What Do I See?
Join us as we, a third grade class of twenty-six students at Stedwick Elementary School, embark on a year-long adventure creating an original opera. Read about our weekly challenges and accomplishments as we move through the creative process using opera as an authentic vehicle to learn curriculum and 21st century skills.
We begin with the question, “What do I see?” This question will serve as a focus on the concept of perspective and will thread its way through all academic subjects and essential learning experiences throughout the year. A first look in the mirror will launch this initiative as we think about who we are and what we have to offer. How do we see ourselves? How do others see us? How does this affect the relationships we will foster and build in the classroom, on the playground, at home and in our community?
Perhaps it is something about which we should all pause to think.
Stay tuned . . .
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.
Dear Mary Ruth,
Do you really want to know “what do I see?”
I see that, as a teacher who lived all the opera process two years ago, my teaching style has changed and the way I look at the children too.
Creating an original opera with 5 and 6 year old children gave me the oportunity to know and live that children are powerful and we can learn lots of things from them.
It is great that now we can follow your process
through this year. I will stay tuned!!
Laura, I look forward to hearing more about what you and your students learned throughout the process of the opera in Spain. It is so wonderful to hear your voice.
Es una buena pregunta, porque, cuando la haces, el ver se convierte en mirar, se despierta la curiosidad y el interés. Esa pregunta, hecha en un grupo, obliga a admitir los diversos puntos de vista y a reflexionar sobre la superficialidad o profundidad de la mirada, cuando alguien ve lo que tú no ves. Abres la puerta al aprendizaje… y al amor. No se ama lo que no se conoce.
Eso es lo que queremos, Miguel. Y como adultos también. Tenemos que hacer lo mismo.