Songwriting Superstars!

Lisa Golda, COT Teaching Artist at Clinton & Hampton Elementary Schools

This week was a very exciting one at both Clinton and Hampton schools!

The kids had their first taste of performance just before break, when we presented a “winter preview” at both schools. Because many of our students do not have music class, much less any previous experience presenting a fully staged and costumed performance, we have found it very helpful to give them a “dress rehearsal” w/audience at the end of their first semester. In the preview, which is for an audience of their parents, other opera students, and sometimes, other students from the school, they recite, with limited choreography and staging, the lyrics they have written thus far for their songs, all of which will eventually make up the opera.

This past week was our second week back, and with the memory of that preview experience fresh in their minds, the kids were focused and ready to work with Adam Busch, who helps the children to set their original lyrics to music (and who also assisted them in the lyric writing process, this year). We had several “a-ha!” moments throughout the day, both with students and with teachers.

At Hampton, one child in Mrs. Ochoa’s class remarked that what we were writing was “like opera.” Mrs. Ochoa pointed out that, a couple weeks before, the kids had enjoyed a concert and weeklong residency presented by Classical Kids that focused on the life of Mozart, particularly his childhood precocity. She thought that her student was comparing their composing process to the young Mozart’s!



Next, Mrs. Ochoa got out a silly poetry book that she been using with her students as part of their poetry week. She asked Adam and I to play and sing a silly song (her book provided hilarious new lyrics set to familiar tunes). She felt that the kids would make the connection between song lyrics and poetry, and how we were writing a song, especially since they had been working on it in class. They were fascinated and requested an encore, but unfortunately, we had to go to the next class! We love it when teachers use our curriculum to complement ours in that way, and vice versa.


Mr. McFarland’s class, who had Opera for All last year, had their lyrics set to music in no time, in part because a talented young student raised his hand and asked if he could sing the melody he had already composed for the verse portion of the song! Wow! The other students were so excited and impressed by his creativity, boldness, and lovely singing voice, and soon they too were raising their hands to offer suggestions for the doo-wop style song we came up with together for their “planet discovery” song.

It is so rewarding when students who have had our program before begin to express their gifts, both because they have a context for their talents, and also because they understand how to use them in application to the task at hand—composing! Where and when else would that student have the opportunity to discover and utilize those abilities, especially as a sixth grader!


At Clinton, the students were similarly engaged by the process, quickly learning and singing the songs they created with enthusiasm. Mrs. Lee’s class participated in the program last year, and I am enjoying asking them more challenging questions about the nature of music, composing, acting, etc. this year in my quest to give them a deeper understanding of the process.

We discussed the fact that, rather than just choosing random pitches for their songs, they needed to chose notes with intent as to the character they wished their song (Alone on a Submarine Floating Out to Sea) to have given the text. Many of them said they wanted the song to sound “like a rap”. We discussed what made rap sound like rap; limited pitch range, speech-like rhythms, medium tempo. Adam gave them some pianistic examples to choose from, and they chose a blues-influenced, slightly jazzy tonal palette given the fact that their song was humorous, and, while not happy, not really sad, either. Then the process took off.

I asked; what can we do to suggest the shark in the song? Both the kids and Adam came up with the JAWS motif at the same time, but Adam modified it with repetition and modulation. I asked—why does that sound scary and exciting? The kids were able to articulate that this rising half step pattern, magnified by modulation, emulated a circling shark and fright! Adam came up with some frenetic music for the “tossing and turning” hysterical lyrics in the song. I asked—why is this appropriate, if at all, to this portion of the song? “because everyone is going crazy right now” was the general student consensus. Then, a student asked if Adam could play a sustained note for the moment when the mother wakes the child up from their nightmare. They GET IT!!!!!

At this point, I was overwhelmed with more suggestions than we could handle, the kids completely immersed in the process, and then was asked by a kid if she could get “eaten” by the “shark”, which is about ten kids pantomiming jaws, fins, and a tail. We worked that out by having her step into the biting “jaws” created by two students, and having the body of the shark jump up and down to “digest” her after she was “swallowed”. It was hilarious! Several of my usually shy girls asked if they could audition to be the hapless heroine.

