They look at it as a chore. Small Things start to get rowdy in that back corner come afternoon. It starts with the little ones. Every Tuesday during the school year at 4 p.m. seven to 10 first and second-graders pile into Room 135 for a group class. It's a school setting, complete with blackboard and those annoying half-desks.
Students are even assigned homework.
But the grand piano sprawled in a corner makes all the difference between this and school. Ashley Smetherman, a part-time music instructor who is finishing a master's degree in voice at Tulane university, is the schoolmarm. Though she is infinitely patient with the children, some classes are more constructive than others. No, but I came from one. Attention immediately is diverted from the blackboard to the straw hat.