Background
This book, the first comprehensive overview of Conductive Education in English, was written mainly because Cottam and Sutton, as working academics, needed to publish a book. Regular publications such as journal articles and books are expected of those working in the world of academe. Both having recently come across Conductive Education, and considering it an important system for those with motor disorders, it was an obvious choice for both and resulted in this collaboration.
It was published in 1986, twenty three years ago and was consciously an 'academic book'. The publisher, Croom Helm, was an adventurous young publishing house that would take on unlikely subjects in the expectation that some at least would be runners and accepted it straight away.
It was hoped that it would attract academic interest in the project proposed by the Birmingham Group and pre-dated the Foundation for Conductive Education by nearly 12 months. In the event Standing up for Joe ( the BBC TV documentary) created a wider interest and sales of the book rode on that. The proper academic interest never really took of, but lots of parents and practitioners bought the book (though it was not really directed to them).
Sales were good for an academic book of that kind and it went to three reprints in a couple of years. In 1988, Croom Helm asked whether the authors would permit a fourth, but they declined. Two years on into the project Cottam and Sutton already knew so much more about Conductive Education , so different from what all previous people had known, that they knew it to be not just out of date, but wrong in important respects.
Contents
To quote from the back of the book:
It describes the origins and development of Conductive Education in Hungary and its derivatives in Britain and elsewhere and how the system operates in practice. The difficulties of successfully applying Conductive Education outside Hungary are considered and discussed. The book includes a bibliography of all materials published in English on this topic and assesses both the prospects and limitations of Conductive Education.
It is divided into three parts with contributions from Andrew Sutton, Philippa Cottam, Jayne Titchener and Veronica Nanton.
Part one looks at the social-historical context and the practice as observed by Andrew Sutton.
Part two covers the practice outside Hungary and discusses the suitability of Conductive Education as an approach for the physically and mentally handicapped. Part three looks at the problems and prospects in bringing it to the West and includes a chapter on Parkinson's disease.
A bibliography of all relevant known publications is included and many of these are still referred to today.
Reviews
It wasn't widely reviewed. Academics tended to like it. professionals less so, but numbers were too small to generalise. Copies of these reviews are available in the National Library of Conductive Education.
This book is only one academic review of the whole phenomenon and is now over twenty years out of date, but holds a very important place in the development of knowledge about Conductive Education outside of Hungary.
Cottam, P. and Sutton, A., ed. (1986) Conductive Education; a system for overcoming motor disorder. London: Croom Helm.
Standing up for Joe BBC 1, April 1988.
http://www.conductiveeducationinformation.org/2009/06/conductive-education-classics-no6.html
Part one looks at the social-historical context and the practice as observed by Andrew Sutton.
Part two covers the practice outside Hungary and discusses the suitability of Conductive Education as an approach for the physically and mentally handicapped. Part three looks at the problems and prospects in bringing it to the West and includes a chapter on Parkinson's disease.
A bibliography of all relevant known publications is included and many of these are still referred to today.
Reviews
It wasn't widely reviewed. Academics tended to like it. professionals less so, but numbers were too small to generalise. Copies of these reviews are available in the National Library of Conductive Education.
This book is only one academic review of the whole phenomenon and is now over twenty years out of date, but holds a very important place in the development of knowledge about Conductive Education outside of Hungary.
Cottam, P. and Sutton, A., ed. (1986) Conductive Education; a system for overcoming motor disorder. London: Croom Helm.
Standing up for Joe BBC 1, April 1988.
http://www.conductiveeducationinformation.org/2009/06/conductive-education-classics-no6.html
12 comments:
This has indeed possibly been the only overarching academic book to have come out of the spread of CE into the English-speaking world (though there have been other works in English of different kinds to be judged by their own lights).The book is now hopelessly out of date and of interest only as a historical documnee (not uniquely in the field of CE).
There are books in German that may resonably be termed academische, and again others that may reasonably be not.
In terms of academic publishing in CE, the world is running on empty tanks and has been for some time. If you agree that stataement, then I leave it to you to decide whether you regard CE as a motor-car or an aeroplane when you consider its implications.
Philippa, Jayne, Ronni and I wrote that book as outsiders. Now that I am an outsider again, it it time to repeat the exercise, with an overarching academic-style overview of Conductive Education annd the CE fild. I shall write it on my own and hope that it shall be ready for next summer.
Any suggestions of what I might put in it will of course be very welcome.
Thanks for the mention.
Thank you for your comments, Andrew. I will look forward to your
proposed book with great anticipation. CE needs more up to date publications of substance, as I keep banging on about!