It was a fantastic day!

Incredibly Enlightening

Amanda Compton, COT Teaching Artist at Reilly Elementary

Today was my first experience with an OFA composition class.

It was incredibly enlightening. I think sometimes as a teacher, with all of my training and technical background, it's easy to forget that music does not require a written page to be music.

While these kids don't know exactly what chord progression they are doing or what notes they are singing, they do know what they like and they can create melodies without reading music. Ben had a very creative approach to the session, by having the kids audiate the music they created Tuesday before physically hearing it again. I think this is a really important skill, and I'm glad Ben introduced it to them. Perhaps we can solidify this skill in the future by having them practice with pop music that they already know as a homework assignment. If they can learn to sing the music silently in their head, then they will truly own it and be able to perform it. From there we sang through the part of the chorus to "Lost in New York," and finished composing it.

The approach to writing the music as a group was for Ben to play progressions in the background while the kids improvised. We would do that a few times in a row with one chord progression and then try it again with a new chord progression. From there, the kids would vote on which chord progression they liked, and then improvise again as a group to the chosen progression. Most of the kids have a natural ear for where they want the phrase to go, and how the phrase should end. With a little guidance from Ben and I, I think we actually came up with some pretty creative and accessible music. I'm looking forward to hearing the kids' homework, which was to create a melody for the last two lines of the "Acceptance Song." For next year's class, I think a lesson on hearing if pitches are higher or lower, and perhaps some interval training (tricks like "Here Comes the Bride" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" for 4ths and 5ths) will help the kids to express their musical ideas, as this was the biggest challenge during the class period. The class was really a great experience for both myself and the kids. I think we all learned very important aspects of the compositional process!

Composing at Reilly Elementary School

Ben Hjertmann, COT Teaching Artist - Composer

We began class Tuesday with our eyes closed (to focus our listening) and concentrated on establishing the mood the students wanted to display for their song "Lost in New York". They wrote their own class lyrics in December for their futuristic Opera about New York City. Once the class had picked the mood of the song, they began to improvise melodies over my piano playing. COT Manager and teaching artist, Linden Christ was listening close to the students responses and repeating back the melodies as the students would sing them. I felt a connection with the students, their instincts for melody were the same as mine. We all seem to have similar instincts, but the hard part is figuring out how to hone them together. A few times, two students would improvise really catchy melodies at the same time, so we'd use both of them.

On Thursday we began by reviewing the chorus for "Lost in New York" and continued on with the verse. Once we had the melody for the verse, we moved to "The Acceptance Song" which is about getting into college. We remembered a mood we had picked on Tuesday, the students called riff "Packing Up" and wrote a melody. COT teaching artist, Mandy Compton was transcribing the students' melodies while I helped them improvise. Some of the kids are really letting go when they improvise. The first week with Opera for All at Reilly turned out to be a blast and was equally inspiring for the students and myself.

Acting Games & Song Lyrics

Amanda Compton, COT Teaching Artist at Reilly Elementary School

We started this week doing some slightly more in depth acting games, which the kids seemed to LOVE. Every day since we did them, the kids ask when they will get to do more acting games. We played, "here comes Jill," which has two kids sitting at a table, that share an improvised dialogue describing their waitress, "Jill." After a few lines, Jill has to enter and act out the traits that the two customers described. The hardest thing about the exercise was getting the kids to NOT copy each other in which traits they described. Some popular choices were "stupid," "ugly," and "clumsy." Once we made it clear to the students that it was important for the description to involve an action or an act-able trait, the scenes because much clearer. Some of the "Jills" had a real knack for taking what the customers said and bringing it to life as they came out to "serve" them.

We then built upon this exercise to extend it into our "New York" opera theme. We had the kids, in groups of four, improvise scenes at the twin towers and shopping in NY. It was a VERY good effort from all of them, as this was their first time just completely improving something with only a given character and setting to start with. From this exercise, we assigned them to write their own scenes at home to use for the show. More to come on these.

This week Linden and I also really tried to focus on finishing lyrics for our Lost in New York song. We did the same group format we did with Lisa, and had the kids brainstorm about some questions we asked them like, "How would you feel if you saw the Statue of Liberty in person?," and, "What would you do there?" etc. We were able to finish our entire lost in NY song, with our final verses about the Statue of Liberty and Broadway that offer a wide range of performance opportunities for the students. I'm very proud of the students' work, and I'm really excited to stage it!

