23.7. 1993 Vitoria-Gasteiz / Spain - World Federation of Music Therapy

I'd taught the previous year. May be David needed
ukelele lessons!
A couple of days later, I attended a workshop
given by a visiting Music Therapist from Israel. Graciela
Sandbank practised Music Therapy at a Haifa Clinic for
Learning Disabled children. I heard her saying things
that I firmly believed, and this gave me the courage to
go ahead with my plan for David. Graciela Sandbank
was enthusiastic about the use of music in the
remediation of Learning Disabled children. She said
that music allowed learning to flown in, that it opened "a
back door, when the front door was closed".
I was asked to provide a musical item for the
School Assembly. This was the gathering of the entire
school, from 6 years to 12 years of age. This was a time
for prayer, for an address by the School Principal, a time
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for announcements of the week's activities, and a time
for some "cultural expression".
About forty 6 year olds sang " She'll Be Coming
Round the Mountain". I played the piano, and they sang
with great gusto. As an encore, we sang it again, but
this time I played the ukelele. I had any number of
volunteers for the strumming, so I had a relay of
children con-dng to "help" me. They were a roaring
success, and were given a deafening applause. Our
audience was not concerned, or perhaps hadn't even
noticed, that I had changed the chords.
When David came to my classroom for his
reading lesson, the ukelele "happened" to be lying on a
cupboard. I greeted him pleasantly, and asked his
permission to finish marking a pupil's book. As I had
hoped, he spotted the ukelele, and put out a hand to
touch it. He ran his fingers across the strings, and
jumped back nervously, apologising for making a noise.
His relief was great when I smiled and told him to take it