Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Veteran Day Story

This story was in another email I received. Thought you might enjoy it!

Today is Veterans Day. This story is TRUE according to Snopes.
Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, asocial studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, didsomething not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permissionof the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, shetook all of the desks out of the classroom.
The kids came into first period and , there were no desks. They lookedaround and said, "Ms. Cothren, where's our desk?" And she said, "You can'thave 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 theclassroom. Second period, same thing. Third period. By early afternoontelevision news crews had gathered in Ms. Cothren's class to find out aboutthis 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 atthis time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. And she says,"Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks thatsit 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 asshe did 27 U.S. veterans , wearing their uniforms, walked into thatclassroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those schooldesks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. And by the time they hadfinished placing those desks, those kids for the first time I think perhapsin 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 responsiblyto learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a pricefor you to have that desk, and don't ever forget it."