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.
Monday, 1 June 2009
Monday, 25 May 2009
Strengths of Humanity
People who are naturally strong in "strengths of humanity" are those who care for their relationships. You probably know people like this: folk who always send a thank you card, who call occasionally "just to check up", and who are kind and pleasant to be around. For these individuals, caring relationships are important, and their strengths play to developing and maintaining friendships, marriages, and workplace collegiality. In return we often feel a sense of loyalty to and appreciation for these types of people. We admire their empathy, sensitivity, and compassion. They are the people we commonly turn to when we have problems. It may have occurred to you that that many of the people we think of as paragons of these virtues are women. There is a stereotype that women are, on average, more focused on relationships and more kind and considerate than man. This might be true - on average. However, if I think of my professional past, present, I just can not totally confirm this in our community. Despite that the ladies who involved with conductive education are immaculately giving their caring love to children, clients, they can be real disastrous to each other. Why is that? I do not know any good reason, but maybe some good answers can be collected.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Developing Empathy- Buber again - Person centered relationships - Empathy
Basic empathy enables the conductor to relate to the participant more completely, viewing the person as a whole. This more complete way of relating to the participant can be referred to as the I-Thou position (Buber, 1958). The incomplete experience of the self and other is known as the I-It attitude. As Brient and Freshwater (1998) comment: " The I-It attitude is one in which the other person is never viewed as a whole being. It can never be the basis for a holistic relationship". The I-It positio0n is one that has been found to exist widely within nursing. Menzies-Lyth (1970), in her research into social systems, found that nurses view patients as objects as a way of coping with the intense anxiety that such intimate relationships give rise to. The I-Thou approach to relationship is based on equality, with one individual in their totality relating to the other in their totality. Much of what takes place in CE can be related to the person centered approach: I-Thou. Person Centered relationships usually referred to as Rogerian counselling after its founder Carl Rogers, the person centered approach sits very much in the humanistic tradition. Rogers, influential as both as a psychologist and a counsellor, became convinced during his career that human beings are esentially positive, forward looking and realistic by nature, which he referred to as the actualising tendency. Rogers believed this was the motivating force driving all human beings to achive wholeness.
Empathy is a term that is employed variously in counselling, psichotherapy, nursing and across the helping professions. It is used to describe a particular characteristic that helpers should possess in relation to their clients. Here I am relating it to the skills of the conductor, who need to create a safe and enabling relationship to maximise the potential of the participants. In broad terms empathy is a state of being between two people, where one is entering the world of the other whiole maintaining an awareness oh his or her own world. It is the ability to see the world from the point of view of on other individual or group of individuals, through their frame of reference, which in turn describes the ability of the conductor to enter into the true feelings of the other person or group of people.
It is not an attempt to be that person, and try to envisage how it might feelto be them. It is the 'as if' quality that makes empathy different from sympathy. Sympathy, whilst concerned with feelings of pity, compassion and tenderness for the other person, involves collusion, whereas empathy requires much more effort, concentration and discipline. Empathy is expressed or communicated through a number 9of key skills, including active listening to both the words and feelings that are being conveyed by the participant.
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Holistic Learning
Engage the mind - Touch the heart- Feed the soul Publicity notice, Edinburgh International Festival 2005
The term 'holistic learning' signifies an approach to learning which is predominantly 'whole person', i.e. it seeks to engage fully all aspects of the learner - mind, body and spirit. (See also Whole Brain.) The underlying holistic principle is that a complex organism functions most effectively when all its component parts are themselves functioning and co-operating effectively. And this idea relates very closely to the concept of synergy, with the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. In terms of mainstream education a 'whole person' approach to learning is much more likely to be observed within the sensory-rich nursery or primary school activity room than in the intellect-dominated university lecture theatre.
John Heron's Model of Holistic Learning
John Heron, Founder of the Human Potential Research Project. A powerful pyramid model presents learning as an interaction between four distinct modes of psychological being: feeling, imaginal, thinking and practical. These are normally represented in the form of a pyramid with feeling at the base and practical at the top. And so what is especially unusual about the model is that feeling is presented as our fundamental mode, rather than thinking. This contrasts sharply with much of mainstream traditional education, where cognitive thinking and the pursuit of intellectual competence have the pre-eminent role. The significance of this alternative orientation is that the crucial requirement for each learner is to establish a relationship with their total learning situation which is intimate, resonant and positive (i.e. in the feeling mode). Only when this is firmly in place is it considered that the learner will be free to tap fully into the other three modes of the learning model, viz. imaginal, thinking and practical.
