"Coldon"
Welsh School of Excellence for Conductive Education
What is Conductive Education
By Colin H.Mock FCMI., MInstF.
foreword
This article is a personal view by a parent who followed the regime and eventually built a school in dedication to the system of Conductive Education. There are good schools and this view is a general one from my personal experience in special needs, seeking a way to educate my children in a holistic way both physically and academically. This article is therefore to be considered in light of your own experiences and is not a total condemnation of the system although my belief is that the current provision has to change and come into the twentieth century.
Conductive Education needs to include the National Curriculum as an integral part of the teaching or it is not complete.
Do not be fooled into thinking that Conductive Education is a miracle cure or that it is easy to deliver.
A Conductor or even a few in isolation is not Conductive Education.
Conductive Education is a highly organized carefully structured method that needs to be appropriately staffed by professionals trained for the purpose.
Conductive Education a personal view
Conductive Education is a method of special education which expects and demands the active participation of its pupils in attempting to overcome their motor disabilities. It is a holistic approach which recognises the motor, conceptual, verbal and social aspects of achieving functional goals and the importance of enhancing skills necessary to function normally in everyday life. It is acknowledged by many experts worldwide to be an extremely effective form of teaching children with serious physical and mental disorders, particularly cerebral palsy. In most traditional special education settings for profoundly and multiply handicapped children, the child remains passive and confused. This passive, often wheelchair bound lifestyle, is interrupted only by infrequent, unconnected treatment sessions and educational interventions by any number of adults, this tends to only increase this passivity and further diminish already low motivation and self esteem.
The fact is that all children can learn something, provided that educators set the right goals so that the pupils are properly motivated. The learning atmosphere needs to be such that it provides an environment that is suitable for the task at hand. Such an environment must be stimulating, but above all, motivating. The Conductor co-ordinates the efforts of several disciplines-medicine, psychology, speech and language pathology, Physio-or occupational therapy, adaptive physical education, pedagogy, and nursing. The conductor guides the separate contributions of these specialists yet without encroaching upon the territory of their responsibility. The conduction itself is a process of guidance towards finding new ways to become independent. By serving as a co-ordinator, he or she prevents the fragmentation of the child. The Conductor is the point of contact with all supporting disciplines and the child interacts only with the Conductor, providing familiarity, security and love otherwise unattainable in traditional settings. They teach students how problems may be overcome relative to the situation for each individual. Dysfunction's are addressed from both the biological and educational standpoints, stressing the inseparable nature of perception and action.
Conductive Education sets a carefully planned individual style for each pupil so that the educational process provides an age appropriate opportunity which implies a close relationship between normal life functions and main stream education.Pupils do not work in isolation but in groups. Learning is achieved through a daily routine which includes all the forms of activity necessary to satisfy daily social and biological requirements. The goal for each task is stated with conscious, verbal rhythmical intention. Eventually the whole process becomes smooth and harmonious and through multipurpose activity a fully functional personality develops. achieving self-confidence, self-realization moreover, the Conductive Education system differs mainly from all other special education systems in that the rehabilitation treatment and educational work concerning the children are a consistent inseparable Programme. Were all activities merge to form a single educational process. In theory, nothing; about Conductive Education is fixed. It is a completely flexible system reconcilable with its general principals or serving its educational purposes.
The Existing Education System a personal view.
If you look at our education system it still operates largely according to a particular way we interpret the path our children's development will take and that relationship with our teaching. The Idea that children's minds grow, like their bodies, in a kind of biological unfolding and this process can somehow be effected only by their environment. Couple this with an educational practice founded on a notion that children already fulfill an existing potential, and there is a absolute way that children can learn, develop and think, and that education must work with this situation because children's potential is fairly unmovable, and we have a problem.
It would therefore seem that all education wants to offer is a means to coordinate a process which is going to happen anyway. and that there is an inevitable way that children will learn, develop and think and that education must work alongside this process.
Something to think about.
"Intelligence is not something we are born with but something that children can learn with the help of inspired teaching". This statement is the foundation stone on how children should be educated in a way which ensures that they will discover new ways of learning, so that any impairment or limitation in their development can be circumvented and in time overcome. Children must be continually challenged like athletes and their strengths and weakness found by accurate testing . They should be in a process of continual assessment so that at all times they can be stretched and developed by individually designed teaching Programmes. No limit should ever be set on children's capacity to improve. Some children will need to have every step in their development reinforced side by side with their educator. They may need to be taught to think and learn in different ways, and certainly in different situations. This will raise the level of the children's functioning and consequently change their lives. This education can be achieved through a pleasant, playful, interesting, and emotionally favoured teaching method that gives meaning to the actions, develops a sense of duty, and gives an overall perspective and does not restrict the creativity of either teacher or pupil. The child's individual personality is created out of social interaction. It is not simply something brought into the world at birth. Children's developing abilities and personality are actively created through this interaction within the educational process. This occurs best in a situation with children learning and developing together in a group situation this group dynamics will assist in the children's intellectual, emotional and moral development.
There is always more than one way to learn. It follows that there are many ways to teach and inspired teaching is a way forward.
There is always a better way....your challenge is to find it.
Cloin H.Mock 1997