Comment

As you often say to me, “You took the words right out of my mouth”!Sitting, standing or kneeling on plinths is a pet subject of mine too. One which until now I have not really discussed with anyone.I have done all of these today, the standing, the kneeling and the sitting on plinths. Not because of my age, although I do now belong to the older generation of conductors, but because of what you described as “health and safety” regulations. It was the only way to do my work so I could stay in one piece. The only way to do my work so the client felt safe too.The broader issue here however is giving consideration to the private space which is our client’s. Whether they are on a plinth or on a chair, standing or walking, they have a space around them which we need to respect. We must respect the fact that although we enter that space to help clients achieve their goals we must be careful not to encroach on their personal space unnecessarily.There is a very fine balance between keeping our own bodies healthy while giving the help needed for our clients to achieve their aims and at the same time keeping our distance. This is what we learn through experience.Yes, we had a rigid training at the Petö Institute. We were told not to sit on plinths. We were told lots of other things too which took us a long time to understand and interpret in our own individual ways.Years of experience allow us to become flexible. The experiences give us confidence in our movements and behaviour in the presence of our clients. Through experience and observation we learn when we can enter that personal space and when we can not, and we also learn how best to do it.If I need to sit on a plinth to do my work properly I will do it, respectfully keeping my distance.If I want to sit down because I am tired, or because I want to talk to my clients at the same level, the plinth isn’t the place for me. I can pull up a ladder back chair for these purposes, there are always plenty of them about.Thanks for this posting Laci, it gave me lots to think about at work this week and opened up some interesting discussions with my clients. I expect I will report on them at a later date on my own blog.Susie
22 June 2009

To sit or not to sit that is the question...

This little ‘sitting’ thing has grown into a big dilemma in my mind throughout many years of CE experiences working in different places and countries. Now I have decided what it is I believe and I have decided that I will stick to my own ideas whatever the absolute truth is.
The question is: to sit or not to sit on the plinth during CE delivery. Well, I will answer it first as I learnt it and then, think about it twice. This little problem has different angles from which to approach it. During my training at the Peto Institute, Hungary, I was taught not to sit on the plinth in any circumstances because the plinth belonged to the client’s personal territory and it was his/her personal education tool and this we highly appropriated in the conductive education system. Parallel to this I worked as a teacher at the State Institute of the Motor Disabled, Budapest, where there was a CE department and where I met great, enthusiastic, passionate older generations of conductors who learnt from Andras Peto himself. I learnt a lot from these conductors and it was here that I feel I was “made” into a conductor.
Some of these conductors were, interestingly, occasionally sitting on the plinth during lying programs or when clients were also sitting on it in order to facilitate them. When I asked them why they were doing so they would tell me I would learn why after 20 years of service. Their answers were, of course, indications of their own state of health.
Since I am graduated from Peto Institute, I worked in different CE environments in Hungary, Germany, Singapore, USA and in the UK. I met many different points of views. At the majority of places it was taken for granted that to sit on the plinth was OK in any circumstances and there was just no need to open up a discussion about it. In my opinion the worse has happened here in the UK when one of my former colleagues sat on the plinth when it was being used as a table with children sitting around it.
So after many years of experience, I decided to put this little thing in its rightful place. On the one hand, I highly appropriate the philosophy of CE and I try most of the time not to sit on the plinth, however, as the older conductors led me to imagine, there are some very questionable parts of this philosophy from the point of few of a conductors’ health.
Just imagine how unhealthy it is to lean forward and maintain this position for longer periods of time while facilitating, when the client is on a low plinth or when the client is very heavy and you actually propose to lift parts of his body in this position. The health and safety based manual handling book says that you must avoid such movements. Unfortunately, I know of many conductors of my age, or older, who have been sentenced to follow a career other than CE because of terrible spine or other CE related health conditions.
A couple of years ago I did a short search to find out what has been written in our training books or what can be read about it on the Net.

The result was strange. There was no such rule written down anywhere. Nothing to say that you are not allowed to sit next to your client. So, I decided the following that I wish to declare state now:
I totally believe in the philosophy of CE. However, we need to enjoy it responsibly. If the plinth functions as a bed or a tool on which people sit or work I would consider sitting on if it is easier for me to facilitate in this way. This is not supposed to mean that I am looking for the first opportunity to sit on the plinth ‘because I am tired’ and also not supposed to mean that I put my shoes into the client’s face, etc., but it means that I have to be confidentially responsible for my own health as well as that of my client.
Why am I posting this now? Things have changed in my professional life and turned full circle so that I am now working with freshly graduated conductors. They now tell not to sit on the plinth. Why? For all the same reasons I was told before. It feels like I am looking into a mirror. I see myself a decade ago when I was also 'fighting' for all of those things I was taught. They are great people and I assume great professionals too. Still, I think they do not yet have the kind of independence or the confidence that one acquires through years of experience. This confidence often brings with it flexibility and the ability to move beyond different boundaries. I strongly sense the rigid training effects behind the issue. We all know that. It is really so sweet to discuss such things.
Similar situations have occurred on official university research registration documents. I called clients patients. I had to do this for several different reasons. The freshly graduated conductors started to tell me that the clients were not patients but participants. :)

