BALTIMORE — These students are learning how to sit at the grown-up's table. They’re taking an etiquette class here, at Miss Shirley’s restaurant in Roland Park.
“No, what on the table?”
“Elbows.”
“No elbows on the table.”
Students and teachers from Sharp Leadenhall Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore got a hands-on lesson in dining protocol.
“You can rest your wrists on the table and have your hands like that,” says Catherine Hanson, etiquette coach. “That’s another option.”
They were given a guide on table settings. And instruction by Hanson from the International School of Protocol.
“Oh, well done,” Hanson says. “You passed the salt and the pepper. They travel together.”
The etiquette coach gave them tips that stump most adults, and the students mastered them, some with a little one-on-one help.
“I learned more manners and stuff,” says Simone Brucht, an eighth-grade student. “She told me how to hold the fork and knife properly.”
And this question: what do you do when you’re served something you don’t like?
“Do we ever say this is nasty?”
“No.”
“We say we love it.”
No complaints here, thanks to Miss Shirley and a community sponsor, Index.
“I’m just impressed by them,” says Towanda Cofield, principal. “Actually, I didn’t know I was gonna learn something from them. They loved having an etiquette class but also sitting down with peers and teachers and staff to have a meal.”
Twelve students were selected from the school based on academics and positive behavior.
