I visited a 100-year-old school on the Grand Canal in Hangzhou in March this year. This primary school affiliated to the Gongshu District Teachers Institute has been running an experimental course in Peking Opera for the past eighteen years. This school course is popular with pupils， parents and the school administration.

The experimental Peking Opera course was offered first in 1989. More than 20 pupils signed up for learning the traditional opera.Every Friday afternoon， they met and studied the essentials under the tutelage of retired Peking Opera masters such as Ma Kejiu， Ye Shenghua and Zhang Hongwen from Zhejiang Peking Opera Troupe. Pretty soon， the young enthusiasts were able to perform excerpts from Peking Opera plays， modern and classical. Over the past 18 years， the amateur troupe has staged more than 100 shows at neighborhood communities， factories， and other schools. Some of the star pupils have received government honors.

With the success of the special course， the school has developed a system to expose all the pupils to the opera. In the principle of “l(fā)etting every child enjoy happy， complete and quality education”， the school has set up panels to develop a textbook and study ways to use it most efficiently. The school has so far put together textbooks that combine Peking Opera respectively with fine arts， music， creative writing， handcrafts， story-telling， and brief autographs of Peking Opera masters. This way， pupils are able to look into various aspects of Peking Opera.

In studying fine arts， for example， pupils first watch images of facial mask-like male makeup of Peking Opera. The teacher of art then will analyze the features of such heavily painted faces and their values. Pupils then will learn how to make such faces themselves. In studying the Chinese language， pupils learn how to use the speaking techniques of Peking Opera to read verses and ballads.

Teachers have tried innovative ways to improve teaching. In 2000， Ye Heying， a teacher of music， asked professional composers to set two classical poems to Peking Opera tunes and taught children to sing two poems. The poems in Peking Opera tunes were an instant success on the campus. Amateur Peking Opera artists at the school and other pupils enjoyed singing two poems. In 2002， Ye Heying adapted a fable about a fight between a crane and a mussel and organized Peking Opera shows in which children were dressed and acted as the fisherman， the mussel and the crane.

In February， 2008， the Ministry of Education declared pilot programs of letting students dapple in Peking Opera in primary and middle schools in ten provinces and municipalities. The Primary School Affiliated to the Gongshu District Teachers Institute is one of the 22 schools in Zhejiang that will participate in the “Peking Opera Enters Classrooms” program. Headmaster Zhou Jianren says that the national initiative is a great opportunity for the school to better integrate Peking Opera with its curriculum. The school plans to turn the corridors on the first and second floors in the classroom building into a Peking Opera gallery. The school is going to set up a 100-square-meter Peking Opera center where stage props， instruments， lighting， and costumes will be appropriately stored and displayed. The school also plans to recruit some teachers and start a training course to train its own faculty. Meanwhile， the school will invite Peking Opera masters and amateurs to train promising children on campus.□