Teaching, people often say, is not a desk job. And it is not unknown for teachers to complain that they are on their feet all day.
But at one New York school, these cliches of the profession have become the literal truth.
On Friday, Donna Connelly, an elementary-school principal in the Bronx, ordered her teachers to give up their desks, telling them that she did not want them sitting in the classroom.
The principal of PS24, the Spuyten Duyvil School, told teachers to empty their filing cabinets, and then push their desks and cabinets into the hallway.
With lessons still in progress, teachers had to empty their paperwork into cardboard boxes. School caretakers then took the furniture outside and piled it up in the road.
“It’s the 21st century – you don’t need desks,” Ms Connelly said, according to reports in the New York Post.