Gill,
Would you kindly send me the links to the other 6 conductive education classics?
well...I found it myself...that was easy!
Altough not too many publications on CE, yet plenty enough to make some new order, maybe an 'academic' one. Time has come to set inclusion and exclusion criterions and to choose those publications of importance, quality and contibution to the growing body of knowledge on CE. Conductive $Education Classic" is certainly one of these criteria
Nice point, Rony.
A problem in running our course was a direct result of trying to create a comprehensive collection of works on Conductive Education, and then granting open access to it.
The problem was that some considerable percentage of what has been written over the years is rubbish. Students and other naive people do not necesarily know this, so all sorts of tosh then turns up, duly quoted as 'a reference' and feeds on back into the system of knowledge.
I know that Gill spent a lot of time gently removing things from people's hands, to be replaced by something more substantial. And I did try where I could, in lectures with students, in long conversations with visitors and in correspondence, to inculcate a more critical understanding of where on Earth authors have got their 'facts' and ideas.
At one level, this problem will take a long time to be sorted, depending ultimately upon definition of the field itself (and very possibly the field's fragmentation to achieve this!)
In the meantime, the empirical approach like you suggest, inclusion of a 'list' from a respectible source, is probably the best we can hope for.
Maybe you'd also like a 'prescribed list' too!
Andrew.
PS This problem is not of course unique to Conductive Education!
A
I would surely like a 'prescribed list' as well!!!
First, I have to apologise, and learn to type!
I should have written at the end of my reply to Rony: 'Maybe you'd like a PROSCRIBED list too' (not a PRESCIBED one, like I actually wrote!)
A prescribed list, a 'recommended reading list', helps crystalyse what knowledge is 'in' for a particular group and, by default, what is 'out', and that helps define the group.
A proscribed list rams this message home by making explicit what the group considers to be wrong, even harmful ideas.
Were I personally compiling a prescribed list for people who want to know about what is CE, then I would not be including anything that mentioned the so-called 'principles of Conductive Education'. Indeed I would proscribe such material.
My own prescribed list for people who want to understand the historical basis for some of CE's problems today would certainly include such materials.
Others might have different views, and wish to produce their own prescribed reading, and name their own proscribed books. Grounds there for conflict.
CE has not been good with conflict-resolution over the years, many people preferring a big-tent approach, or 'fudge' if you prefer it.
Maybe the time is now upon us when there is nothing to lose by making distinctions between those who believe this and those who believe that. Without much tradition or mechnanism for resolving conflicts, though, the likely outcome will be explicit fragmentation of the already highly disparate conductive movement.
Perhaps this will be no bad thing.
Andrew.
These comments made me think about what I would recommend if anyone asked me what they should read.
My answer would first of all depend on who I am recommending a book to.
Perhaps this indicates that several lists are needed. List with the do's and lists with the the don'ts for different readers.
The only book I would ever recommend to a first-time parent is Dina, a mother practises Conductive Education, by K&A Ákos.
I have found that another good read for new parents has been my collection of old "Conductor" magazines. Perhaps there is a project there for you Gill!
I would recommend Conductive Education, a system for overcoming motor disorders by P.J.Cottam and A.Sutton to anyone who wishes to read more widely. I would however make sure they knew it is out of date and that hopefully a new revised edition will be written soon.
Dr Hári's little book on Conductive Pedagogy, editted by Gill Maguire and Andrew Sutton would be on my list for anyone who wanted a bit more insight into the field of conductive pedagogy and upbringing.
There is also the big blue Conductive Pedagogy by Hári and Ákos
This is the book we older conductors, Magyar and English, refer to as the "big Petö-book". Most of it incomprehensible especially to us as students.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone to read. Although there are some quite good snippets in there if you know where to find them.
I have no idea what I would recommend to anyone in German except of course Dina, until the "overview of Conductive Education and the CE field" is published next summer and is quickly translated!
Andrew
You wrote "I would not be including anything that mentioned the so-called 'principles of Conductive Education'. Indeed I would proscribe such material"
Please explain
Sousie, you wrote "My answer would first of all depend on who I am recommending a book to.
Perhaps this indicates that several lists are needed. List with the do's and lists with the the don'ts for different readers.
That is a good point, please specify
...and yes, I want a 'prescribed' as well as 'proscribed' lists:
For parents, for qualified conductors, for conductive education students, and for other professionals
Then 2009-10 looks like being a jolly year!
All these comments have given me food for thought and I hope to respond shortly. In the meantime I have posted a new blog as a first response.
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