A delicate lesson

Keep your elbows off the table. Don't make faces. Bread is not a course. Middle school students learn these etiquette lessons and more.

HOLIDAY - The lesson was served up along with a doilied paper plate of hors d'oeuvres - chicken liver pate, brie and sour cream topped with a dollop of caviar - all laid out on water crackers.

The delicacies were familiar for some students, such as 12-year-old Jesse Ackley.

"This isn't bad," he said, after tasting the caviar as he sat with 10 of his classmates at the "virtual dinner table" set up in his classroom.

Still, the discovery that it was edible mold that encased the brie was met with a few winces from others.

That brought a gentle reminder from their teacher, Teresa Reilly.

"It is not polite to show distaste. Remember, everything you are served is lovely . . . and we don't want to put off anyone's appetite," she told her students. "Never do anything vulgar or rude at the table - and that includes making faces."

The introduction to proper appetizer eating was just one part of an etiquette class held last week for middle school students at World of Knowledge Montessori School.

Besides dining on crackers and caviar, students learned how to write and respond to a dinner or party invitation, carry on a light dinner conversation and write a proper thank you note.

"It's fun," said Alex Muscolina, 12. "And we get good food."

For more than two years Reilly has been teaching local youngsters a little more than the basics when it comes to proper manner and dress. She seems to be on track to become the new Miss Manners of Pasco County.

She even has a book on the way.

Etiquette Lessons: Boys and Girls at the Table: Teens at the Table should be available in bookstores by the end of the year, Reilly said.

The monthly class for middle schoolers is an extension of one offered last year to students in grades 2 through 8 at the World of Knowledge.

"I really wasn't a big enthusiast about this at first but I am now," middle school teacher Kelley Zenchuck said. "With everything else we do - sign language, music, P.E. - to add one more thing seemed impossible. I thought it would detract from the Montessori principle of giving kids blocks of uninterrupted time to complete their projects. But the kids had such a good time that I ended up extending it."

Basics such as keeping elbows off the table and chewing with one's mouth closed are part of the curriculum. So are some finer points - from how to bow and curtsey to using proper pronouns when addressing even your peers, to ballroom dancing.

And although learning and putting to good use those proper manners is the goal, Reilly often cites scientific proof.

For instance, proper posture not only looks good, but is also necessary in lifting the rib cage so the stomach and lungs can function, Reilly said.

Often the class enlightens even some adults.

"I had no idea that it was supposed to take 20 bites to eat a dinner roll," Zenchuck said.

The bread and butter unit is so important that it takes one entire lesson, Reilly said.

"The bread and butter plate is something America is getting away from," she said. "We need to get back to that."

"The roll is there to stave off the appetite. It's not meant to be one course," Reilly explained. "If they have a seven-course meal and they stuff themselves with bread, there's just no way. And then how are they supposed to dance afterward?"

For information about Reilly's etiquette lessons, call toll-free 877 847-2748 or got to http://www.etiquettelessons.com/

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