Between Satisfaction and Pleasure

Passion lives somewhere between two very positive emotions – satisfaction and pleasure. We often do not distinguish between these two similar emotions. A massage or a bottle of red wine produces the positive emotions of pleasure, however, satisfaction points to something much deeper. Buddha suggested that the things that seen to lead to real satisfaction have something of investment quality to them, such as building a house, creating a child, or writing a book. Some people experience this feeling of satisfaction and passion they produce. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi a psychologist who interviewed thousands of people of all ages and asked them to describe their highest moments of satisfaction. According to Csikszentmihalyi, when people experience their highest moments of satisfactions and are experiencing ‘flow’, they describe the psychological components as: ‘The task is challenging and requires skill’, ‘We concentrate’, ‘There are clear goals’, ‘We get immediate feedback’, ‘We have deep, effortless involvement’, ‘There is a sense of control’, Time stops’.
Interestingly, none of these components are about the experience of pleasure per se. Rather, when we are absorbed in flow, it is about total engagement and a loss of self-consciousness. In other words, when we are wrapped up in flow we are investing in building emotional capital that we can draw on to sustain our passion and therefore our energy. In contrast, to seeking the immediate rewards of pleasurable experience, to build your emotional capital you need to pay attention to the elements of the flow experience that fuel your passion and produce your most rewording satisfactions. People whose motivations are intrinsic exhibited more interest, excitement, and confidence, as well as greater persistence, creativity, and performance than those who motivated largely by external demands and rewards. Passionate people are productive, persistent, high performers. These people look for creative challenges. They also display a constant energy for discovering how things can be done better. One thing is sure, if you have passion for what you do, then what you do is powerful. I saw conductors to have that power, passion when I enrolled Peto Institute in the early nineties. They absorbed me into ‘flow’ several times and that was an extraordinary experience. Then, later, I missed them for long. It felt like; they would have died out. I worked at different work places where individuals were strongly fighting for their individual aims and somehow they lost energy, concentration, effort, but most importantly self control on human strength. It made me really happy to meet someone again, in last November, who was young, powerful and passionate - somwhere between satisfaction and pleasure. Even more happy now, I have been working with some of those....

CE research

A konduktiv pedagogia tudomanyos vizsgalatara keszulve, osszeszedve gondolataimat, el kellett dontenem, hogy mibe is kezdjek. Nehany dolog a kezdetektol fogva vilagosan, komoly teret nyerve elmemben, eloretolakodva arra "kenyszeritett", hogy ne hagyjam ki oket, vagy bele se fogjak "holmi" kutatasba. Megis, szamtalan dolog befolyasolja ilyen helyzetekben dontesunket. A tajekozottsag, olvasottsag jol jon(ne) ilyenkor, de azzal kerulunk legkevesbe kozelsegbe, amit nem ismerunk:), tehat sokszor tenyleg a tanulasban es kutatasban is a szerencse legalabb akkora szerepet jatszik - meglatasom szerint- mint barmely biologiai jellegu kiserleti kutatasban. Azzal tobbe, kevesbe tisztaban vagyok, hogy amiota a konduktiv pedagogia rendszerevel talalkoztam (1991), egyre tagulo holisztikus felfogasban elek. Azzal viszont kevesbe szembesultem, hogy masok egeszen tavol lehetnek ettol a nezoponttol. Egyszeru megfogalmazasban barki lehet holisztikus, ellentetben a professzionalis valosaggal: kevesen akadnak, akik tokelyre kepesek ezt a napi viszonylatra is munkassagukban 'redukalni'. Minden, mindennel osszefuggesben all. Igen. Ezt azonban nagyon nehez a dolgok melyere hatolva, a dolgok osszesegere alkalmazni a hetkoznapi valosagban. A komplexitast meg lehet ismerni, akademikusan tanulni, megis; semmi egyeb nem vezet a totalis megerteshez jobban, mint a tapasztalati praxison keresztuli megismeres. Ennek a nezetnek es eletfelfogasnak kialakulasahoz jelentosen jarult hozza a Peto Intezeti kepzesem, az akkori kepzesi modell ( elmelet es praxis egyensulya szamomra), valamint akkori eletformam: szaktanari tanitas a Mozgasserukltek Allami Intezeteben, sok es mindenfele onszorgalombol vegzett gyakorlat a Peto Intezet szamtalan csoportjaban + termeszetesen a kotelezo kepzesi gyaklorlatok es tanorak. Itt mindefelekeppen megjegyzendo nehany kollega emberfeletti, vagy inkabb abszolut sallangmentes, nyiltszivu emberi szolgalata; a tudas feltekenyseg nelkuli, emberbarati atszarmaztatasa. Ha neveket kezdenek el sorolni, akkor ez az oldal mara nem fejezodne be, s ha valakit veletlenul kihagynek a sorbol, akkor nagyon nehezen esedezhetnek bocsanatert. Tobben ugy lenditettek at valoszinutlen, nem aposztrofalt krizis, vagy tanulohelyzeteken, hogy eszre sem vettek (vehettek) dialogusuk nagyszeruseget. Megis engedtessek meg kulonos tekintettel arra nezve, hogy nelkuluk aligha valhattam volna konduktorra, hogy Makkai Erzsebet es Horvath Jantje nevet es faradhatatlan munkassagukat emlithessem az elsok kozott...

