The Cost Of Desks
Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a
social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did
something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission
of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she
took all of the desks out of the classroom.
The kids came into first period, they walked in, there were no desks. They
obviously looked around and said, "Ms. Cothren, where's our desk?"
Ms. Cothren said, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn
them."
They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."
"No," she said. "Maybe it's our behavior." And she told them, "No, it's not
even your behavior."
And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the
classroom. Second period, same thing, third period, no desks. By early
afternoon television news crews had gathered in Ms. Cothren's class to find
out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the
classroom.
The last period of the day, Martha Cothren gathered her class. They were at
this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. She said,
"Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that
sit in this classroom ordinarily." She said, "Now I'm going to tell you."
Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as
she did 27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that
classroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school
desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall.
And by the time they had finished placing the desks, those kids for the
first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those
desks.
Martha said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you.
They put them out there for you, but it's up to you to sit here responsibly
to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price
for you to have that desk, and don't ever forget it."
My friend, I think sometimes we forget that the freedoms that we have are
freedoms not because of celebrities. The freedoms are because of ordinary
people who did extra ordinary things, who loved this country more than life
itself, and who not only earned a school desk for a kid at the Robinson High
School in Little Rock, but who earned a seat for you and me to enjoy this
great land we call home, this wonderful nation that we better love enough to
protect and preserve with the kind of conservative, solid values and
principles that made us a great nation.
"We live in the Land of the Free because of the brave"
Remember our Troops.
And yes it's a true story. (http://www.snopes.com/glurge/nodesks.asp)
