Wednesday, November 18, 2009

A Lesson for All Young People


Something that was passed along to me by a friend of mine that touched my heart and I wanted to share with you all:


A lesson that should be taught in all schools . . and colleges!

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School did something not to be forgotten.

On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent,the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks
out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks..

'Ms.Cothren, where're our desks?'

She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'

They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.'

'No,' she said.

‘Maybe it's our behavior.'

She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior..'

And so,they came and went, the first period, second period,third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms.Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said,

'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven Veterans, all in uniform, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand along side the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks
had been earned.

Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'

By the way,this is a true story: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/nodesks.asp

Please consider passing this along so others won't forget that the freedoms we have were earned by Veterans.


Until next time..... Lorie

3 comments:

Liz Mays said...

What a wonderful lesson that they'll likely never forget.

Anonymous said...

Hey Lorie,
I have read this before and we need more teachers/authority figures like this dear teacher!!

I wonder how many of these children had ever heard this before? hmmmmm

Hugs,
Lynn♥

~Let FREEDOM Ring!~

Alexis AKA MOM said...

Oh girl you make my cry! How beautiful!

This Template was custom created by Bloggy Blog Designz Copyright © 2010