Showing posts with label February 06. Show all posts
Showing posts with label February 06. Show all posts

Friday, February 6, 2015

And now, for a true story…

In a rare case, I post someone else’s story or thoughts. Today is one of those moments. This comes from MIkey’s Funnies email (you can subscribe to it here).



True story…


In September of 2005, a social studies schoolteacher from Arkansas 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, “Where’s our desks?”


The teacher 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 the class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom. The last period of the day, the instructor gathered her class.


They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. She said, “Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily. Now I’m going to tell you.”


She 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. By the time they had finished placing the desks, those kids for the first time perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.


Their teacher 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.”





Hoo Yah, teacher.


HOO YAH!


Read more at http://ift.tt/1zGAdhX




All Around the World, Mostly…

I joined the Navy when I was 18 and over the next four years got to see more of the world then I really ever wanted. Call me short-sighted, call me narrow-minded, call me non adventurous, call me a homebody… but I just don’t like traveling. At least, not anymore.


You see, in that four years I got to see Portugal, Spain, Palma de Mallorca, Italy, Sardinia, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Djibouti, Israel, Turkey, Greece, the Sinai Peninsula, Kuwait, Iraq, The Suez Canal, most of the Caribbean, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama, the Panama Canal, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and I’m pretty sure I left off a few places…


I even got to see a few cities in the U.S. in that time frame too.


I’ve seen some of the most beautiful water you could ever imagine, sailed in some of the worst seas that I hope never to revisit, did some of the craziest (stupid) things I still can’t quite believe I did, and saw things that will be with me for the rest of my life.


But for all the photos I have, and for all the fun that I enjoyed, for all the memories that were made…nothing was ever like home. Watching our home port grow larger as we pulled in from being underway, manning the rail and scanning the crowd for my family, rushing into the arms of my wife (ok, she rushed, I was military and manly and.. didn’t cry at all.. nope), feeling complete again and that somehow that moment made the last 6 months worth it.


Yeah… home.


I’d be ok if I never had to leave her again.


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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “No, Thanks.”