Source
Monday, 20 April 2009
A book which is available in English
I was writing about books two weeks ago, written by Hungarian authors and wished to be translated to English. Now, by contrast, let me suggest one which can be already read in English and which I recomend with pleasure.
A short part from The precondition for succesful conductive education p.:17-18
Peto’s educational aims more than 60 years ago included learning, information in its broadest sense, living with others and an independent way of life. These very same aims were stipulated in the International Law of Human rights (1994) and a few years later in the Commission Report of UNESCO (1997). Society and national culture are involved, namely the environment influences education, the process of learning and socialisation. The developmental approach must be adjusted to the society and culture in different ways by different nations. By now, when conductive education is internationally applied, its principles have proved to be applicable successfully in different national cultures.
Suitability for CE is to be determined by the conductor’s operative observation, since just looking at a person with dysfunctions is already informative. It is even more important to state what the person with dysfunction would be able to do should he receive conductive education. It also must be seen whether contact can be established. The conductor’s responsibility is further increased by her having to give a prognosis concerning the conductive educational future for the person with dysfunctions. Then an individual development plan must be drawn up. The assessment must also answer the question how this educational method can help the disabled person’s development. The conductive education teacher intends to see what the child with disabilities would be able to if development changed his environment, the scene of his education. The conductor considers and documents the results of medical reports and the pace of development which could be registered until this first assessment.
The conductor also wants to see by future operative observation whether an interaction has been formed between the conductor and the child, which may help the learning process. While a paediatric neurological examination focuses on the pathological neurological and neglect symptoms, the conductor’s observation considers the possibility of utilising the existing reserve capacities. She is looking for the preconditions of complex performance in every day situation. Then she wants to see concrete ways of task solutions which can be applied individually in the given case. Thus she must see whether the method is suitable for developing the child with disabilities.
The conductor never sets up a diagnosis – it is not needed- since patients come to conductive education already after a medical check up and diagnosis. However, she tries to explore the abilities which make the patient suitable to be developed by conductive education. This does not always correspond to anatomic extension of brain damage. Experience shows that no cases of damage to the central nervous system with identical origin produce the same loss of functions, symptoms and prognosis.
As shown above, the preconditions for conductive education include a well trained and experienced conductor and operative observation (conductor’s assessment). It is also essential to have a conductive group, to have early development begun in infancy which can be established. A determining factor is that conductor does not work in an isolated position but as a member of homogenous conductor’s team, especially in the early, intensive phase of development.
As the scene of development a peer group is vital, which also influences personality development favourably and prevents early social isolation. The group develops a need to establish contact with peers and the social environment, and also enhances communication. ...
Dr. Erika Medveczky
Conductive Education
as an educational method of neurohabilitation
Budapest, 2006.ISBN 963229819 5
A short part from The precondition for succesful conductive education p.:17-18
Peto’s educational aims more than 60 years ago included learning, information in its broadest sense, living with others and an independent way of life. These very same aims were stipulated in the International Law of Human rights (1994) and a few years later in the Commission Report of UNESCO (1997). Society and national culture are involved, namely the environment influences education, the process of learning and socialisation. The developmental approach must be adjusted to the society and culture in different ways by different nations. By now, when conductive education is internationally applied, its principles have proved to be applicable successfully in different national cultures.
Suitability for CE is to be determined by the conductor’s operative observation, since just looking at a person with dysfunctions is already informative. It is even more important to state what the person with dysfunction would be able to do should he receive conductive education. It also must be seen whether contact can be established. The conductor’s responsibility is further increased by her having to give a prognosis concerning the conductive educational future for the person with dysfunctions. Then an individual development plan must be drawn up. The assessment must also answer the question how this educational method can help the disabled person’s development. The conductive education teacher intends to see what the child with disabilities would be able to if development changed his environment, the scene of his education. The conductor considers and documents the results of medical reports and the pace of development which could be registered until this first assessment.
The conductor also wants to see by future operative observation whether an interaction has been formed between the conductor and the child, which may help the learning process. While a paediatric neurological examination focuses on the pathological neurological and neglect symptoms, the conductor’s observation considers the possibility of utilising the existing reserve capacities. She is looking for the preconditions of complex performance in every day situation. Then she wants to see concrete ways of task solutions which can be applied individually in the given case. Thus she must see whether the method is suitable for developing the child with disabilities.