Lost in New York
Don’t know what to do.
I really need some help.
Can you give me a clue?
So much to explore, so much to learn.
Something unbelievable at every turn.

There’s lots of sites to see like the Statue of Liberty.
It’s real bumpy on a boat
Look at Lady Liberty Float
We can take pictures and climb the stairs.
Look up there! Her torch still Flares!

As we walk and dance down Broadway Street
We hear lots of music and a funky new beat.
I love the New York accents and the bright shining lights
Let’s go see a musical, Right Now! Tonight!

Getting to the Young By Brian Dickie

Brian Dickie, General Director of Chicago Opera Theater

COT has an extensive program of activities with the Chicago Public Schools and the City's cultural department. I am a great believer in participation by the children - getting them to play, sing and dance, and to get involved in all aspects of production as far as it is practical. And there is no doubt that we have had some great success in this. And the spin off of higher grades in other studies, as well as improvement in discipline, is well documented not just hearsay. With the huge reduction of commitment to the arts in our educational establishments, the work that professional companies do in this area is indispensable.

I was down at the Hampton School on the South side of Chicago this morning - and first of all discovered that it is named for the great Vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. And as you can see from the photo above its full name includes the words "Fine and Performing Arts School". In fact I am not sure that they able to concentrate extensively on the arts (resources just do allow that alas) - but their Principal Zaneta Abdul-Ahad is a most distinguished lady who gave an enthusiastic and extremely eloquent welcome to this morning's event. And it is clear that this week has been an important one in the life of these children.

Our work in this and a number of other schools this year is directed to preparing them for COT's production of The Magic Flute next September. We have a family of teaching fellows who work with the schools throughout the school year. Today's event was the culmination of a week of intensive exposure to Mozart.

And so the climax to the week was a visit to the school by the remarkable Classic Kids Live with their excellent show Mozart's Magnificent Voyage. This was one of their rare excursions into a school - and it was a huge hit in this gymnasium setting (below), a familiar place where the children could relax and enjoy the show without all the complications of an exhausting field trip. Their attentiveness and clear appreciation was testament to the work done by Mrs Abdul-Ahad and her team, as well as to the preparation by our Education Manager Linden Christ and the teaching fellows.

A Winter Scenes Performance

Laura Koroski, Education Intern at Chicago Opera Theater

As the Education Intern, most of my work is behind-the-scenes. I have a number of times gotten into the three schools that host the Opera For All program, to observe and help in the classroom, on field trips, and with the Cinderhood performances. But as COT for Teens is a much smaller program that operates on a simpler platform, there's been no reason for me to be a support system.

So it wasn't until their Winter Scenes performance on November 30 at the Museum of Contemporary Art that I got to see what they'd been up to all fall. And they have achieved quite a lot. From being a bunch of teens brought together from all over the city, they've become one group, in social interactions as well as in performance. Though I don't have previous standards to compare to, I can only imagine the progress they've made in their singing and acting.

Their first piece, from Luisa Miller, proved that they weren't intimidated by foreign languages, even the complexities of singing in Italian. The Bell Chorus from Pagliacci was a sweet piece with wonderfully staged and executed crowd choreography. The girls performed a very amusing rendition of "It Can't be Possible" from Donizetti's Elixir of Love, and the boys followed with "Women, Women, Women" from The Merry Widow.

There were three songs from South Pacific, in preparation for the students' spring production. "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" was belted out with much sass, and followed by "There is Nothing Like a Dame," much to the amusement of the audience. The performance finished with a choral version of "Some Enchanted Evening," sung with such feeling that you had to have a heart of stone not to be moved by it. It was a fantastic performance, brilliantly directed by Chris Richard and Marta Johnson. I'm excited for what the students will give us in April with the full production of South Pacific!

