HATEFUL BUT HARMLESS?

READING THE RUNES

Some people have crazy ideas, very crazy in some cases. Usually, I guess, they are harmless and the rest of us can either ignore them or take a sort of bemused pride in our tolerance of such eccentricities. I am sure that every country has its eccentrics. And we all know that they make great television.

From today's issue of www.politics.hu

A few weeks ago an incredible 'documentary' was shown on MTV entitled  War against the Hungarian nation. The production is available on YouTube…  it is becoming evident that the Hungarian far right is having a heyday on MTV and Duna TV, both directed from a government-controlled media center...  


'..the role of the Carpathian Basin as the center of the world. Whoever rules this area rules the world. It is the “heart center” (szívközpont) of the world. It is also the strategic center of Earth, and that is the reason for the constant war that has been waged against the Hungarians.... 'our genes contain the known knowledge or, in other words, 'the divine knowledge.' Other people are jealous of this sacred knowledge. Hence, the persecution of the Hungarians by others...

While this nonsense was being aired on MTV, Duna TV was spreading the gospel of the far right... The program on runic writing could be seen a couple of days ago in a series called Hagyaték (Heritage)... 


...Hungarian children should be taught runic writing already in first grade instead of the Latin alphabet because it 'would strengthen the children’s self-identity'...

Such notions about Hungary’s place in the world lead to political isolation and economic ruin.

They lead to other things too. Only a couple of months ago I read Heather Pringle's book The Master Plan, about the Ahnenerbe. Its one comfort is that it is written in the past tense.

Such things could never happen again, unless the lunatics take over the asylum. Nem, nem, soha...

URLs

Short extract, with readers' comments

http://www.politics.hu/20120529/far-right-propaganda-on-hungarian-public-television/

Full original text, with its own readers' comments

http://hungarianspectrum.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/far-right-propaganda-on-hungarian-public-television/

Youtube

Can anyone find me  the URLs?

References

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007148135?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0007148135

Review of this book (from archaeological viewpoint):

http://archaeology.about.com/od/heritagemanagement/fr/pringle06.htm

A few words on runes (and the right):

http://euroheritage.net/runestones.shtml

NEWS AND AWARENESS OF CE

Four Facebook informational sites

What else in social networks?

Facebook

Facebook is a quick, way to spread awareness around the Internet, quicker than writing or reading a blog, readily found and accessed. It encourages response and comment, and its new Timeline format shows all earlier postings, right back to the date that a given page first appeared (a search engine would be handy and will doubtless come – though in the meantime Google can help).

At least four Facebook pages currently offer news, links and information, and the opportunity to respond to these. They have in common that they provide a focus on Conductive Education, with a penumbra of other items of personal interest – all of course as seen from the positions and perspectives, and in the personal style, of their respective administrators. Together therefore they offer both overlap and diversity of content:

• Conductive World (Andrew Sutton)
• [Untitled] – (Norman Perrin)
• Pető Education UK (Szathmáry Judit)
• Pető Intézet (Ádam Mákk)

You may know of others that fit the same loose criteria. 

If so, do please let me know of them so that I can pass the information on.

Other pages, other social networks?

Readers of Conductive World may already know these pages.

They may also of course know of other Facebook pages that fit the same loose criteria. I can mention only those that I know of. Similarly, Facebook is not the only social-networking system. It is however the only one that I follow.

Do please let me know of others, of any kind, in any language, and I shall pass the information on.

URLs

http://www.facebook.com/conductive.world

http://www.facebook.com/norman.perrin

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pet%C5%91-Education-UK/128702870560185

http://www.facebook.com/PetoIntezet

TEN YEARS AGO

Where conductors worked

Just over ten years ago Baljeet Jhheent and I conducted a survey of services where conductors were then reported to be working around the world.

Note the careful wording: the criterion 'where conductors work' does not necessarily equate with what many regard as amounting to Conductive Education (or conductive upbringing, or even necessarily conductive pedagogy).

