The fourth-graders greeted their parents with a delicate bow, parted a silver curtain and silently led them inside.
After gesturing to a shrine for a moment of meditation Thursday, the 12 children directed their parents to a woven mat and gracefully took their own seats on the ground.
The Japanese tea ceremony was about to begin.
Donna Gease’s language classroom at St. Louis Catholic School in Englewood usually resonates with the chatter of children practicing their new Spanish vocabulary while adorned in bright sombreros. This language class has a different tone.
Japanese art in muted colors surrounds the children as they focus on the discipline, beauty and peace of the tea ceremony and the culture.
All other language classes at the private school for grades K-8 are in Spanish; this is the only Japanese course Gease teaches there.
“I love the fans, parasols and lanterns,” said Emma Konizeski, 9, dressed in a scarlet silk kimono with chopsticks woven into her hair. She and her classmates – many in bathrobes – led the ceremony, or “chado,” by passing out tea to their parents according to tradition.
Most kids particularly enjoyed the second part of the event, when they sang and performed a Japanese dance.
Gabriel Cuellar said his favorite song is “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” because he likes how it sounds in Japanese.
“He does it all the time at home,” his mother, Mary, said.
The class has done more than draw kids’ interest in music.
“He has a greater appreciation for being more quiet at the dinner table,” Mary Cuellar said. Gabriel used to put up a struggle before reading a devotion at dinnertime, but now he volunteers, she said.
The Japanese class was a successful experiment for the school, principal Pattie Hagen said. When the class of third-graders last year showed special abilities to pick up language, Gease asked if she could give the kids a taste of something new, Hagen said.
It worked so well that Gease will teach Japanese to fourth-graders every year.
“The hardest part is to get across that this is a quiet, dignified ceremony,” Gease said. “They are talkative kids, but when we practiced, … they understood the point.”
Staff writer Julianne Bentley can be reached at jbentley@denverpost.com.
