The Big Yellow Schooner To Byzantium (1977)

"Can you tell me where the world is?" asked the pilgrim of the muse. It is created new with each footstep. Born moment by moment in your eyes, by your touch, by the power and delicacy of your senses. The world exists only as you perceive it to be and grows in beauty as your awareness [Music] grows. Can you tell me how I can find my way to where the world is? asked the pilgrim of the muse. Just book passage, my friend, on the big yellow schooner to Bzantium. [Music] In the mind of poet William Butler Yates, there was this holy city of the imagination, of the intellect, of the creative spirit. It was and is that place where we are the most that we can be. Just within the reach of every human being on earth, there lies Bzantium. To help us on our way to this place that lies at the very limits of our potential, we have created a schooner we call the public schools. For many of our children, the public schools have been closed for a long, long time. The children's dialogue with the world around them denied. The marvelous road to Bzantium closed. It's curious in our country where freedom has been so cherished that human rights have often been distributed so unequally because the vast majority of us learn more easily than they do. We have said they can't learn. We have rejected and isolated a whole population of our children who are severely and profoundly mentally Children who have little or no verbal skills. Children who may not be toilet trained and may have difficulty dressing themselves. Children who may have multiple handicaps or severe mobility problems. And we have closed them away from the world. But there's a growing awareness and expanding sensitivity to the value of these lives, to the potential of these individuals who've been denied so much for so long. It's a movement enhanced by a unique and powerful alliance between parents and educators. Together they are weaving the lives of these forgotten children into the living fabric of the American experience. and they are creating a new normaly much richer than the old. The courts have said that these children have a right to a public school education. The history of public education in the United States has been a series of of broadening and opening the doors of of the of public schools to a wider and wider population. really the serving kids like the severe and profoundly handicapped child is simply an extension of that movement toward human rights in this country. The issue that I had to address as an administrator was the practicality of it. It was simply a question of how can we make it work most effectively? How best can a severely young person learn in the public school setting? What is this? Okay, reach right out here and get the pumpkin. Put your hand right on it. We've had parents who come in and say, "Gee, the medical people who looked at this child or the last set of experts who looked at this child said, "This child will never walk. This child will never be toilet trained. This child will probably never talk." And we have certain children like that who do walk. And if they don't talk, they use signs or they use some of their own gestures and they are communicating with people, not only their parents and teachers, but people in the environment. You can reach out and touch that. Our whole purpose, I suppose, is is to open up to that child all the things that he's capable of doing to um show that child that yes, there probably are things that you can do that you probably never thought you could do or go ahead and try it. And if you can't do it, that's okay, too. But at least you What did he find? You've tampered with the world. Okay. This guy has um cerebal palsy and he's non amulatoratory and with a lot of kids like that. If there were one message that I could tell everyone, I would want that to be please don't let people go unnoticed and unloved. We're in here to teach them and also to have a a good time and not to forget that we're working with people and children. First and foremost, the only thing that I really want them to know is that we have to let them show that they're needed and that we're glad they're in school today. It's really nice to see a kid sit up and smile at you. And when everyone else thinks that the kid doesn't know [Applause] anything, it's very important to get in our wheelchairs as the fire will somewhere. There must be a Norman Rockwell painting called Fire Drill. If there is, it probably looks very much like this scene. This suggests that the schools where programs for the severely or profoundly child are effectively working are simply average American schools. On the surface, there's nothing really special. There are no fancy new buildings, nor expensive equipment. But here and in other places where these severely handicapped children are being educated in the public schools, something quite special is happening. There's a spirit of human cooperation which ignites ideas into action. As a parent of a multiply handicapped 11 and 1/2year-old son, I feel it's very two key resources on which communities must call if severely handicapped children are to be served in their public schools. the parents of the children themselves and the educators the community employs to serve them. Without the full cooperation of both, the program's effectiveness will be diminished. To get a program like this started, community has to make a decision that it wants to do it. And if the community won't make that decision voluntarily, the parents force them to make that decision because in fact the children