In all, 212 institutions were identified from our own data, some large, many small, some public, many outside the public sector, spread across sixteen countries. These were all sent a brief questionnaire asking for corroboration of details and other information.

The interim results were introduced here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020610044141/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_survey_pre.html

This report was amended and reissued three months later:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020802201355/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_survey_0105.html#download

Results and reflections

Further links take you to the actual details of services operating ten years ago.

Preliminary listing
http://web.archive.org/web/20020824115655/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_ce_list_pre.html

Revised listing
http://web.archive.org/web/20030412203256/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_list.pdf

Hardly surprising was the very poor return on the questionnaires (centres returning completed questionnaires are indicated in these lists in bold). But more time and further pestering do bear a little fruit.

Ten years later it is interesting to see who and what survive out of those named individuals and institutions around the world, and who and what have gone.

Ten years on there are many places listed here still in operation. Together these must have clocked up a very considerable experience of so many aspects of providing conductive services in a very wide range of situations. It is pity that little of this has been a collective effort, and most of that experience has remained locked in the individuals and the institutions involved.

One begins to wonder about 'succession planning' and what this represents.

And now...

Data collection continued (with little active participation from many centres), with the results published on line. It was hoped that a comprehensive published list of places where conductors are employed will prove a benefit to people seeking conductive services, to conductors and future conductors, and to those advocating the development of CE.

This listing has been subsequently maintained and developed by Gill Maguire, initially at the National Library of Conductive Education, and now on behalf of Conduction:

http://www.gillian-maguire.info

There seem to have been no parallel international surveys or listings (or if there are they have not been published). Gill's lists have been drawn upon  by a variety of websites – usually unacknowledged.

References

Jhheent, B. (2002) Preliminary listing of CE worldwide, Conductive Chronicle,, 11 January

http://web.archive.org/web/20020824115655/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_ce_list_pre.html

Jhheent, B. (2002) CE World Survey Report, Conductive Chronicle, I May

http://web.archive.org/web/20030412203256/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_list.pdf

Sutton, A. (2002) CE World Survey: Preliminary Report, Conductive Chronicle, 11 January

http://web.archive.org/web/20020610044141/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_survey_pre.html

Sutton, A. (2002) CE World Survey Update, Conductive Chronicle, 1 May

http://web.archive.org/web/20020802201355/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/world_survey_0105.html#download

CALLING ALL AUSTRALIAN CONDUCTIVISTS

An offer you CANNOT refuse

I count myself fortunate up here in the Northern Hemisphere to be on Sue Reilly's mailing list from Australia. She and they do things rather more ruggedly than how we now do up here in matters to do with CE. This morning the following summons to action was awaiting me when I woke –

Hi all –

The following item, from yesterday's Australian newspaper, represents a potentially very significant opportunity for the development and funding of Conductive Education in this country.

As stated, there is now 'a unique opportunity for an overhaul of disability education' in Australia from the simultaneous policy reforms now being undertaken by the federal govt, both the NDIS and the Gonski education reform recommendations.

Those of us who advocate for CE are entirely aware that one of the reasons this approach works so well is because it is founded on a philosophy of high expectations, and that it is because we are up against a 'systemic culture of low expectations' that it has proved such a struggle to get anyone in authority to listen to us.

But thinking is now changing, and those of us who want CE to flourish in this country urgently need to work out ways to draw its existence to the attention of those in authority now looking at ways of funding more effective, outcomes-focused services for Australians with disabilities.

This is the item to which Sue refers –

Disability education overhaul

Natasha Robinson

A SYSTEMIC culture of low expectations means that for disabled children the nation's schools are just 'babysitting services', a high-level meeting of figures in education and social service has been told.

The author of the federal review of the nation's education system, David Gonski, and Labor senators Jan McLucas and Jacinta Collins met yesterday with disability advocates in Sydney.

