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?"
And she 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.
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. And she says, "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."
M artha 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 those 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."
