Power Girls of JHS 217 learn etiquette

BY ELLEN YAN | STAFF WRITER

April 25, 2005

Several girls, clasping a cruise line's sample menus, ordered dinners with themes like Mediterranean Night and Captain's Gala.

Nearby was a selection of fine dining accoutrements: soup tureen, punch bowl, a doll-house-sized tea set and corn skewers. Settings of rented china with gold chargers and tulip-shaped champagne glasses loaded a table that stretched the length of the room.

This was no cruise ship. It was the school library of JHS 217, which, for a couple of days each month, turns into a sort of finishing school for Power Girls, 24 young misses of various academic and social backgrounds, picked from scores of girls interviewed.

"Somebody passes something and you've never seen it before. What do you do?" asked Lillie Wilson, a volunteer.

"In real life?" eighth-grader Monet Orr asked hesitantly. "Sniff it."

Well, not quite. But proper etiquette, decorum and a dose of life's refined things are what the Power Girls want to learn. Which fork to use? What's consommé? Must one send the hostess a thank you note?

"When girls are in adolescence, I think of it as a time when they are at the crossroads," said Jeannette Reed, principal of the Jamaica school. "They have the right way to go or the wrong way. By them getting special attention and by them being part of an elite club, they have self esteem. It's lack of self esteem that often leads to poor decision making."

When the girls have learned everything from ballroom dancing to introducing people, they'll have a chance to show off their polish at a Broadway play and possibly high tea.

In Friday's lessons on formal dining, the Power Girls moved from one etiquette station to the next, noting that a scarf over the head will keep makeup off clothes while dressing and learning that a gift to the hostess is a must. For tough questions, there was the "Etiquette" book.

There was even a right way to lift the soup spoon, demonstrated by Diane Heath, 60, the club's creator.

"It's in, up and up," said Heath, lifting the spoon in an outward arch so that no soup would fall on her lap, napkin-covered, of course.

Heath started 217's Power Girls last year, an outgrowth of her childhood experience.

Decades ago, Heath's was one of few black families in places like Ozone Park and Cambria Heights, and her parents and others started Hansel and Gretel social clubs to teach dating and dining behavior to their children.

"We weren't invited to a lot of things in the community," Heath recalled, "but our parents were middle class, educated parents who wanted their young people to have the finer things in life."

Nowadays, some students said, their parents have little time to teach all the etiquette rules. So they welcomed school-time practice of formal dining with Kentucky Fried Chicken, potato wedges and corn on the cob.

"I'm not used to eating so gentle," said Allison Yu, 14, moving her knife practically in slow motion to cut a drumstick.

For teens of Allison's age, it's fashionable to be a "ghetto girl" with loud music and voice, but the etiquette girls of 217 said knowing another way of behaving will be an edge in job interviews and grown-up life.

Reed hopes a male teacher will step up to form a boys version of the club, as the Power Girls say, it's boys who need to know that burping and messy eating are "disgusting."

"It's better to be prepared and not look stupid in front of everybody," said Carol Paris, 14. "It's nice to be elegant, even if it is painful and excruciating."