The meeting, organised by the umbrella group Children with Disability Australia, was told that there was a unique opportunity for an overhaul of disability education that came with simultaneous policy reforms in the two areas being carried out by the federal government.

CDA executive officer Stephanie Gotlib told The Australian that children with a disability must be wholly included in the aspirational targets that are set down in the Gonski report.

Mr Gonski said in his report, handed down in February, that an extra $5 billion a year was needed above what was being spent by state and federal governments on education.

Mr Gonski proposed a new funding system for education on the basis of a baseline of funding for each student, which would be increased on the basis of factors including disability, Aboriginality and remoteness. 'I think funding is integral to many of the changes but I also think we have to do some work on addressing this culture of low expectations,' Ms Gotlib said.

'Mr Gonski spoke a lot about aspirations, and we need to make sure that those educational outcomes are very clear for students with disability.

'A common comment to us is that parents liken their child's educational experience to babysitting. We don't want babysitting, we don't want minding, and we don't just want personal care.

'There needs to be very clear educational outcomes where children with disabilities are enriched and extended academically throughout their education.'

Mr Gonski said yesterday that he believed the government was undertaking the work that his team had identified as being crucial in reforming disability education: gathering statistics on the numbers of children who suffered disabilities and how they were being supported.

'We concluded easily that the definitions of disability lacked logic, were not consistent and had no basic transparency, particularly in relation to how we approach them for funding for schooling,' Mr Gonski said.

Think big

Too true, Sue –

...one of the reasons this approach works so well is because it is founded on a philosophy of high expectations...

A vital reason for the indifference, misunderstanding and outright opposition that Conductive Education has met over the years, everywhere, is that it represents a whole new way of thinking about what is disability. And a central feature of this – what first brought it on to my own radar over thirty years ago and what has kindled the passion and enthusiasm of so many parents over the years since—is just this, that one should expect so much more. Or, as David Gonski presently expresses it in Australia –

A common comment to us is that parents liken their child's educational experience to babysitting. We don't want babysitting, we don't want minding, and we don't just want personal care.

It is only by confronting the big, strategic issues, like the transformability of human potential as a product of upbringing and education, and the transfer of physical disability out of the realm of medicine and health, that Conductive Education will break in from the fringes and achieve its deserved recognition *.

Come on you Aussies. Don't be bashful. In a situation such as David Gonski has opened up to you, established interests have by definition nothing useful to say – and everyone's voice counts as strongly as everyone else's. Speak up from the experiences of CE, advance its big messages. Seize the day.

Reference

Robinson, N .(2012) Disability education overhaul, The Australian, 22 May

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/disability-education-overhaul/story-fn59nlz9-1226362835139

*     Take just these two, the transformability of human potential as product of upbringing and education and transfer of physical disability out of medicine and health. Together they take you beyond the weak notion of 'support'. Advocate instead that disabled children need to be brought up, educated, taught, as do all other children – though not always necessarily in the same way. 

SOUND, SENSIBLE PUBLIC AWARENESS

It CAN be done

As part of the New Zealand CE Awareness Week, the Southland Times has published a well-briefed feature item on the Southland Centre for Conductive Education.

Credit to the editor and the reporter – but features like this do not just write themselves. The reporter has to be briefed: a coherent and well based-account has to be clearly delivered, and then probably a draft-product gone through together and discussed. So credit too to everyone at Southlands for a good story, well told

I could quibble. Please, no training', and the British, three-year conductor-training course was at Wolverhampton, not Birmingham University, but such distinctions hardly matters in this context! I would rather applaud niceties, such as –

...teaches families how to live with a disability while still living themselves...

Rather, I would trumpet from the roof-tops what is NOT said:

• no sick children
• no therapy
• no 'multidisciplinary'
• no cod neurology
• no 'principles of conductive education'

An awareness worth having

The philosophy of conductive education is that children and adults with motor disorders of neurological origin can learn, and... become more independent, in small, manageable steps and through goals that are specific to each child.