Preparing for the Winter Preview

Amanda Compton, COT Teaching Artist at Reilly Elementary

This week at Reilly Elementary was both challenging and exhilarating. We worked with the students to prepare them for the upcoming Winter Preview on December 17 by practicing their solfege scale, a musical vocabulary song set to the melody of "Twinkle, twinkle little star," and began working on "Feliz Navidad," complete with dancing! Many of the children come from a Spanish background, so they were very excited about our song choice. Linden asked how her pronunciation was, and one little girl said with a shy smirk, "It's ok..."

As we near the end of the semester, we are beginning to lay the groundwork for our spring production. Our goal during these last class sessions is to ignite the kids' creativity in crafting their own storyline based on the theme they already invented, "college and high school students in New York.". So, we had them play a collaborative story improvisation game where we sat in a circle and each student built upon the story one sentence at a time. Tuesday's class had some trepidation at first, saying practically the same thing the student before them said, but their interest was piqued when someone introduced a love interest and suddenly the kids were wriggling in their seats in anticipation of their turn.

The highlight of this week was the performance of "Cinderhood," in which the OFA kids got to play a special part. They sang, "in a mixed up, turned around, jumbled, inside out story," to punctuate the characters' confusion on stage. The kids were incredibly excited, and told me how they had bragged to their friends about their part in the show. The Reilly violin students participated too! The show was a big hit, and during the question and answer session at the end, many of the students not enrolled in OFA expressed extreme interest in getting involved next semester. This program has clearly already made an impact at Reilly, and I am confident that our endeavors in the spring will only increase students' passion for learning about opera!

Commemorating Maggie Daley

Christopher Richard, COT for Teens Teaching Artist

This was our second to last rehearsal before our final performance, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. All of the students were fattened and lethargic from the feast just 2 days before. We had a lot of work to get done, last minute tweaking of scenes, catching up some students who might have missed something along the way and all the little details that make a scene come alive.

Unfortunately, we also learned about the passing of ASM’s beloved Maggie Daley. She was the heart of ASM and an inspiration to all. We were asked to participate in the public wake that was going to happen the very next day at the Cultural Center. We polled the kids to see how many might be available and if it was feasible to have our group represented. COT for Teens was one of Mrs. Daley’s favorite programs, but it was still an honor to be represented. It seemed after polling that we would have at least a handful of students and a decent combination of voices.

We arrived at Gallery at 10am Sunday morning. We were told of the possible schedule for the day and finally went across the street to mourn and celebrate the wonderful life of Mrs. Daley. We were one of 3 groups from ASM that provided music for the family and the masses of people streaming in to extend their condolences. The groups rotated throughout the afternoon and we sang 3 times. We sang the lovely chorus ‘Ti desta Luisa’ from Verdi’s ‘Luisa Miller’ -- after all, Mrs. Daley loved opera! We also sang our choral version of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘South Pacific.’

As we were singing I couldn’t help but notice how appropriate and comforting those choices were. The Daley family and the staff of ASM were so thrilled with how the afternoon went. We finally left about 3pm. It was a long day, yet the students remained composed and professional throughout. We were proud of them and humbled to be part of such an event.

Songwriting at Clinton with Adam Busch

Lisa Golda, COT Teaching Artist at Clinton & Hampton Elementary Schools

Today we completed songs in all three classes with the help of visiting artist Adam Busch, a fantastic and fun composer and lyricist! Mr. Coor's class, which was just decreased by half to about 15 kids, completed their song "Lost until Lunch" about a tornado going wild in the museum! Mrs. Lee's class, which had opera last year as well, finished their song, "Alone on a Submarine", but did not work any further on "Night of the Living Bodies" with Adam. And Mr. Lee's class spent a lot of time finishing "Devil Twins".

This activity involves rhyming, constructing a narrative, writing sentences that have the same cadence(# of syllables). All three classes helped to create gestures, or choreography, for their songs, and we practiced it several times in preparation for the Winter preview. All classes were asked to memorize their lyrics. I also told them to practice their choreography, and to draw a picture of the theme of their song (a tornado, a submarine, a zombie, a devil twin) for potential use as a t-shirt design.

A Performance of Talents

Amanda Compton, COT Teaching Artist at Reilly Elementary

During the past few weeks, the students at Reilly have done mostly group-based performing and singing exercises. But this week we decided to give them the chance to show us what they consider to be their own individual "talent." About 20 kids had the courage to take the stage in front of their peers and share their passion.

