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

http://www.jwelford.demon.co.uk/brainwaremap/holist.html

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.

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. ...

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.

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.

Note

There is going to be a CEPEG Conference on 13th of March at Horton Lodge, at which I am going to give a foreword about the history of UK's adult CE. It is planned to be based on Andrew Sutton's article on the same case.
He mentioned Ronni Nanton's name there, and in his knol as well.

How will I find out about such things in future, without Gill and her library? How will other people at the conference manage?

???

I wish to keep my appearance

Turns out, I am too busy recently - but because I wish to keep my appearance here on the blog I thought to share one of my activities which keeps me away pretty often from writing it.

I work on an investigation:

Title:
An exploratory study of the rehabilitation of physical disabled adults in a group setting with particular reference to Conductive Education


Aim of the investigation:

1. To explore the characteristics of the delivery of adult CE in a group setting
2. To investigate the relationship between the cognitive, social, emotional and functional dimensions of the delivery of Conductive Education in a group setting and its impact on the experience of rehabilitation amongst a group of physically disabled adults
3. To examine the experience of rehabilitation in a group setting in another rehabilitation context
4. To compare and contrast the two settings.

Engel's Biopsychosocial Model

Have you ever heard about the Biopsychosocial Model? It is almost a 50 years old challenge. At the practical level, it is a way of understanding the patient’s subjective experience as an essential contributor to accurate diagnosis, health outcomes, and humane care.

The (late) George Engel believed that to understand and respond adequately to patients’ suffering—and to give them a sense of being understood—clinicians must attend simultaneously to the biological, psychological, and social dimensions of illness. He offered a holistic alternative to the prevailing biomedical model that had dominated industrialized societies since the mid-20th century. His new model came to be known as the biopsychosocial model. He formulated his model at a time when science itself was evolving from an exclusively analytic, reductionistic, and specialized endeavor to become more contextual and cross-disciplinary. Engel did not deny that the mainstream of biomedical research had fostered important advances in medicine, but he criticized its excessively narrow (biomedical) focus for leading clinicians to regard patients as objects and for ignoring the possibility that the subjective experience of the patient was amenable to scientific study. Engel championed his ideas not only as a scientific proposal, but also as a fundamental ideology that tried to reverse the dehumanization of medicine and disempowerment of patients. His model struck a resonant chord with those sectors of the medical profession that wished to bring more empathy and compassion into medical practice.

Source: http://www.annfammed.org/cgi/content/full/2/6/576

George Engel (1913 - 1999)

When these ideas were forming in the early 1950s, he had already made a name for himself in neurology and medicine through his studies of fainting, delirium, and ulcerative colitis and was beginning the studies that would document the correlation of loss with the onset of a variety of diseases.