This is a true story of how a Little Rock history teacher taught her class a lesson they will never forget has been shared many times via email and social media.
On the first day of school in September of 2005, Martha Cothran, a history teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, Arkansas shared an unforgettable lesson with her students. With the administration’s permission, Cothran removed all of the desks from her classroom.
When her first class arrived and noticed that there were no desks in the room, they asked why, and Cothran reportedly told them,”You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at one.”
Was it because of their grades, or their behavior, they wondered? “No,” Cothren said, that wasn’t it. With each period throughout the day new students came to the room only to find that it held no desks, and the word began to spread that something was going on in Martha Cothren’s classroom. By early afternoon the media began arriving at the school to cover the story of the crazy teacher who had removed all the desks from her classroom.
Finally, as the puzzled students from the last period of the day found seats on the floor of her desk-less classroom, Martha Cothren said, “Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he or 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.”
Then, as her students watched, their teacher opened the classroom door and in filed 27 uniformed U.S. Veterans, each with a desk. After placing the desks in rows, the veterans lined up along the wall, and as the last one joined the others in line, the students began to understand – perhaps for the first time – how their right to sit at those desks had been earned.
“You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks, Martha Cothren reportedly told her students, “these heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. They went halfway around the world, giving up their education and interrupting their careers and families so you could have the freedom you have. 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.”
This much-circulated story is reportedly taken from an address by Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2007, in which the governor recounted the story of a lesson taught by Martha Cothren (the daughter of a WWII POW) in 2005 that impacted not just her students that day, but a community.
The lesson according to reports, resulted in the organization of a Vietnam Veterans Recognition Week during which students recorded video of veterans recounting their war memories in an effort to preserve them for later generation. The week culminated in a ceremony held in the school’s auditorium to honor our country’s heroes, with the community and many veterans from WWII, Korea and Vietnam in attendance.
Honoring veterans has continued as a tradition through the years, carrying over into the district to include students from other schools as was the case last October when, to thank and honor over 80 Arkansas WWII Veterans, students from multiple schools wrote thank you notes and decorated cards that, according to the school district, were presented to the group of veterans in the form of a “mail call” during their return from an Honor Flight to visit the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C.
And just recently, August 23, 2014, to be exact, Martha Cothren was presented with the American Legion National Education Award at the American Legion 96th National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. She joins the ranks of a long list of notable recipients, including First Lady Barbara Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, Journalist and Author Tom Brokaw, Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangaroo, and children’s television personality, Mr. (Fred) Rogers.
If you agree that this outstanding teacher’s accomplishment should be recognized, please help us promote her story by sharing this article or our Facebook post below. (Just click on the photo and “like” or share on your timeline or with a friend or group.)
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