Sunday School Presbyterian-style, 1995 . . . Come with me to beautiful Western Springs, lovely Sunday in November.

Leaves, falling or fallen, have trickled to a precious few . . . .

. . . It's tail end of our "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," to call up Keats.

The organ has filled the church, if the people haven't, with the stirring "Now thank we all our God." The little children have not yet been led away from this, the 9:30 service. Not all the men are wearing ties, unlike their stouthearted Lake Forest, John Knox-descended counterparts visited a few weeks earlier.

From the front of church comes a "Good morning" and welcome from the business-suited "president of the corporation," so designated in the church bulletin.

The bell choir played. Then a reading in unison by all of Isaiah 12, from page 607 of the pew Bible.

The corporation president speaks of the Pilgrims in 1621, this being the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day.

Then the children's choir, reminiscent unfortunately of the "Home Alone 2" Christmas choir which fell off bleachers at a pageant. Applause when they finish. Then the other children are called to the front. Then the bell choir again.

In a back pew, a little girl stands on the seat next to her mother, making bell-choir hand movements, watching everything. It's being burned in: bells, pew, mother, rows of heads seen from behind . . . .

Applause again for the bell choir. "We're into the clapping stage, I see," says the senior minister, reprimanding them.

Time for the children to leave. They file out, heading for "activity centers."

Chain-makers, 2nd & 3rd grade activity . . . A "chain gang" writes Bible references on strips which make a "thanksgiving prayer chain." Kids are at long tables. Jan is in charge. Her husband Dan and a 14-year-old girl move about.

"I'm done," says one child, then another. Strips are pasted end to end, making rings, each within another, to make a chain. It's is complicated enough to absorb them, easy enough to be fun.

Whispering, 4th & 5th grade activity . . . Three read from "Your Secret's Safe with Me," a script about rumor-mongering, how gossip spreads and is exaggerated, the others following in their own copies.

"What do you think?" the teacher, Vickie asks, when it's over.

"Secret to secret, gets into gossip, becomes something juicy," says a girl.

"A whisperer separates close friends," a boy reads from Proverbs, Bible at the ready.

Music, 3rd-to-5th grade activity . . . Twenty-five kids at three long tables are learning "Stars were shining brightly in the sky above," with something about "the precious gift of love."

A pianist in black tie, with black goatee and mustache, sits at a Yamaha Clavinova. Another man, standing next to the piano, in white shirt & tie, a beeper silent on his belt, leads the singing. He's full of compliments for the kids.

The next song is one they will sing at the coming community Christmas festival, the pianist says. "A letter is to go home." The song leader has the letter, hands it out. The group is restless but good-natured.

Justice and all that, junior high Bible study . . . There are three adults for 20 kids, as opposed to only one for a comparable Lake Forest group a few weeks earlier, when matters had (arguably) gotten out of hand. "Micah [the prophet] was speaking for God," says the teacher, a woman. The kids listen, raising hands only if they have answers.

A boy: "Justice might be telling someone how he's wrong."

Teacher: "Doing justice is a social obligation."

About love and kindness: "Being nice, turning the other cheek," says a boy.

"The golden rule," the teacher prompts.

"Yes," he says, "Do unto others . . . " He recites the golden rule!

An aide, another woman: "What if you have a [disagreement] with a friend?"

A boy: "Say you're sorry."

They are what a late-'60s romantic would call repressed -- quiet, waiting their turn, polite, relaxed, controlled. The adult male aide looks on unsmiling. These adults would not be confused with '60s romantics.

A girl who seems capable of kicking up her heels is reduced to a mild grimace and making (but not sailing) a paper airplane. One next to her keeps her lips sealed. Call her Inscrutable. Even the arrangement bespeaks order and control; they are surrounded by adults, no space is given to Golding's lord of the flies.

They break into three groups, one to discuss justice, another niceness, etc. Now there's give and take. They are very comfortable with each other. Inscrutable is no longer inscrutable, but fully part of her group of six plus the unsmiling man, who leads discussion, serious but relaxed.

"He's a jerk," says a boy at one point, referring to someone perhaps hypothetical, in any event not present.

"Not a nice way to talk," says the man.

Another group, on a couch, includes the plane-maker, tall and tow-headed. She's in it all the way, hand up, animated. Settling in, she had tousled the hair of a boy, smaller than she, friendly, not trying to get the better of him.

After a bit she asks to step outside for some air. Yawning, she says she was up late last night -- maybe babysitting. As she leaves "for a few minutes," a boy says, "We're counting."

The third group, in a corner, is led by the teacher. "How about if you saw something wrong?" she asks. "What would you do? Speak out? Write a letter to the editor? Pass a petition?"

Again, relaxation, no one seeking to bug anyone else. Some very mild out-of-line behavior, as when a paper plane is thrown, but not far. No Lord of Flies takeover here.

Ten minutes of that, and all return to their places as before, seated in a circle. One had got water on his Bible; much attention is given to wiping it off. A woman assistant reminds: "Remember our covenant, keep the room clean for others."

Standing at a chart board, a boy writes what a girl reports of her group's discussion. Others are quiet while he and she work together. Work is being done here.

The male assistant, standing, corrects a boy cryptically: "We don't need to see your fingers."

Oversight is a constant. Focus is provided by adults. The kids are here for a purpose. But it's not oppressive, or is apparently not seen that way by the kids.

The boy has written: "Be fair even though life isn't. Be friends with everyone. Speak out for your rights. Try to make the world a safer place. Try not to be a hypocrite." And more -- 16 items in all, each about "doing justice."

Group Two, on love and kindness. The plane-maker is spokesperson-recorder. On the board the boy writes: "Help sick or hurt person at school. Forgive a friend's offenses. Forget them too. Help a bird with a broken wing. Tutor those needing help. Be a peer helper at school. Protect those in danger. . ."

Jeremiah was a prophet, 4th and 5th grade Bible study . . . Ten kids at three tables. One adult leads, the other comments. Talk is of Isaiah, then Jeremiah. A girl slides her Bible across the table to another girl, it slips off into her lap, she gives a mock grimace.

The teacher asks "complete attention," pretty much gets it as she reads. Kids seem to feel the need to cooperate. Catch an eye of one, and you gather they care what adults say and think.

(This is a community whose adults have not lost their nerve. In later discussion with teachers, they seem not receptive to this idea or to that the school's tone demonstrated it.)

The teacher reads about Jeremiah in the cistern, pulled out by rescuers. "He didn't die then," she tells a girl who had apparently raised this question earlier. Question wondered and answered, in one class. Just what you want: curiosity piqued and satisfied.

The teacher reads: ". . . just obey the voice of the Lord." She finishes, a boy disconcertingly moving his retainer in and out of his mouth tells her, apparently in character, "You have a different Bible." But it's not a Deadeye Dick comment by a student one-upper. It's something he thought worth noting. God knows why.