have a right to an education. Then the parents have to see that the decision is not implemented in a token way that in fact there's a commitment behind the decision. I think it's very important that teachers visit the home and learn what the families have to deal with and help the parents set up goals and methods of working with a child uh both at home and at school. I would ask a favor of you, Paul. Will you show me how you're teaching him to cut his I can't really explain how I feel about Eric's progress. We really had little hope before, but now I see him having fun, choosing friends, going places socially, and beginning to have a life almost near normal in certain respects. I I think the public schools have made Eric feel more like just everyday teenager. as he's going to school, he sees them going, he's going. He has a teacher, he has friends, he has a coach, the more they learn to do on their own or with supervision. And the more they can do within the community, the cheaper it's going to be for the taxpayers anyway. What else? We can't afford to have have them locked away and hidden, just fed and diapered and what have you that has been done through the years. Even if they have to be carried into the schools, they should be carried in. What are you going to drink your milk with? In the past, when a child in our community exhibited behavior contrary to the norm, we created a place for him where the abnormal was normal. We can find him in institutions or places where his behavior was beyond public view. tell me what's inside. We're finding that many of his behavior problems are not problems at all, but merely social inexperience. And so in the school setting, the children are taught the social skills that have been so long denied them. And the class moves out into the community where these skills can be practiced in a real world environment. What are we going to drink? Ah, I know. Can you what? Tell me. We'll say the word for it. Drink. We're going to drink pop. No. milk, right? Milk. The staff is concerned about the kids. And that's why it works. And that's to me where it's really at, finding those kids, finding the good things in them. I mean, sure, they have a lot of behavior problems and they're not the prettiest things to look at, but they have so much to offer. And if you find it, they respond to that and they know you care and that you love them, too. The future for them um right now is not the greatest as far as society would look at it. It's not the most productive future, but it certainly can be an enjoyable future for them. Uh, if we lock them up and shut them up and say, "Behave, sit in your chair, and don't say anything," the kid's not going to grow. But if you let them observe and make choices about their behavior, how they're going to act or the appearance that they want to give other people, I I think it can really add a lot to them. The kids just develop tremendously and really blossom the more they're exposed to other people. Many of the handicaps these children have would not exist if we had been wise enough or compassionate enough to have done something about them a long time ago. But when they were very young, we simply didn't have the structure to deal with their problems in their early stages. Looks good. And so we are developing now in the public schools a program called early intervention. Baby go down. Early intervention or early childhood program start with an aggressive search for kids with special problems or unique characteristic. We go and very deliberately look for and interact with obstitricians, pediatricians, social agencies, anyone who has contact with those kids at an early point. We then take uh and interact with parents and build a multid-disciplinary team which might be consisted of psychologists, social workers, educators and therapists and so forth. So that early focus is what we're really all about. And the goal is to make the obvious not come true. And it's obvious that a child who is profoundly is always going to be profoundly We've said that for a number of years. the results are in our institutions. If we would change that around and say the prediction about this person is such and such and then set about to try to upset that prediction or make that prediction not come true. Well, we may not make that child normal. There's a good chance that we can make the child more normal or allow the child to have a more normal existence. Within the early intervention centers of the public schools, there's an effort to avoid labels and categories to blend normal children and handicapped children into a sort of human tapestry. Many of the children in these classes are normal. And through their interaction with these children, those that are handicapped will have a much greater chance of achieving their full potential as human beings. Shall we play Old McDonald? All right, Wendy. Will Wendy play? Old Macdonald had a farm, e i e i o. And on his farm he had a cow. E I E I O. With a moo moo here and a moo moo there. Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo moo. Old Macdonald had a farm. E I E I O. In the mind of poet William Butler Yates, there was this holy city of the imagination, of the intellect, of the creative spirit. It was and is that place where we are the most that we can be. Each of us must make our own journey to Bzantium. No longer can we deny anyone passage because they are somehow different than we are. We are all on our way to Bzantium. Traveling together, the journey can be a very special and beautiful thing. [Music] Oh, you're Oh yeah. [Music]