Paramount to the Opera by Children process is belief in the philosophy of:

Trust, Risk, Affirmation and Growth (TRAG)

TRAG is a technique for building bonds of trust between people ... in this case, children and teachers. Basically, it is that as a teacher builds an environment of TRUST in which a student will RISK, the teacher gains an opportunity to AFFIRM the student, resulting in more trust and GROWTH in individual students and in the class as a whole.

Once those bonds of trust between teacher and student are created, the child can be expected to improve in many ways, particularly in self confidence and the ability to think for himself.

"All learning takes place at the edge of risk", Dr. Carroll Rinehart.

In other words, we learn best when empowered to show a lack of knowledge by questioning and pondering. We can only do that in an environment of trust.