Summer Luncheon

Occasionally I get to have my nose in on other's doings and today was such a day. My sister, a successful musician and piano teacher had a special "end of year" luncheon for her piano students. And a nicer bunch of kids I have yet to meet. If they are any example, I can attest to the fact that today's kid are not going down the tubes. Bright, polite, talented, and well-behaved, they were a credit to their generation. I began to speculate why? Is it because piano lessons are not cheap? Or is it that they are from mostly upper middle class neighborhoods. Today's newpapers tell me neither could be a solid reason.
I thought of my own classrooms, some 25 years ago. I taught in a poverty-ridden, ethnically diverse, neighborhood. The classroom was a split second-third grade classroom; many families were transient, and I was pregnant with my first baby. Not ideal? It really was. I cannot recall any behavior problems, (I did however have one little girl with a permanent egg on her face who could never find a paper in her perpetually messy desk.) I think the key was they new from day one what to expect. I didn't have to be a talk show host, I needed to teach. It was a wonderful time. Parents were home, lunches were packed, homework was done by the students. Maybe 1981 was the end of a predictable time in our society. But today, for a couple of hours I revisited it.