We had a very diverse showing of talents including singing, rapping, piano, dancing, and poetry. Taylor Swift was a popular performance choice, and was well received by the audience (they usually sang along with those performances!). One of the most impressive performances was a reading by one little girl of her own original poem. After she read it, the class voted to use it as the lyrics for one of the songs in the spring opera. This particular girl has been quite shy and quiet the past few weeks, and I can't begin to imagine how proud she must be to have her classmates affirm her talent so strongly.

A few kids weren't sure what they wanted to perform, but they were so eager to take the stage that they volunteered even when they didn't know what they wanted to do! Their desire to express and be a part of the fun was clear. Hopefully during the course of this class, we can enable them to embrace performing not as something that is scary, but rather as an opportunity to share with a receptive audience something that gives them joy.

The talent show was an excellent way for us to identify the students that already have some performing skills, and a great way for those students who are new to performing to get some inspiration from their peers. We had a very good turnout of parents who came to support their child's interest with video cameras and applause, and we even had them participate in an acting game the children have been practicing at the end of class. In a school with little funding for the arts, it was clear that Opera for All serves as the crucial outlet these children need to gain confidence in themselves and foster their creative instincts.

Looking Outside the Box at the Museum of Contemporary Art

Kimberly Chin, COT Teaching Artist at Clinton & Hampton Elementary Schools
Laura Koroski, Education Intern at Chicago Opera Theater

Last Friday, Ms. Ochoa's class from Hampton Elementary visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. Before the trip, we were hesitant about how it would turn out. What kind of inspiration could students get from modern art? How would they turn that into an opera?

But our fears turned out unfounded. We had two docents for the field trip, and they were fantastic guides, helping the students to see beyond the physically bizarre creations in front of them. By complete coincidence, they just happened to have the same ideas in mind as we did. Their ultimate aim seemed to be to get the kids thinking about space, but there were a number of steps to get there. The guide had our group stop to look at a piece that the museum had just received, a miniature village model which to us looked like a Vegas hotel strip. “What is this?” she asked the students. “A model of a town.” “Could you go inside it?” They agreed you could. “What would you be, inside it?” “I would be rich and famous,” one student stated, and everyone laughed. “What would you be famous for?” the guide asked. “I dunno, I’d just be famous. And everyone would want my autograph.” The guide tried to draw them back to the model. “Think about it, though. How would you go inside that village? Would you shrink yourself?” A hand was raised. “Maybe you’d make the village bigger,” one girl said. “Or maybe you could imagine yourself in the village?”

To further explore the concept of space, our group made a circle. “It’s not just artwork that can change a space,” said our guide. “People can change space as well, and we do it all the time. How are we, right now in this circle, changing the space? How would we change the space if we made a smaller circle? A line?” These were simple exercises, yet when paired with deep questions, produced some amazing discussion.

The docent led the students in our group from simple observations to more nuanced answers to complex, open-ended questions. At a piece composed of stacked mirrors in a corner, they talked about the placement of the light in the creation of the piece, and how it resembled a stairway, perhaps to the heavens. What looked like a doorway led to a discussion of how simple and everyday a door is, until the docent asked “What could make this door special? Where does it lead?” and the kids were off using their imaginations, thinking of the new and fantastical rooms and places and worlds it could lead to.

After a tour of just of few of the hundreds of pieces the museum has, the students were given the opportunity to deal with space themselves – by creating their own piece of contemporary art. They were given a starting template of a three-dimensional cardboard corner, lots of materials, and told just to go. At first, they were hesitant, asking questions about what they could do. But as time went on, they opened up, and it was wonderful to walk around the room and watch them figure out that they could do whatever they wanted.

Some people say that today’s students don’t know how to think creatively and use their imaginations. Perhaps that’s true. But I think that using your imagination is a skill like any other, and it has to be taught, or at the very least, introduced. And it was wonderful to be present at the MCA and watch the Hampton fourth graders start to learn how to think outside the box. I hope some wonderful things will come out of it for their opera.