The conductor never sets up a diagnosis – it is not needed- since patients come to conductive education already after a medical check up and diagnosis. However, she tries to explore the abilities which make the patient suitable to be developed by conductive education. This does not always correspond to anatomic extension of brain damage. Experience shows that no cases of damage to the central nervous system with identical origin produce the same loss of functions, symptoms and prognosis.
As shown above, the preconditions for conductive education include a well trained and experienced conductor and operative observation (conductor’s assessment). It is also essential to have a conductive group, to have early development begun in infancy which can be established. A determining factor is that conductor does not work in an isolated position but as a member of homogenous conductor’s team, especially in the early, intensive phase of development.
As the scene of development a peer group is vital, which also influences personality development favourably and prevents early social isolation. The group develops a need to establish contact with peers and the social environment, and also enhances communication. ...
Friday, 10 April 2009
Reaction
This is a reaction post to the new posts of Andrew Sutton and Judit Szathmary. Those posts had a meeting point in my mind. Andrew was questioning who would be responsible for getting CE a goverment recognised system in UK and he has list of the bodies who have not succeeded so far. In the meantime Judit was writing about Sir Ken Robinson who was invited by the government to to establish and lead a national commission on creativity, education and the economy...
Isn't it strange? Well, of course not. The government decides who to invite and what to do which is normal in democratic countries. It seems to me that if the British government did not want to recognise CE in the past 30 years, it probably won't happen in the near future either. No, I am not negative, I am not pessimistic but we have to realise the reality at some point. There were countries that did not know about CE up till the late nineties, but now use the system. We are sentenced to be in the private sector in the UK without any help from the goverment. The society of people who are interested were never big (thanks God) and strong enough to make a real push or start a "civil war". The government itself is not interested! It is a pity. I thought scientific actions might develop this problem. So far however, nothing has happened. There were recently positive PhDs and good results of studies published on CE - yet there has still been no response! The UK is not interested, and those who are involved seem to be met with obstacles at each turn.
Isn't it strange? Well, of course not. The government decides who to invite and what to do which is normal in democratic countries. It seems to me that if the British government did not want to recognise CE in the past 30 years, it probably won't happen in the near future either. No, I am not negative, I am not pessimistic but we have to realise the reality at some point. There were countries that did not know about CE up till the late nineties, but now use the system. We are sentenced to be in the private sector in the UK without any help from the goverment. The society of people who are interested were never big (thanks God) and strong enough to make a real push or start a "civil war". The government itself is not interested! It is a pity. I thought scientific actions might develop this problem. So far however, nothing has happened. There were recently positive PhDs and good results of studies published on CE - yet there has still been no response! The UK is not interested, and those who are involved seem to be met with obstacles at each turn.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
In the Petö Institute / Easter 09
I have been staying in Hungary for my Easter Holidays and had a possibility to visit the "alma mater" (Petö Institute). I visited the Maria Hari Library for the first time since its opening and it was very nice to see a "normal" library. It has been needed for a long time. The little museum what can be found attached to the library also gives us a great memory of Hari Maria's work and reminds us of her the legacy. How nice! Thank you for all who made this possible.
There, in the library I was advised to read one of the new books published by Petö Institute.
The title is Feladatsorok a Konduktív Nevelésben /Task series in CE/ written by Frencné Beck one of our Budapest trained conductors. The contents of the book have been taught and available as a teaching peaper at the Institute for some time, but I was really happy to get it in a well presented book. Well done! We really needed this, too. The author, Eva, asked me if it was useful to translate it to English. I said such a translation was needed as it is still not avaiable in English, along with the 'The Little Green Book'. I am sure someone, person or company, would donate to enable a translation to be made.
I have just read Andrew's last blog mentioning the financial problems of Hungary and the impact on the Petö Institute and conductors all over the world. Well, it is really a scary situation for all of us and we can have only a good hope that we will sustain and survive the crisis.
There, in the library I was advised to read one of the new books published by Petö Institute.
The title is Feladatsorok a Konduktív Nevelésben /Task series in CE/ written by Frencné Beck one of our Budapest trained conductors. The contents of the book have been taught and available as a teaching peaper at the Institute for some time, but I was really happy to get it in a well presented book. Well done! We really needed this, too. The author, Eva, asked me if it was useful to translate it to English. I said such a translation was needed as it is still not avaiable in English, along with the 'The Little Green Book'. I am sure someone, person or company, would donate to enable a translation to be made.
I have just read Andrew's last blog mentioning the financial problems of Hungary and the impact on the Petö Institute and conductors all over the world. Well, it is really a scary situation for all of us and we can have only a good hope that we will sustain and survive the crisis.
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