Paul Hart: The Curriculum is the Child

[music] 

>> Early communication development and music are one and the same thing. So, there are plenty of people who can now describe the early developments for any of us when we were 10 minutes old or a month old or three months old. And you can look at all of those interactions and describe them in musical terms. And it seems then that music would be an ideal way to kinda build some of that early communication. That could be even with someone who's much older, who's maybe had limited exposure to good communication practice, that music and that kind of interaction can often unlock it. So that's one of the reasons why we like it. But I think-- and I'll stick with music for the moment, but again, this is true of all of the arts-- I think a music session allows you to free up the rules that people are playing. And if you choose to see the other person in front of you as a musician and you come to the session just as a musician, then I think all sorts of exciting things can happen. And it goes back to the description before about the kind of double-sided zone of proximal development. If it's just two musicians interacting, then that's- that's a great conversation and that's a great way to be in the world. But the other thing that I think the arts give us-- and we've certainly found this in Scotland-- is that it can give a real equal playing field for access to the world and for people's expression to be really, really accepted. And we've got loads of examples of people in Scotland who've become performers, dancers, taking part in theatrical productions, and we've presented theater shows with people with Deafblindness, autism at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival. We've taken shows on tours in various prestigious theaters around Scotland. And when people are up on a stage they're no different from any other actor or actress, and that's really liberating for them, but it's liberating for the audience as well. Just to be watching a play unfold on the stage and not worry about who is that person. And I really like that. And we've had people, visual artists who've had exhibitions in fairly prestigious galleries in Scotland-- and again, I think it really equalizes it. And one of the things that I thought about-- I've tried to work out what, why might that be the case. What is it that's happening there with the arts as well as unlocking communication and identity and giving people a greater sense of self. But when I visited some people, some families and some Deafblind people in India a couple of years ago, I was struck that some people, even with quite complex needs, were performing a role that was incredibly valued by their family and by the community. So, there was a young man who-- the family business was making gravel, the small stones that you might put on a path or whatever-- but the way the business worked was an enormous rock was delivered and the father broke that down into still fairly large rocks. And then another son broke those rocks down until eventually they became rocks like this size. And the son who was Deafblind then did the final bit, which was breaking it down into tiny bits of gravel. But his role was no more or less important than anyone else. And I was thinking, "Gee, in Scotland would it be possible--" that kind of job couldn't exist in Scotland because we would have a machine to do all that. And I'm thinking, "But he was getting enormous value and he had a real role to play in all of this." And I saw two or three other people who were just involved in the family business just because it was possible to do. And I think one of the things that the arts can give us in Scotland-- and that would be to here in the States as well-- is that it can really give someone a value and a purpose and an opportunity to kind of play an equal role in that employment sector or to make a contribution. Both personally but also at a wider society level. And that changes how people perceive the person. It's an artist. It's a musician. It's a dancer. It's a rock climber. It's a mountaineer. Rather than "that's somebody who is Deafblind." And I think that's-- yeah. The arts can really do that quite comfortably and quite easily.