This is a true story.
It started in a school. The location of the school is of no consequence, nor is the name of the teacher a consequence. What matters is what the teacher did to convey a serious point. This is what she did–
One day she set up a ‘lesson’ for her kids. On the first day of homeroom, she removed all the desks and chairs. Needless to say, the kids came in confused, wondering what the heck happened. This was the lesson: if there was one kid who could guess why they deserved to have chairs to sit on and desks to work on, she’d get the desks and chairs back into the room. The teacher gave each kid till the end of the day to figure it out.
As the day went by, every kid thought about it. The teacher got every possible answer; she heard ‘good grades’, ‘punctuality’, ‘good behavior’. Each time, the teacher turned each student down, saying that it wasn’t the reason. Every kid was flabbergasted. What could it have been? No one knew.
At the end of the day, the students rounded in with the desks and chairs still missing. She presented her ‘lesson’ one more time. None of the students could think of anything. None had a reason why they would have chairs and desks. Smiling, she nodded her head. As she made her way to a door leading into an adjacent room, she said this: “this is the reason why you’re allowed to have desks and chairs for school.” She opened the door.
Coming out of the door were maybe a dozen or so military soldiers, fully dressed in uniform. Each was holding a chair and desk as if they were weapons. One by one, the soldiers filed in to place a desk and chair right next to each student. They then stood at attention….
The kids were speechless. The teacher then said “Remember that.”