Eurhythmics in the Special School
V In connection with Mrs. Katz’s article, it may be of interest to readers to have the testimony of Miss Winifred Houghton, who has had many years’ experience of teaching Eurhythmies to handicapped children of various types. In an article dealing with the whole question of the teaching of Eurhythmies in Elementary Schools, Miss Houghton writes:?
” For the past fifteen years, 1 have been able to devote much time to work among mentally defective children. Here again the apparent results might horrify anyone used to seeing the small cultured classes with which Dalcroze teachers usually deal. It is not a pleasant or edifying sight to see a class of mentally defective children at Eurhythmies?except to those who know how much they are benefiting by what looks to the outsider, merely gauche and unfinished. Often the child with the lowest type of mind has an extraordinary sense of rhythm, although its physical expression may be hampered by ungainly movements; many such children can be appealed to by this medium better than by any other. The chief defect in many of them is lack of power of concentration. Through the special appeal which music makes to them, this power is developed and strengthened, all departments of the school work benefiting thereby.”
” I have had the opportunity of working with some of the lowest grades of Mental Defectives in an Institution?children termed ” ineducable “?whose vocabulary was so limited that the words ‘ lion ‘ and ‘ tiger ‘ conveyed nothing to them?and have seen how children whose attention could not be kept by any other subject for a moment, could concentrate for twenty minutes on simple rhythmic exercises.” ” One class in particular resembled nothing” so much as a number of little wild animals. When I arrived the first day they were rushing uncontrolledly round the Hall. Without saying anything and without any attempt to restore discipline, I played ” The Vicar of Bray ” six or seven times through. By the time I had finished, all but two were seated quietly round the piano listening, and as I continued to play, were soon busy clapping or singing to the music. The iesult of a fine rhythmic tune ! “
In The Special Schools Journal for June, 1938, this subject is also dealt with, in an interesting and useful answer to the question : ” Has any research been conducted with a view to discovering the degree of response to music on the part of Mental Defectives and backward children?and as compared with the normal? If so?by whom, and with -what results? “
contributed by Miss M. I. Dunsdon, M.A., now Psychologist, Bristol Education Committee, and formerly on the staff of the C.A.M.W. Copies of the magazine, price 1/-, can be obtained on application to the Editor : Mrs. J. E. Thomas, 115 Burbage Road, Dulwich Village, London, S.E.21.
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