A Masterclass with Nathan Gunn

Marta Johnson, COT for Teens Teaching Artist

On Thursday October 27th Nathan and Julie Gunn visited our COT for Teens classroom. We were privileged to hear stories about traveling and singing internationally from Mr. and Mrs. Gunn. Our students were inspired to learn about the real world of opera and life on stage.

To start the visit, our students sang Ti Desta Luisa from Luisa Miller by Verdi. Mr. and Mrs. Gunn loved their singing and were especially impressed with the Italian diction. Most of our students have never sung in a foreign language before, so this encouragement was welcomed by all parties.

Our students had the chance to ask questions of Mr. Gunn and they had some good ones:
What inspired you to sing opera? (Hearing the Magic Flute as a child.) How much do you practice each day? (About four hours!) Do you have any special tips for good breathing? (It’s like blinking your eyelids: if you think about it too much, it gets complicated.)

Both Mr. and Mrs. Gunn emphasized that having a beautiful voice is a gift, one to be respected and treated well. And this means practicing and being diligent in your preparation. One of our students was so inspired by these remarks that he told me he was going home and memorizing all of the Bell Chorus from Pagliacci, which we are currently learning. And indeed the next rehearsal he sang most of it from memory!

A native of South Bend, Indiana, Nathan Gunn has built a reputation of being one of the most exciting and in-demand baritones of the day. He has appeared in internationally renowned opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Bilboa, and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. In addition to his many roles, Mr. Gunn is a distinguished concert performer and a frequent interpreter of new works. His solo album, Just Before Sunrise, was released with Sony/BMG Masterworks, and he can also be heard on many operatic recordings. He is also a tenured professor of voice at the University of Illinois. Audiences can see Mr. Gunn in the role of Ravenal in Show Boat at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in February and March, 2012.

A Mixed-Up, Turned Around Opera

Linden Christ, COT Teaching Artist at Reilly Elementary

Chicago Opera Play House performed a wonderful musical called Cinderhood at Hampton and Dewitt Clinton Elementary School on Oct 24th & 26th. This touring children's opera company was founded in 2005 by Linden Christ, who is the Manager of Education and Outreach for Chicago Opera Theater. COT teaching artists taught 8 measures to the Opera For All students to sing during the performance, "It's a mixed-up, turned around, jumbled, inside-out story; a jumbled, inside-out, mixed-up, turned around tale." The students loved performing their bit for their peers at the In-School performance. COT's teaching artist, Adam Busch, who wrote the musical and toured it around New York, was also the accompanist for our school performances.

COT teaching artist Kimberly Chin played multiple roles as Little Red Riding Hood, Wicked-Step Mother, and Fairy Godmother. And COT teaching artist Linden Christ played the roles of Cinderella, the Queen, and Little Red's Mother. The students were inspired seeing their opera teaching artists perform for them.

After the performance, Chicago Opera Play House held a Question and Answer session in which many of the students were curious about Adam's role of creating the mixed-up story about Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood. Some older students wanted to know whatever happened in the end to the wolf and the wicked-step mother.

Reilly Elementary School will have their In-School performance of Cinderhood on Friday, December 2nd at Noon. Learn more about Chicago Opera Play House and the musical Cinderhood here.

Beginning to play at Reilly

Amanda Grimm, COT Teaching Artist at Reilly Elementary

Although we got off to a late start this year, things are already taking off at Reilly in our violin classes! The last two weeks have been both fun and educational and because these students are so smart, we're moving along at a rapid pace. We've already covered the parts of the violin and bow and have talked about how we make sound. Last week, everyone was assigned an instrument and we practiced holding our violins in rest position. This is a crucial first step - rest position is the safest way in which to hold our violins when we are not playing.

Because teaching twenty-eight kids how to play the violin simultaneously can prove to be a bit of a challenge, I'm really lucky to have the help and support of Linden and two of the Reilly teachers. As we progress with the fundamentals of violin playing, we'll also be doing some listening to standard repertoire (last week, in the spirit of Halloween, we listened to some "scary" music by Shostakovich and Stravinsky). Also on the docket is an introduction to rhythm through different variations on the song "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

I'm very excited for my violin classes at Reilly this year. I hope the kids are excited too! Learning the violin can improve coordination, discipline, and listening and hearing skills. It will also provide exposure to a whole world of music with which the students may not already be familiar. And we'll definitely be having fun along the way!

