The Abstraction of CE + Human Dimension

The original language of CE is Hungarian and according to a rough translation of the name, Conductive Pedagogic System, the currently used English label is a misnomer. I think.

The word pedagogy comes from Greek paidagōgiā, the slave who took children to and from school called paidagōgos in which παίδ (paíd) means "child" and άγω (ágō) means "lead"; so it literally means "to lead the child". The Latin-derived word for pedagogy is the technique used by an instructor to foster and facilitate learning by another, which can be by upbringing, training or educating. The person who facilitates the learning process can be anybody, but the trained professional facilitator, however, is called a “teacher.” The word “pedagogy” is still used today in many countries , referring to the teaching – learning process . A number of famous people contributed to the theories of pedagogy: Benjamin Bloom, John Dewey, Celestin Freinet, Geetha Narayanan, Paulo Freire, Friedrich Fröbel, Kurt Hahn, Gloria Jean Watkins, Jan Amos Komensky, Janusz Korczak, Maria Montessori, William G Perry, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Jean Piaget, Simon Soloveychik, Rudolf Steiner, Lev Vygotsky, Henry Giroux.

The Conductive Pedagogic System is a transformative concept. The most important expression in the name is “pedagogic”, because it highlights a new way of rehabilitation. Dr. Andras Pető assumed that ortho- and dys-functions are not mutually exclusive. Therefore, orthofunction is not based on the change in a defect but is the transformation of someone to help them overcome their difficulties. The pedagogic aim is to facilitate the transformation of the disabled person, which is only possible if we approach the person as a whole and deal with his cognitive, communicative, social, emotional and physical existence altogether. At this level of pedagogy the role of active participation is very important, and activities should not be separated from human interest or from the assumptions and feedback of the surrounding culture and society.

The word conductive is new in a pedagogical context. It emphasises the active form of learning. Conductive means here inductive, which starts by creating aims, and then leads towards resolution. This resolution is not simply what we perceive as a function of behaviour but as a result of an inner organisation which, through interaction with the environment, results in a successful outcome. The conductor “inducts” the person through complex and systematic activities, which produce an inner organisation which in turn coordinates the nervous system. Having established an aim, the nervous system works out how to execute it. This process, however, is not conscious and the aims and activities are interlinked.

The expression “system” refers to the fact that the pedagogical programme is structured, being networked horizontally and longitudinally. It deals with many interdependent factors. It is deductive, planed, linear, parallel, spiral, concentric,and at the same time inductive. The system, through the structure of activities, assures the relationships.

About the human dimension:

Conductive Education deals with people with damage to the central nervous system and it has as one of it’s basic beliefs that people with disabilities should not be treated less favourably because of their disability and that reasonable steps should be taken to ensure that they are not placed at a substantial disadvantage. The “normal function” can be defined in many ways. Dr. Andras Pető defined it as orthofunction which term points out the human dimension of Conductive Education. CE shows a very high respect for humanity and it builds its system based on that respect. Conductive Education seeks to realise the full potential of those who live with damage of their central nervous system.

Participatory practice

Lived experience is at the heart of participatory practice.

“Men and women make history from the starting point of given concrete circumstances, from structures that already exist when they are born….The future is something that is constantly taking place, and this constant ‘taking place means that the future only exists to the extent that we change the present. It is by changing the present that we build the future; therefore history is possibility, not determinism. (Freire P., 1993)

Paula Allman talks about the need to understand and use concepts more fluidly, more critically, more dialectically, if we are ‘to engage in authentic local and global social transformation’ (1999)

By making sense of our social reality, understanding the critical connections between our histories, cultures and differences, gaining insight into the relations of power that have shaped who we are in the world, we begin to grasp the links between ideology and alienation, and this helps us to dismantle the “common sense” that has led to dominant ideology that divides and alienates us from our natural participatory place in the web of life on earth.
Participatory approaches are committed to locating knowledge in every day life. Transformative practice begins in everyday lives. In our practice we bring ideas and knowledge and action together to produce orthofunction.


Participation is transformative. It is central to the purpose of CE. There are three key stages in the process of transformations: changing ourselves, connecting with others and changing the world.

