But the principal then at New Hampshire Estates hesitated to approve the opera program. Usually she advocated creative learning, but she wasn't sure there was time for it anymore, Levine recalls. Test scores at New Hampshire Estates were and still are among the worst in Montgomery County, and there was increasing pressure to raise them.
Later that year, in 2001, the principal retired and an interim administrator from New York approved the opera program, with the stipulation that Levine join McGinn in co-teaching a larger class, to take some of the load off the other second-grade teachers. Their class is the only one at New Hampshire Estates involved in the opera program, which is subsidized by private donations. Although just two to three hours a week are set aside for opera, the teachers thread the lessons through the entire second-grade curriculum. Both women have attended summer workshops in New York sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, where they've learned how to integrate reading and writing into lessons about opera jobs.
McGinn had been staging plays for several years at New Hampshire Estates, but neither teacher knew much about opera. Levine, who minored in music in college and plays the flute, says she's not crazy about some of the music. It doesn't matter. Stripped down, operas are simply stories with interesting characters and exciting plots. Producing one requires teamwork and responsibility -- the kind of skills that schools want kids to learn. Still, the teachers say they have heard doubts from some of their colleagues. Levine knows some teachers at New Hampshire Estates, which teaches children from pre-kindergarten to second grade, initially considered opera "elitist." Others have asked her how a group of kids used to learning through opera will be able to function in an ordinary classroom the next year.
In many ways, it would be easier not to focus on opera at New Hampshire Estates, where the staff was being pushed to "teach to the test" even before President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, which tied test scores to federal dollars. Seven other county schools with opera programs are in more affluent suburbs such as Potomac and Bethesda, where test scores are high and there's less need to defend unconventional teaching. The program at New Hampshire Estates started at the same time as one at another low-performing school, Greencastle Elementary in Silver Spring.
At New Hampshire Estates, the opera program has proved to be a transforming experience for many second-graders. Levine and McGinn see it happen every year: Bullies learn about working cooperatively. Kids who hate school will stay in during recess to practice their lines. Newly arrived immigrants learn English by writing dialogue and songs.
During the first year of the opera program, McGinn says, a second-grader's father committed suicide. His daughter kept coming to school. She was the opera company's production manager. She told her mother she needed to do her job.
"This is an exciting day," McGinn announces in her chirpy voice. She is wearing dangly theater-mask earrings, and she and Levine are holding plastic bags filled with different tools. Today, the kids are getting their opera jobs.
Over the past couple of weeks, the children have tried all kinds of theater work. They got a chance to sing and act out emotions. They measured pieces of wood and hammered nails like carpenters and electricians work that felt familiar to many of them because that's what their dads do. Nobody knew much about public relations officers, so McGinn brought in an old telephone and had the kids pretend to make calls and invite people to the opera.
Each student had to choose three jobs and explain why he or she wanted to do them. Now the children are sitting on the floor of the music room, waiting for Levine to announce who will do what.
"And," she says with a pause to tease them, "Your performers are . . . Milan. Kevin. Emmanuella. Jacob. Nashaia."
Everybody yells and claps. The performers jump up and run to the front of the room. Levine hands them each a different kind of hat, from baseball cap to safari-style topper. They put them on right away and strike poses.
The scriptwriters get packets of multicolored pens. The public relations officers get markers, and the composers get recorders. Costume and makeup artists receive small mirrors, which they promptly make faces into.
Setting the Stage