DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?

When you live in the city and spend most work days perched in an office on the third floor of your hundred-year old twin home, you become very attuned to certain sounds: cars speeding up the block; delivery trucks bringing Amazon treasures; and neighbors bellowing threats at their loved ones with the zeal of Roman gladiators in a Colosseum death match.

Because we live two doors away from a public elementary school, I have also grown accustomed to a cacophony of sounds from the playground starting around 8 am every weekday: heart-stopping screams that could only come from a terrified individual on the verge of being drawn and quartered; basketballs being thrown at someone's developing skull; and every 30 seconds or so, some version or another of the F Bomb. 

But this year, the sounds of silence were all around.

You see, the 200-year-old school had closed in June and the building was now occupied by a charter middle-school that needed a new location.

Now I'm not up to date on the all the school headlines in Philly, but even I know that charter schools have been in the news lately because this administrator pilfered educational-designated funds for luxury cruises or that principal had her home renovated thanks to some very creative bookkeeping.

So the fact that a charter school was now in my neighborhood did not exactly make me grab my pom-poms and cheer.

But I have become much more enthusiastic because of what I'm hearing - or not hearing.

Here's what happened: The first day of school, it took me a while to notice that there were no sound-barrier-blasting screams emanating from the playground. No one sounded as if they were being being verbally belittled or physically manhandled. And, as far as I could tell, there were no curse words shouted at the top of a ten-year-old's lungs. Yes, there was the predictable rhythm and flow of a hundred kids gathered in a school yard, but it didn't sound as if the Crips and the Bloods were about to do battle.

Somewhere, someone had taught these kids to speak like normal human beings. 

And, get this, as I trotted Sammy Girl down our street to begin her morning walk that day, I passed a student who issued a chirpy, "Good Morning!" I swear that Sammy looked at me as if to say,"Dang, did you hear THAT?" We were both so used to students avoiding/ignoring/distaining us that to have an actual kid greet us in a civilized manner was, frankly, shocking.

I consulted she-who-knows-all, AKA the School Crossing Guard, who supplied the latest scuttlebutt: At this charter school, children are instilled with school pride and have learned to act in a manner that reflects well on them and the institution.

That must be why everything sounds so different from my third floor these days. It's as if Sister Mary Muscles is back in town, keeping an entire schoolyard of youngsters in line.

It's almost as if she's cocking her head and whispering: "See what a few basic rules and regulations can do?"

To which my ears and I can only reply: I hear ya, sister, believe me, I hear ya.