Reference

– (2012) Holistic approach pays off, Southland Times, 22 May

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/features/6960536/Holistic-approach-pays-off 

ETHICAL FUNDRAISING

What's 'ethical'?

On 17 May Conductive World's Facebook page posted a notification –

BIG LOTTERY WIN FOR ENGLISH CENTRE

£241,163 will pay for outreach, and 'more therapists'http://news.biglotteryfund.org.uk/pr_140512_ne_rc_vulnerable_in_our_society?regioncode=-uk

'Conductive education therapy complements NHS treatment as an additional therapy and combines physiotherapy and occupational therapy with learning'.

http://news.biglotteryfund.org.uk/pr_140512_ne_rc_vulnerable_in_our_society?regioncode=-uk

Pro and con

A brief correspondence ensued. Some expressed joy that CE had struck it lucky, conductor Laszlo Szogeczki widened the CE funding news from the North East of England –

Also in Newcastle, the Percy Hedley Foundation, received £280,215 to provide around 120 disabled people in the area with employment opportunities.

Others took a more critical stance. Conductor Gabor Fellner quoted the announcement –

It is the only charity in the region offering free conductive education therapy to young people. Conductive education therapy complements NHS treatment as an additional therapy and combines physiotherapy and occupational therapy with learning.

He then pointed out what this means in the public estimation in terms of what the term 'Conductive Education' now apparently means de facto to this major funding body, and presumably to a wider public too.

In other words CE is a multidisciplinary approach and therapy for children with CE. To have some money is really brilliant but to use this kind of false definition of CE is not so brilliant...

Norman Perrin gave a quotation, and stated his own forceful position –

If Conductive Education does not offer a coherent intellectual account of itself, on where it comes from, what it actually does, and of its goals, then it cannot expect outsiders to know what it is about and should not be surprised if it is misunderstood by decision-makers, budget-holders and researchers." From Last Year in Hong Kong, 'Philosophical and historical, social and political' by Andrew Sutton.

Grant-givers, evidently, can be seduced into all sorts of tosh such as 'conductive education therapy. Sadly, so can some parents.

Susie Mallett has written to me, pointing out that 'therapy' implies the presence of sick or poorly children, something that donors (think that) they understand, and one can hardly blame institutions looking for funding playing this potent card.

I have to say, this would certainly appear to offer a more conductive  path than long, long and often fruitless hours trying to enlighten people about the vast superiority of an educational path to learning and development.

Ethical fundraising

Well, good luck to all institutions that can find the money to pay the staff and stay alive, whatever they do. When I had to take part in such things people often asked my take on 'ethical fundraising'. I had to admit that there were few sources that I would not have accepted money from to keep the show on the road (and in the event I never had to face dilemmas such as a offer from the Mafia that I could not refuse).

On the other hand, there were limits and it never evenoccurred to me or my associates to brand package CE as a therapy... Had it done so, I doubt that the Devil himself could have tempted us, with all the kingdoms of he Earth.

References

Conductive World (2012) Big lottery win for English centre, Facebook, May

http://www.facebook.com/conductive.world/posts/362032547193515

Sutton, A. (2011) Philosophical and historical, social and political. In Last Year in Hong Kong, Birmingham, Conductive Education Press, pp. 39-44

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2905541

CONDUCTIVE EDUCATION SCHOOL KUWAIT – NEWS?

And now a message from its server

A click on the URL http://www.cesk.edu.kw/ brings up the following message –

Server Default page
If you see this page it means:

1. hosting for this domain is not configured, or
2. there's no such domain registered in Parallels Plesk Control Panel

Perhaps there is a better URL. Who knows?

Recent reports on CESK

http://www.conductive-world.info/2012/04/conductive-education-school-kuwait.html

http://www.conductive-world.info/2012/04/kuwait_23.html

http://www.facebook.com/conductive.world/posts/285883944829112