Students 1, teachers 0

Ever wonder what happens in a middle school classroom 20 minutes after the bell rings and no adult shows up?

Maybe in his nightmares, Dave Eubanks did.

And then one day, during the first week of school, he found out.

Eubanks is a gifted, longtime teacher at Lakes Magnet Middle School in Coeur d'Alene. His perspective on life is a little different from most of us. He teaches shop and Spanish. He's raised a large family, with several special needs children he and his wife adopted. Dave also is the celebrated recipient of a heart transplant four years ago.

He might have been in line for another one last week when signals got crossed between Dave and administrators. Dave was scheduled to do some team-building exercises outside while someone else took his eighth-grade Spanish class. During a break, Dave went to check on the Spanish class to see how it was going.

Amazingly, thank you very much. And this despite the fact that no teacher had showed up.

"One of the students was up at the blackboard, leading the class, 'Uno, dos, tres!'" Dave said with a grin, shaking his head. He admitted that his high anxiety - abject horror? - was washed away by relief, and pride.

We appreciate Dave sharing this story because many teachers would want to cover up a potential mess like that. But as we said, Dave's different. He's an optimist who reminds us that anyone who is ready to give up on today's kids as lazy, selfish brats unprepared for the real world hasn't seen what he's seen.

Yep. The kids are all right.