Rhythmic arts program helps disabled kids

Whether they're dancing or drumming, every student taking part in The Rhythmic Arts Project at East Wiltshire Intermediate School in Charlottetown says this is the highlight of their school day.

"My favourite part is the dancing. I get up and I move my body, and I get some energy out that's been building up inside of me all day," Grade 7 student Sarah Nove said Thursday.

"I like coming up with new solos, and trying new beats, like fast and slow," Grade 8 student Tyler MacNeil said.

Industrial arts teacher Pat King, who is also a long-time musician, is thefirst personin Canada to teach The Rhythmic Arts Project to children with intellectual disabilities.TRAP was started by an American in 1997 after a body surfing accident.

The project is an education program that uses drums and percussion to teach many basic life skills to people with developmental disabilities.

For King, it was the perfect chance to build on past experience. He had already taught a music class for students with disabilities and had seen the way they connected to the music.

"I had a feeling that we can get more into these kids and more out of them then what I had been doing previously,just playing songs and singing and that sort of thing," King said.

"So, we went online and I found TRAP. It was just exactly what I was looking for because using this, we can look at things like prepositional concepts, sequencing, the difference between left and right, our colours.

"We have moments for leadership, moments when we need to follow. And we can work all those kinds of concepts easily using drums and percussion instruments."

King has helped introduce the program at six schools in P.E.I. and at another five schools in Cape Breton.

This week, he was training teachers at Colonel Gray High School in Charlottetown, and he's also done demonstrations with some students.

Alison Campbell, special education consultant with the Eastern School District, likes the program.

"It brings students out of their shells and allows them to have success and get excited about learning in a different kind of way," she said Thursday. "Some of the kids you see in a regular classroom don't get to shine in the way they do through the TRAP program."

King said his students are more engaged and more confident than they've ever been since taking part in the program.

"I guess one of the things that's really neat is it's a very non-judgmental atmosphere we have here. If someone comes in here and plays drums like a famous bongo artist, then that's great," he said.

"And if someone plays a drum solo and what they want to get off their drum is the sound they get from dragging their finger across the top, it's just as valid. So a drum solo is a drum solo. Your reality is as valid as mine, and if we can teach that, that's the big thing."