A holisztikus, komplex eletfelfogas, a kulonbozo elethelyzetek ismerete, iskolak, rehabilitacios intezetek mindennapi praxisa, nehany elottem es ismeretemben vegzett kutatas es azok eredmenyei, ugymond predesztinaltak arra, hogy valasszak. Ez szamomra fekete-feher uggye nott. Valasszak kutatas egy uj iranyban, vagy nem kuatas kozott... folyt. kov.

I met with this just recently

Sorry, I have never found who wrote this bit but I felt to share it because I feel it is so truth.

“…when Freire talked of love, he suggested it was an energy that extended to a love for all humanity, an energy that fuelled the determination to sustain action for social justice: ‘Love is an act of courage, not fear …a commitment to others …[and] to the cause of liberation’ (1972:78). His belief was that the process of dialogue, so central to the transformative project, could not exist ‘in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people’ (1993:70).”

We need our risks

They want us to avoid risks, however, WE NEED our risks at CE: because this is the only way to learn orthofunction...

Ethical Implications

I am dealing with an ethical application form recently and some thoughts have grown in my mind.

Although there is a strong tendency to focus on doing no harm to CE participants, the long term consequences are not always easy to calculate. Summer (2006) writes of the rights to privacy, informed consent and confidentiality in social research as being some of the most difficult assurances to give to any participant. Conductive Education is particularly one of those development ideas which might cause some (if not more) harm. Ethical dilemmas are endemic in all methods, and we must show as CE professionals some concerns, too. Of course, numerous guidelines have been published and are available for professionals. However, guidelines are just that: they are not obligatory and are difficult to police, bearing in mind that they are open to individual interpretation and application. CE is a complex development system and it meets complex possibilities of causing harms.

Though, it is luck that ethical values themselves are not absolutes, and one can understand the problems of translating abstract and disputable principles into a set of practical and relevant guidelines to suit a variety of settings. It could be argued if we should ethical implication at all. I am afraid, however, we must. In conjunction with participants, parents, colleagues, make some moral judgements about the balance between the benefits of CE and the rights of others.

SCIFI

My father is 71. He was a history, literature teacher before he retired. He loves and closer to the classical literature than the modern but he used to enjoy to read Istvan Nemere's ideas of scifi. He came up with the idea this morning to relax CE community that the missing Airbus probably was taken by aliens to make a great bridge between our and their civilization. Since there is no evidence of a crashed plain anywhere and there were a wide range of great different professionals on the plane it seems to be a good reason to think the above mentioned thought.
I know this is like a befuddled idea but it depicts how many ways of hope is available. If he was right than our missing colleague has a huge job.

A margora irva...

Ugyan tenyleg teljesen komolyan gondolom, hogy blog oldalam elsosorban, es csakis a kondukciorol szoljon es hogy szemelyes erzeseimet, velemenyemet, stb. felreteve tenyleg csak a szakmaval foglalkozzon, ma megis arra vetemedek, hogy eloszor is magyarul, masodszor, inkabb valojaban rolam, pontosabban erzeseimrol irjak - persze kondukltiv pedagogiat illetoen.

