Can Students Earn Their Desks?

I’m still not sure where I stand on the matter of teacher evaluations. I’ve read all the arguments for using standardized test results on students to judge how effective their teachers are, and, by the same token, not using them and looking for something more subjective. When you’re trying to pick out the good teachers from those who don’t quite measure up, I admit that I just don’t know the answer.

Somehow I’ve always felt that the pupils themselves know when they’ve got a winner, and even if they don’t like her (or him) from time to time, they recognize quality when they see it, when they experience it up close. I have a feeling that students at Robinson High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, felt that way about Martha Cothren if they were lucky enough to be in her history class – especially if they happened to be on hand for the first day of school a few years ago. I read about that opening day in an email that came my way, and I pass it along to you to show you what I mean.

The most amazing thing about the classroom that students entered for first period that day was that it had no desks. No desks! Acting with the approval of her superintendent, her principal, and the building supervisor, Ms. Cothren had had all the desks removed before the students arrived. To be sure, there was a method to this apparent madness, but it took a while before anyone caught on.

Naturally the students wanted to know what had happened to the desks – “their” desks – and the teacher had a ready answer. “You can’t have a desk,” she replied, “until you tell me how you earn the right to sit there.”

The youngsters tried to rise to the challenge. Maybe we have to earn decent grades before we get a desk, some said; others thought the answer might lie in their behavior. Wrong and wrong, Ms. Cothren said, and suggested that perhaps the next class would have the correct response.

They didn’t, of course; neither did third period, or fourth, or so on. Meanwhile, there were simply no desks.

Finally the last period of the day arrived, and at last the students would have their answer. Ms. Cothren opened the classroom door and in walked 27 U.S. veterans, all in uniform, each one carrying a school desk. They quietly put them in place, one by one, and when the last one completed his task and joined the others standing around the room, the teacher began to speak to the class.

“You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks,” she said. “These heroes did it 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’s 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 essay is a recent “Light One Candle” column, written by Jerry Costello, of The Christophers; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.)

Background information:

The Christophers: Christopher Radio & Video