Sunday, October 05, 2008

Sunday Snippets

The Education Carnival is up for your reading pleasure over at Matthew Needleman’s site….Creating Lifelong Learners while the History Carnival made its appearance over at American Presidents. I’m a bit late with these links….Take pity on a recooping woman. :)

Last week my good blog friend Polski3 alerted me that this site may be loading s-l-o-w-l-y when you try to access it. I’ve noticed the site being a bit slow for me as well.

I’m sorry. It’s not my intention.

I visited WebSiteOptimization.com and allowed their system to analyze my site. I found my images and exterior scripts might be slowing things down, so I’m planning on spending this week trying some changes. I’d love to convert to the layout style for Blogger….this template is written for Classic Blogger. I’ll see what works and what doesn’t. If you stop by and things look a little strange...well, now you will know why.

Finally, the particular lesson referenced below is one I wish I had thought of first……

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, 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. Looking around, confused, they asked, “Ms. Cothren, where’re our desks?”

She replied, “You can’t have a desk until you tell me what you have done to 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 of 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 the classroom. Now I’m going to tell you.”

Want to know the reason…..head here to learn more about a gutsy move by a gutsy teacher to help her students understand what the right to an education is all about.

1 comment:

Dan Edwards said...

Nice post ! Those men who left their homes to fight the soldiers of the king, those men who wore Blue or butternut who died fighting for what they believed, those men who went overseas to fight evil and tyrany so's not to fight evil and tyrany on our own soil.... And, I might add, those in uniform who did not come home EARNED IT for us.

And those who walked out of the fields where they labored, those who marched against injustice and refused to sit in the back of the bus anymore.... They helped EARN IT.