I’m Not Always Right

The first day of school I present my class with a challenging math problem. All the students know we are creating an original opera, but know little else about the process they will experience during the year. So, I let them know we must start working immediately, give them the date of the opera premiere and ask them to determine the number of working days we have until the premiere. I hand them a school calendar and they get to work. No other direction is given. They understand that we need this information in order to plan for instruction and create a production schedule.

The room is abuzz with collaborative chatter as they implement their own strategies to determine a solution. At one point, someone realizes that we cannot count Saturdays and Sundays as workdays. All others who are busily calculating and including weekends, appreciate the correction and adapt their strategies accordingly. Then, another student notices holidays and professional days for teachers on the calendar and announces this to the class. With a sigh and a groan, those who are unaware of these non-working days, change course once again. On Wednesday afternoon, after persevering three days in search of the answer, four students are ready to reveal their solutions. I ask them to share with one another to see if they have the same answer. They present four different numbers. The word discrepancy makes its debut.  On a quest for accuracy, these students, all except one, work side by side to determine their mistakes. Isiah is adamant that his answer is correct and refuses to discuss his work with the others. I gently let him know that he has yet to find the correct number of working days until the opera. I walk away and allow him to process this exchange. At the end of the math session, I ask Isiah what he learned during the day. He states, “I learned that I am not always right.”

Isiah taught us a very powerful lesson on the fourth day of school, one that will encourage us to take risks, make mistakes and learn from our mistakes. With 144.5 working days until the opera, we will all benefit greatly from this lesson.

About Mary Ruth McGinn

As a teacher with 32 years of experience, Mary Ruth McGinn has always sought innovative ways to meet the needs of each of her students. She has spent her entire career in schools where a majority of students speak English as a second language and where poverty significantly impacts the learning experiences and opportunities of students and their families. Nineteen years ago she had an experience that changed her life and altered her professional path in a profound way. She attended training sessions at The Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York City, spent nine intense days living the process of creating an original opera and learned how to replicate the experience with her students. She then began creating opera with her students and using the process of creating the opera as a vehicle to teach curriculum and life skills. The authentic purpose for learning coupled with the arts provided the perfect stage on which to construct a love for life-long learning. The profundity of the work, the transformation of the students and a desire to “bring to light” new ideas in education, inspired Mary Ruth to share this way of thinking and learning. In 2006 she was granted a Fulbright Scholarship, sponsored and funded by Teatro Real and Fundación SaludArte in Madrid, and a sabbatical from Montgomery County, to travel to Spain to develop and implement a similar program there. She lived there two years training teachers and working side by side with teachers and students in their classrooms. The reception of the project was overwhelming. Mary Ruth returns to Madrid every summer to train a new team of educators and artists in the process. In the summer of 2018, she joined forces with The Kennedy Center to offer the opera training for teachers in the Washington Metro area. She currently teaches third grade at Stedwick Elementary School in Montgomery Village, Maryland where she is implementing a classroom curriculum based on the principles of authentic learning. Read more of Mary Ruth's blog Learning for Real.

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