Introduction

This text summarizes the preliminary results of the case study in which the project “Opera as a Vehicle for Learning” (known by its acronym in Spanish, LOVA), was implemented in a 4th-grade group at the school Instituto Luis Vives, A.C. in Mexico City, during the 2017-18 school year. In LOVA, the teacher enables the group to become an opera company. The work is organized in children’s self-managed professional teams that create, develop and perform an original opera from scratch. The main objective of the company is the premiere of the opera at the end of the school year, in whose performances the adults are merely spectators: everything was done by the children and their opera company.

The implementation of LÓVA brought to the classroom an innovative educational methodology that would become the means for the students’ social, emotional and intellectual success. The fact that these children are now aware of their own emotions and have grown empathetic and understanding of other points of view demonstrates the importance of emotional learning and values learning.

Theoretical Framework

There is plenty of research supporting the need for emotional learning, values learning and the development of soft skills in the basic education curriculum. The term emotional intelligence was first mentioned by Salovey and Mayer (1990) and later disseminated by Goleman (1995). On the other hand, Lipman et al. (2015) define soft skills as the skills or attitudes that allow people to successfully navigate their environment, work well in a team, perform adequately and reach the goals they set for themselves. (The WHO, 1997; Goldstein, 2011; and Giráldez & Prince, 2017).

Another element to consider is the scientific debate surrounding the importance of the arts, and specifically, of musical education in the development of emotional and cognitive functions. Hallam (2010) focuses on the impact of musical activity in the social, personal and intellectual development of the students, highlighting the development of creativity and the improvement in academic performance. It is here that education in music and the arts in primary education excels the most: in the preservation of social harmony and the acquisition of basic social skills that will aid the students' development in the future.

LOVA has proven to be an effective resource as a project-based learning (PBL) method for developing emotional learning, competency-based learning, soft skills development and group empowerment. Several investigations suggest the use of PBL to help renew our definition of teaching from a non-traditional framework (Railsback, 2002; Prince & Felder, 2006).

Objective

The main objective of this research project is to observe, analyse, document and interpret the behavioural changes of nineteen students in the 4^thgrade class that formed the opera company "La hoja del árbol" [The tree leaf]. The goal is to understand the civic, social and emotional learning that took place in the students at the individual and group level with the implementation of LOVA.

- Assess the impact of involving a heterogeneous group of children with a diversity of problems in the process of creation of an original opera and document the possible improvement in the social, emotional an intellectual performance. 

Research questions:What are the advantages of interdisciplinary learning?

Can social and emotional civic learning be developed through LOVA?

What are the changes in behaviour, at the individual and group levels, that took place in the group with the implementation of LOVA?

Methodology The research method for this project is framed in the qualitative interpretative paradigm, in which the events that take place within a specific environment are studied and analysed, taking specifically into account the subjective aspects of educational phenomena. The empirical design method is the case study as proposed by Stake (1995), in which the project seeks to provide a deep understanding of an underlying reality—in this case, from my position as a teacher and researcher. The techniques used for data collection were multimodal sets: participant observation (Otienoh, 2009), video and photo recording, the writing of a research logbook (Boenink et al, 2004), the assessment of the status and social development of the students by two female teachers (Moon, 2010), the material produced by the students during the project and interviews at the end of the school year. In order to write the final report, a set of categories and sub-categories will be established in order to codify the information to help analyze it and thus fulfill the research objectives. According to Stake (1999), the analysis and interpretation of data "involves making sense of the first impressions as well as the final summaries" (p. 67). Data is to be triangulated and validated. As Stake writes, “we assume we understand the meaning of an observation, but additional observations will help us revise our first interpretation" (p.96). The participants in the case study will be minutely described. LÓVA was implemented at the Luis Vives Insitute in Mexico City, which has a middle-class population. Goetz and LeCompte (1988) suggest that, in addition to this description, the relationships between the participants must also be considered in order to correctly interpret the gathered information.

Results and Discussion The group that implemented LOVA made a significant progress. Some students who had previously exhibited disruptive behavior managed to fully integrate with the group in the course of the school year, displaying remarkable improvement in both academic performance and civic-social learning. The improvement in group and individual behaviour was also noteworthy: "We have learned more from our peers and now we understand each other better" (PR representative of the opera company). Goleman (1995) defines emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize, understand, manage and even modify our own emotions and those of others. Great improvements were also observed in commitment and teamwork responsibility, both within each small professional team and across the opera company as a whole. According to Nussbaum (2007), schools are the spaces for learning to coexist, and coexistence should imply not only tolerance, but also social engagement and reflection. Preliminary conclusions The students participating in the LOVA project developed the so-called softskills proposed by the WHO in 1997, such as decision making, problem solving, critical thinking, emotion and stress management, autonomy, and collaborative work, through the PBL method. This emotional education project was implemented within the framework of the National School Coexistence Programme (PNCE) of the Secretary of Public Education in Mexico, in which the students also developed emotional skills (Bisquerra, 2003) which contribute to personal and social well-being: they developed autonomy in some tasks making group decisions through voting and critical reasoning; they learned to listen and be listened to by their classmates, to express opinions without fear of being judged by them, to speak in public, to research, to write, to respect everyone’s turn and to express their emotions verbally and in writing and sharing them with the group.

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