Hadd kezdjem azzal, hogy a blogom irasanak kezdete ota sokkal kevesebbet irok le barmelyik temaban, mint amit arrol gondolok az angol nyelvu megnyilatkozas miatt.

Hatalmas dilemma.

Azert kenyszerultem arra az elhatarozasra, hogy angol nyelven irjak, kifejtsem gondolataimat a konduktiv pedagogiat illetoen, mert ezt mas nem tette meg elottem, s ugy gondoltam, hogy legalabb egy magyar szarmazasu konduktor blogironak lennie kell. Ez persze egy ido utan jelentos konfliktusba torkollhat. Sajat konfliktusomba, mondhatnam frusztraciomba. No, azert nincs krizis, de megis mellyebben gondolkodtam el a dolgon Szatmary Judit visszalepese es kolleganonk tragikus repulobalesete utan bejegyzett irasok utan. Az angol nyelvtudas - mint tanult kepesseg, amelynek szitjet a szuletett nyelvi keszsegunk, a nyelvhasznalat szintere es egyaltalan lehetosege, es persze sok minden mas is befolyasol - erosen behatarolja megnyilatkozasaim melyseget es terjedelmet is egyben. Befolyasolja minden leirt szavam. Az angol nyelven valo megnyilatkozas nehezsegerol, irodalmiassagarol, visszasagarol tobb kivallo magyar anyanyelvu kolto, iro is megnyilatkozott mar, amit tehat nem kell reszletezzek, amely 'nehezsegek' ram eppugy vonatkoznak, mint barki masra.

Vegtelenul szuknek erzem nyelvi es az idobeli korlataimat. Gondolatban szamtalan bejegyzesre referalok, amelyre irasban alig- alig kerul sor.

Dilemmat legyozve ma inkabb magyarul - mert sokkal gyorsabb es a szavak tiszta utjan melyebb ertelmet kolcsonoz gondolataimnak.

Susie Mallett es Andrew Sutton is irtak a "konduktiv csalad"szervezetten kevesbe tettenerheto, de nagyon is jol kitapinthato letezeserol, Szarvas Rita szomoru es tragikus elvesztese okan. Mennyire vagyunk mi egy "csalad"? Leszamitva azt a tenyt, hogy a szamossagot illetoen valoban kis kozossegrol van szo, rendelkezunk-e a csaladokat jellemzo tulajdonsagokkal, vonasokkal? Mennyire respektaljuk valojaban egymast es a szakmat magat? Mennyire tudjuk humanumunkat megtartani egymas kozott? Tudjuk e tisztelni hallgatoinkat, diakjainkat, clienseinket? Es viszont ok kepesek e emberileg megbirkozni a mi altalunk teremtett helyzetekkel? Milyen a kapcsolatunk kollegainkkal a hetkoznapokban? Milyen a generaciok egymas mellett munkalkodasa? Nem folytatom. Attol tartok, onmagunkba kell neznunk nehany esetben.

Szatmary Judit blogjanak bezarasat ennek a csaladnak latszolagos erdektelensege okazta. Mennyire vagyunk erdektelenek? Ha arra gondolok, hogy szamtalan kollegamrol tudom, hogy hanyfele es szerteagazo iranyokban tanultak tovabb, vagy tanulnak most is tovabb, akkor ez a teny azt jelzi, hogy erdeklodoek vagyunk. Ha azt is vizsgalnank persze, hogy mennyire szakmai iranyu ez az aktivitas, akkor lehet, hogy meglepo eredmenyt kapnank. Arra gondolok, hogy sokan talan eppen kiutat keresik a tovabbtanulas jovoltabol, hogy aztan profilt valtva mas teruleteken dolgozhassanak. A konduktiv pedagogiaban aktivan letoltott 5-10-15 ev utan valoban tobben valasztanak uj, mas, vagy kapcsolodo szakmakat.

Az uj generacio es a maradok viszont szazalekaranyban latszolag nem aktivak a szakmai erdeklodes tekinteteben. Azert irom, hogy latszolag, mert bizonyos egyaltalan nem lehetek abban , hogy en megfeleloen latok bele innen Angliabol. Mindesetre itt a neten a kommenteket figyelemmel kiserve, szinte alig van hozzaszolo. Cafoljanak, cafoljatok ra!

Bloom's Taxonomy

The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, often called Bloom's Taxonomy, is a classification of the different objectives that educators set for students. The taxonomy was proposed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist at the University of Chicago. Bloom's Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three "domains:" Affective, Psychomotor, and Cognitive. Like other taxonomies, Bloom's is hierarchical; meaning that learning at higher level is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels (Orlich, et al. 2004). A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education. Most references to the Bloom's Taxonomy only notice the Cognitive domain. There is also a so far less referred, revised version of the Taxonomy, published in 2001 under the name of "A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing."

