Failure: A Poet’s Perspective
As we write our opera story and continue to explore the many sides of failure, we realize that we must find a way to break through the thoughts and feelings that hold us back and keep us from reaching our goals and being who we truly are.
Writing poetry gives us an outlet for releasing our deepest emotions. Oftentimes, when young children compose poetry, like all else, they look to models and examples of the genre for ideas in technique and style. The poems they read and hear recited are all they know. A rhyming element almost always finds its way into children’s verses. Unfortunately, when rhyming is at the center of composing for kids, it is often forced and superficial. When we are free to write words, phrases and verses without concern for specific technique, we get the real, raw expression of self.
(Insert writing here.)
In teaching, we must always think about our purpose and keep it at the heart of all instructional decisions. Why read and write poetry? How will this benefit our students as they move through school and through life? These questions will drive us as educators to do what is best for our students.
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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