Comments on CONDUCTIVE WORLD: Pritschen, priccsek, plinths

Dear Susie and Judit, I must admit, that no connot...

2009-11-06T17:24:07.168Z

Dear Susie and Judit,
I must admit, that no connotation of Israeli families being at the Peto Institute of the Plints resemblance to beds in concentration camps can I recall. That does not mean that all have shared all their feelings with us, but yet, if it were prominent, I would have known.
Shouldn't we forget, that after all, in a very different context, this piece of furniture has been dressed with a new meaning.
We should however, bare in mind this historical information, whether it is true or not, in order to me a more sensitive service provider.
As to the discussion whether we should or should not use the Plints, I want to make my point clear:Any piece of furniture, aid, technology (wheter low or high) ,offered to a child, the family etc. should be considered as legitimate if enhancing the client motivation and participation.
Yet, sometimes, the "special equipment" typical for conductive education, may mislead the viewer to believe that this is what CE is all about. We know it isn't. We know that a good conductor does not really need all these stuff to conduct. It is only a facilitator which may be very helpful, or not, depends on the context, environment etc.
I truly believe that we should prefer conductive education without Plints on Plints without conductive education

Susie, Thank you for your response. I know that ou...

2009-11-06T15:55:22.786Z

Susie,
Thank you for your response.
I know that our work can be done without the plinth but why do it elsewhere?
Also how can you stretch the hips and correct feet positions on the mat? When children are lying on the mat gravity is in not used as a facilitator to correct the feet positions at the ankles in prone position. Not to mention to teach grasping when it has to be to a fixed position down by their sides for children who are unable to grasp moving, non-fixed objects. How about standing up at the plinth, pulling up and pulling along? (For some children the only active way of moving is pulling along the plinths. At Petö we had long plinth rows where the children can independently and actively move from A to B only on the plinths. This was their only way of actively participating, independently and orthofucntionally.
Of course it is for them only a teaching tool to feel success, independent problem solving, freedom from any adult’s intervention and to provide learning steps to function better in other everyday activities in life. It is not for home use.
When I talked about the plinth I was not talking about the principles of Conductive Education and I didn’t think that it was the be all and end all of our work. The plinth is not a principle and it can’t be.
Conductive upbringing must take place without the plinth, but in certain cases maybe it is the only answer.
The plinths don’t create clutter and it is harder to facilitate on the floor. The visual fields of facilitators are restricted when working on the mats leaning over one or two children.
Is it easy to move around and don’t be static at facilitating especially with very young children when their mothers/fathers are involved as learners and facilitators? The floor could be a very crowded place for all.

I like and respect your vision. We all have a vision which is important, relevant and which could move things forward towards a better future for the children and adults who choose to benefit from Conductive Education. But we were not discussing our visions as a response to Andrew’s posting.
Judit Szathmáry conductor

Judit, I agree with all that you say about the wo...

2009-11-06T10:59:59.789Z

Judit,

I agree with all that you say about the work that can be done on a plinth, but this work can also be done elsewhere in other situations with other tools.

A plinth can be useful but it is not the be-all-and-end-all and it is not indispensable and can certainly not be considered a "principle of Conductive Education" as it so oftened is.

A conductive upbringing can and must take place without it. A plinth has become a tool of our craft, it is not necessarily the best tool.

I spend many hours in my head designing my ideal working environment and each time do you know what I come up with?

A home.

A house complete with all the obstacles that make life for a person with a physical disability difficult.

A house full of obstacles which can be over come or adapted for use just as the plinth was.

I imagine a home that must be lived in and not cluttered up with heavy, hard, unsightly and uncomfortable wooden
furniture.

An alternative to the house, another of my visualisations and perhaps one day even realisable, is a room which is an adventure playground. A huge space with climbing frames and swings and wendy houes and ladders and slides and bridges and wobbly ways and sandpit and and and.... and an end of hours wasted moving furniture and preparing games and the beginning of days that are only bits-in-between.

Whether historically the link between the "Petö" plinth and the concentration camp plinth is a fact or not I don't know, but visually the link is there for all to see.