Variety of Interventions for Parkinson Disease

Neuroscientists at Karolinska Institute in Sweeden used PET and functional MRI scans to reveal changes in the number of the receptors for dopamine. Whether volunteers started with relatively low or relatively high number of dopamine receptors, brain training /brain gym resulted in a shift closer to the optimum balance.
“We knew that brain is plastic” says Torkel Klingberg, the lead neuroscientist for the investigation. “But nobody has shown that biochemistry of the brain is plastic in this way”.
He developed a programme used in the study, called Cogmed Working Memory Training. Neuroscientist Peter Snyder of Brown University, who is not really convinced of the effectiveness of brain training, also pointed out that it is given that the brain will change in response to a variety of interventions. The best memory enhancer is exercise. Secondarily, a good diet and an active social life have brain benefits.

From the article of Goodier R. in Scientific American Mind July/August 2009

Have you seen something similar around? Conductive Education for people with Parkinson Disease?

One example of the Narratives

Dr. Julia Devai who recalls her memory in The first years with András Pető: The birth of Conductive Education (OMOD 1997 pp.1-8. in Forrai J. 1999)
“On that grey November day in 1946 Pető was sitting behind his desk, leaning back on his chair. His eyes were only partly open but, while talking to somebody, he seemed to be aware of everything that was going on. He did not even look at us, only indicated the door to the next room with his head. I was eager to leave the place where nobody paid any attention to me, and happily entered the next room. There were three people inside doing different things. One of them was lying on the floor, and tried to reach the end of the carpet with his extended legs and feet. The other was sitting on a chair, attempting to lift a seemingly paralysed arm with the good one, and the third person was leaning on a chair, while bending and extending a knee along the leg of the chair. There was a slight murmur in the room, because everybody was counting slowly, according to the rhythm of the forced move. The murmur, the quiet effort and the unbelievable concentration of these people created such a great tension the room, that there was no space left for questions. I was simply drawn into their world, and before long I realised that I was unconsciously counting and sitting on one of the chairs to help to stabilise it. I wanted them to succeed, I wantedthat knee to bend and that arm to raise with such a fervour, that I hardly realised the Pető was standing in the middle of the room. He walked to every one of them, showed a better grip, turned something here, pushed a little bit there. The guy using the new trick Pető just showed him, was finally lifting his arm, and was all smiled, without interrupting our counting…From than on I was frequent visitor in his apartment…At that time only half of his patients suffered motor problems, the other half or even more had internal or dermatological diseases. His methods were somewhat unusual in Hungary, and could not be easily adapted to any traditional hospital setting. He was convinced that the essence of the “movement therapy”, which was the original name of conductive education, was a learning process, thus it seemed logical to get this new discipline accepted through the Ministry of Education[...]”

Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation theory, and can be defined as either the art of interpretation, or the theory and practice of interpretation. Phenomenology becomes hermeneutical when its method is taken to be interpretive (rather than purely descriptive as in transcendental phenomenology). This orientation is evident in Heidegger’s work as he argues that all description is always already interpretation. Every form of human awareness is interpretive. In his later work especially he increasingly introduces poetry and art as expressive works for interpreting the nature of truth, language, thinking, dwelling, and being. Contemporary or modern hermeneutics encompasses not just issues involving the written text, but everything in the interpretative process. This includes verbal and nonverbal forms of communication as well as prior aspects that impact communication, such as presuppositions, preunderstandings, the meaning and philosophy of language, and semiotics. Hans-Georg Gadamer, one of the followers of Heidegger, continued the development of a hermeneutic phenomenology, expecially in his famous work Truth and Method. In this work, he carefully explores the role of language, the nature of questioning, the phenomenology of human conversation, and the significance of prejudice, historically, and tradition in the project of human understanding.
Paul Ricoeur also studied Husserl, and he too does not subscribe to the transparency of the self-reflective cogito of Husserl. He argues that meanings are not given directly to us, and that we must therefore make a hermeneutic detour through the symbolic apparatus of the culture. Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology examines how human meanings are deposited and mediated through myth, religion, art, and language. He elaborates especially on the narrative function of language, on the various uses of language such as storytelling, and how narrativity and temporality interact and ultimately return to the question of the meaning of being, the self and self-identity. Researchers and educators are increasingly implementing qualitative research methods to investigate issues of concern and interest. Hermeneutics has risen as an option for the qualitative research paradigm particularly after the 1970s. The precedence of the sciences that have applied hermeneutics as an approach to investigation is provided with special reference to nursing. In the nursing science, hermeneutics have been used extensively as a qualitative research method to investigate a variety of issues, through the lived experiences of the participants.