Planting the seeds of a possible future

Lisa Golda, COT Teaching Artist at Clinton & Hampton Elementary Schools

Last week, our Clinton students went on a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. This year's opera will be based on themes of adventure and discovery, and we thought a field trip would be a relevant and inspiring experience for them! The day was delightful, of course, filled with "fake tornadoes" (what they called the tornado simulator), hatching chicks, a maze of mirrors, an actual U-boat submarine, a traveling circus, wind tunnels and rainbow rooms and static electricity spheres and other WOW-inspiring exhibits too numerous to name. In follow-up with the kids the next week, we worked with them to process their experiences and to choose themes for songs that would based on those experiences, as well as imagined events that could have happened in the museum.

I could not keep up with the flow of ideas that ensued once the kids understood the "what if" directive. What if the submarine floated out to sea with only kids on it? What if the artful cadavers came to life, a la Night of the Living Dead? (Night of the Living Bodies was the title that student suggested, and which stuck, a nice nod to the classic horror flick.) What if the images of ourselves taken by the museum photographer came to life and tried to take our place in our own lives? What imaginations! Real-life scenarios that will be turned into songs for their opera include getting "lost" and reuniting with the group in the eating area; a song with the working title "Lost Until Lunch", and being disoriented in the museum's "mirror maze".

I'm so enjoying working with the kids to translate their everyday experiences into the end result of an opera, rather than imposing already-extant material on them. It is highly effective, in terms of getting them invested in the project, and also a very direct introduction to the creative process from start to finish. And kids are just so creative, when given the opportunity.

I was struck by the comments of two adults affiliated with Clinton; one, a field trip chaperone, and one, an office staffperson with whom I chatted this week before the field trip follow up class. During the field trip, I attached myself to a particular Clinton group and followed them as they progressed through the musem, taking pictures and asking the kids what they thought about this and that. I stepped in to help the chaperone as he encouraged the kids to enter a wind capsule a few at a time, rather than packing themselves in like soon-to-be-disheveled sardines. We watched the kids scream and laugh and pound on the plastic walls as they were buffeted by high winds.

With a smile on his face, the chaperone suddenly said that these trips were important because the kids, as they were exposed to all these different technologies and sciences and disciplines, might decide that they wanted to be astronauts, or scientists, etc.. when they grew up, and that they would then "participate in their communities". Screaming and silliness and static electricity balls aside, he perceived the trip as planting the potential seeds of their futures. Yes, indeed. How sad that, at one of our schools, due to probationary status, the kids must take a "virtual field trip" on which to base their opera. They can't have life-expanding experiences like field trips because they might not pass a benchmark if any test prep time is lost. There is something wrong with that picture. Sometimes, though, we can't see our immediate realities, our current snapshots, or the fruits they may eventually bear, lost as we are in benchmarks or funding issues or, simply, our own awareness.

My other moment was shared with a Clinton secretary in her sixties or seventies who was monitoring the sign-in table the week after the trip. She had seen last year's opera and asked what we were doing this year, and she shared her own memories of touring the famous Prado museum in Spain as a child. Picassos, Monets, all of that meant nothing to her at that age, she said; she had no context for it as a middle-schooler, the same age as this year's students. She recalled other students' parents, she guessed, telling them to emphasize those masters in their homework essays after her trip, and also remembered her parents scolding her for relating seemingly commonplace elements of her experience in her own essay. In her child's eye, she said, she remembered going up and down the stairs, over and over, more than anything else. She put that in her essay, and her teacher gave her an A, she said, because she did the assignment: she related her experience. But, she said; now, so many years later, she can marvel at the masterpieces she saw then, and appreciate them and the impact that visit had on her. Seeds were planted.

We never know whether the seeds we plant in the course of this program will end up in maturity. All we see are the initial sprouts of creativity and excitement; at the end of the year, an opera, a blossom produced during such a small part of the life cycle of our students. But I hope, indeed, believe, that our kids will have experiences that will expand their sense of the possible and, as our chaperone put it, inspire ideas for new life directions, even if, at the time, it seems like a lot of "going up and down."