"Taxonomy” simply means “classification”, so the well-known taxonomy of learning objectives is an attempt (within the behavioural paradigm) to classify forms and levels of learning. It identifies three “domains” of learning (see below), each of which is organised as a series of levels or pre-requisites. It is suggested that one cannot effectively — or ought not try to — address higher levels until those below them have been covered (it is thus effectively serial in structure). As well as providing a basic sequential model for dealing with topics in the curriculum, it also suggests a way of categorising levels of learning, in terms of the expected ceiling for a given programme. Thus in the Cognitive domain, training for technicians may cover knowledge, comprehension and application, but not concern itself with analysis and above, whereas full professional training may be expected to include this and synthesis and evaluation as well.
Cognitive: the most-used of the domains, refers to knowledge structures (although sheer “knowing the facts” is its bottom level). It can be viewed as a sequence of progressive contextualisation of the material. (Based on Bloom, 1956)
The model above is included because it is still common currency, but Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) have made some apparently minor but actually significant modifications, to come up with:
Revised taxonomy of the cognitive domainfollowing Anderson and Krathwohl (2001)
Note the new top category, which is about being able to create new knowledge within the domain, and the move from nouns to verbs.
Affective: the Affective domain has received less attention, and is less intuitive than the Cognitive. It is concerned with values, or more precisely perhaps with perception of value issues, and ranges from mere awareness (Receiving), through to being able to distinguish implicit values through analysis. (Kratwohl, Bloom and Masia (1964))
Psycho-Motor: Bloom never completed work on this domain, and there have been several attempts to complete it. One of the simplest versions has been suggested by Dave (1975): it fits with the model of developing skill put forward by Reynolds (1965), and it also draws attention to the fundamental role of imitation in skill acquisition.

ATHERTON J S (2009) Learning and Teaching; Bloom's taxonomy [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/bloomtax.htm Accessed: 2 June 2009

Deep Sympathy

The journey from sorrow to peace is one we all take at our own peace. The sympathy of loved ones help guide the way. Let me express my deepest sympathy to the loss of our CE community on the crashed Air France aeroplane from Brazil to France, earlier today.

According to http://www.nol.hu/

Két felnőtt és két gyermek tartott Brazíliából Párizsba azon a francia repülőn, amely valószínűleg az Atlanti-óceánba zuhant.
Az asszony a Nemzetközi Pető Intézetben dolgozott, és egy három hetes tanfolyamot tartott a dél-amerikai országban. Volt férje felvette a kapcsolatot a Külügyminisztériummal, ahol a nevek alapján megerősítették, hogy valóban az ő kisfia és elvált felesége neve szerepel az utaslistán.

Kesobb, a www.origo.hu -n

Négy magyar volt a gépen
Négy magyar utazott az eltűnt francia repülőgépen - mondta az [origo]-nak Mátrai Zsuzsanna külügyi szóvivő. Az eltűntek személyazonosságáról személyiségi okokból nem árul el többet a Külügyminisztérium. Magyarországot a francia külügyminisztérium válságkezelő központja tájékoztatja hivatalos diplomáciai úton, eddig egyetlen üzenetet kaptak, ami arról szólt, hogy négy magyar szerepel az utaslistán. Már több hozzátartozó is jelentkezett a Külügyminisztériumnál - mondta az [origo]-nak Mátrai Zsuzsanna.
A Pető Intézet kedden megerősítette, hogy munkatársuk, Szarvas Rita konduktor volt az eltűnt gép egyik magyar utasa, aki brazíliai kiküldetéséből volt hazatérőben. "A tehetséges és nagyreményű fiatal kolléganő hivatásszeretetben végzett munkáját mind a Pető Intézetben, mind pedig nemzetközi projektekben nagyfokú elismeréssel illetik, kedves személyiségét megbecsülés övezi" - írta közleményben az intézmény rektora, Schaffhauser Franz.
A Hír TV korábban közölte, egy nő és élettársa, valamint két magyar kisfiú utazott a gépen - közölte a televízió az egyik magyar kisfiú édesapjára hivatkozva. A Hír Tv szerint a gépen utazó nő volt férje felvette a kapcsolatot a Külügyminisztériummal, ahol megerősítették, hogy volt feleségének és kisfiának a neve szerepel az utaslistán. A nő a Nemzetközi Pető Intézetben dolgozott, és egy három hetes tanfolyamot tartott a dél-amerikai országban - közölte a Hír Tv.