entire first day of school explaining how there would be no nonsense in his class and what the consequences would be.

After class, the rumors started spreading. It was said that Mr. King had a bad case of PTSD from the Vietnam War, and was teetering on the brink of sanity. Nothing is quite as scary as the insane. You can never really judge what they are capable of but you are sure of one thing; if they snap, you don't want to be anywhere in sight. And so it was when it came to the respect that Mr. King commanded. A respect built completely out of fear.

That fear though caused everyone in class to give their complete attention to whatever assignment was being taught. No one ever showed up with an excuse as to why they didn't do their homework. Class was quiet and everyone learned everyday.

By the end of the semester, every student had gotten an A in English class. You see, Mr. King was a teacher who cared, and by that time, everyone knew and appreciated that fact. So we all decided to pitch in and get a thank you card for Mr. King, but the standard postcard size was just too small to fit all of our thanks on it. We did manage to find a large card though, and everyone signed it. You could tell by the look on his face that he knew why he got into teaching in the first place.