[antimedia] antimedia: I have no idea if this is true or not....

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Posted by antimedia:
I have no idea if this is true or not....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1175746363.shtml


   ....but it makes a nice, inspiring story.

     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, and 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."
     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 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. T hese 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

   Sent to me by a retired Air Force friend.