In Chris Stein's class, children can be whomever they want: Taylor Swift, a Jonas Brother, SpongeBob SquarePants, President Obama.

Stein teaches social etiquette and table manners to elementary and middle school students. Urbana Middle is scheduled for classes in late March.

Classes have about 18 students, from 8 to 14 years old. Topics range from listening skills and good host and guest behaviors to thank-you notes and common courtesies.

Starting with social niceties, the students learn introductions and welcoming behavior, including handshakes. The children practice with each other, Stein said, making eye contact, smiling, "that kind of thing." Role playing introductions help break the ice for shy children.

"I've never really had the best etiquette," said Steven Ramsburg, a Windsor Knolls Middle School seventh-grader who took Stein's class in December. He saw an ad for the course and thought it could help him later in life.

"And my parents wanted me to do it," he said.

During the four-day course, spread out over two weeks, Stein covers listening skills, good host and guest behaviors, common courtesies and showing respect.

The second half of the class is dedicated to table manners. "We go through everything," Stein said. On which side of the plate utensils are placed, how to pass food, correctly handling a knife and fork, American and Continental styles of eating.

On the last day of class, Stein brings food and the group is presented with a mock dinner situation. "I will have the table set, and it will be incorrect, and the kids will come and they will have to make it a correct table setting," she said.

After the students fix the settings, they dig in.

"Of course the last class is their favorite," Stein said, "because they get to eat."

Ramsburg said he learned much during the food session, including what to do at a dinner table.

"We got to actually eat and try out different types of etiquette, like how to cut food," he said.

Stein has been teaching the classes for three years and tries to keep things fun.

"I don't have a prim and proper, stuffy kind of class," she said. "I'm trying to help them learn these life skills, not necessarily (the) fancy schmancy."

The children are often reluctant at first, Stein said. Some students want nothing to do with the class.

"A lot of people send their kids and they're like, 'Can you please fix her?'" Stein said.

Her December class at Windsor Knolls went well. "They had a ball," she said.

Ramsburg's father, Jay, said some of the boys from the class took their fathers to Outback Steakhouse to show off what they had learned. "We were quite impressed," he said.

Steven Ramsburg is the youngest of three children, and the only boy, so "we thought it would be a real good idea for him to learn everything correctly, at a fairly young age," Jay said.