Living and working in Germany in is important that I remember this link especially when first introducing families to conductive education and upbringing. The sight of a plinth can form a barrier in those first important minutes which is often impossible to break down.

First impressions, are often lasting impressions, but more importantly it is not possible to wipe out events from the past, and even with the younger generations with which I am usually working it is advisable to tread carefully.

I am sorry to have to write this, but I find this ...

2009-11-06T07:52:35.652Z

I am sorry to have to write this, but I find this posting disturbing and I am finding it very hard to search for its constructiveness. I feel that it doesn’t do any good to the already scrutinised and misinterpreted name and practice of Conductive Education. But I might be wrong.
During my training I was never taught about it in these terms, but I was taught why and how it helps in a wide variety of ways to teach children and adults with many different neurological conditions. (Including learning about parameters, boundaries, measuring distances and identifying different positions of body and limbs including separation and meeting of fingers in prone, supine and side lying positions etc. Many cognitive skills are taught on the plinth, which are the blueprints of motor functions etc. On the plinth the work of the hands could be addressed in so many different ways.
The plinth in our modern days of CE has already lost its significance. I don’t understand why. In many projects even conductors put children on the floor and work on mats. Actually they prefer it that way I was told many times.
Our children spend most of their time lying on the floor or usually in w sitting or in specifically designed supportive chairs at home and at school. They have no idea how to organise their body in time and space between those positions.
Also sitting at the plinth, learning to grasp and release, standing up, standing, reaching for toys or desired objects, walking around the plinth as any other child would do by holding onto furniture at the beginning of learning to walk, provide endless opportunities to actively explore the environment which wouldn’t happen using a similarly sized table.
To transfer these processes to a mat programme is a skill itself requires true understanding of what is being taught.

From aesthetic and health and safety point of you, leaning over the children and adults from a kneeling or crouching position is questionable.

I am for stating historical facts if they are true. I cannot be sure whether this fact is true or not as I wasn’t alive when they happened and I was never shown a document, which could be counted as proof.

By connecting the plinth to the benches in the concentration camps, for many it triggers very frightening memories and feelings. These feelings are carried forward to the new generations in those families who had to go through it. They will never be forgotten.

I hope that this posting will not encourage people who are working with Conductive Education to reject the plinth altogether and I also hope that it will not frighten off potential parents who are seeking solutions for their children.
I didn’t feel comfortable writing this comment for many reasons, but I decided to do so for the sake of balancing some facts written about CE for public information.
Judit Szathmáry conductor

Regarding V. As you probably anticipate I will be...

2009-11-05T19:19:57.373Z

Regarding V.

As you probably anticipate I will be listening with ears wide open on Saturday, my questions are already prepared for every eventuality, with a little help now, thank you, from this posting!

Although Saturday's presentation on the plinth and its uses was also given in Munich last year I will hear it this weekend for the first time. In Munich I just couldn't bring myself to miss an interesting parallel session to listen to a talk about a piece of wood. On saturday I am determined not to miss it for the world! Especially as this lecture was chosen above my own offer to talk about the Soul of Conductive Education.

Perhaps the punters will be lucky and find a soul in a plinth or even discover a principle, we will see and I will report it all, as usual, on my blog, when I get home on Saturday evening. That won't be after the Kaffeepause but after the Abendessen that I suspect, in the plush setting of the Grand Hotel, will be even more sumptous than the cakes!

Susie

PS

Interestingly we had a huge delivery in Boxdorf yesterday of a couple of truck loads of second hand plinths, all that remains of the Conductive Education department at a local clinic for children. The clinic has been closed for several years now the furniture was/is still looking for a good home!

Goodness knows what we are going to do with it all, we have a cellar full already that we don't use.

Perhaps I should suggest free gifts at the congress on Saturday - "a take away principle".

There is never a good place to dispose of the left over furniture when a centre closes down, there is no Guy Fawkes night in Germany either, yet!

An interesting piece of history Andrew. I remember...

2009-11-05T18:37:20.002Z

An interesting piece of history Andrew. I remember hearing it in the past and the trembling I have experienced. As a Jew I'm probably much more sensitive to such stories.
Yet, furnitures, whether for horrible distractive ideas or great empowering ideas, are negligible. Absolutly meaningless.