Yesterday news of Júlia Dévai's
hundredth birthday appeared on Andrew Sutton's blog at
Who is Júlia Dévai, you may ask.
Well, she played a major role in the development of András
Pető's Conductive Education from 1947-1952 and worked with him in
his Institute.
In recent years she has spoken and written about
this period in her life and I first came across her when a paper that had been read
at a conference in Israel, was donated to the National Library of
Conductive Education in the late 1990s. When Andrew and I were
preparing our recent publication András Pető, I contacted
her to ask permission to include her paper in the book. She
responded by offering to re-write it, including more detail, and that
is what we published. In 2012 the Hungarian- language version of
this was also published in a book, edited by her daughter, Sophia
Kalman.
Investigating further I realised she
had produced other reminiscences too of the early days of conductive pedagogy, so here is a list of them
all to celebrate her 100th birthday:
Devai, J. (1997) The first years with
András Pető ; the birth of Conductive Education.
Unpublished paper read at Conductive
Education conference, Tsad Kadima, Jerusalem, October 1997.
Dèvai, J. (1999) The first years with
András Pető: the birth of Conductive Education. In Forrai, J., ed., Memoirs of the beginnings
of conductive pedagogy and András Pető. Budapest and Birmingham:
Új Aranyhíd and Foundation for Conductive Education, pp.
151-156.
Dèvai, J. (2005) Emlékeim. In
Balogh, M. (ed.) Hári Mária (1923-2001).
Budapest: Pető Institute,
pp.46-52.
Dévai, J. (2007) My memories. In
Balogh, M. ed., Hári Mária and her Conductive Education.
Budapest: Pető Institute, pp.
46-53. [English translation of Emlékim]
Dèvai, J. (2012) Personal memories
from the days of the beginning of Conductive Education. In
Maguire, G. and Sutton, A.
ed., András Pető. Birmingham: Conductive Education Press,
pp.45-70.
Dèvai, J. (2012) Egyszer volt, s ma is
van: a sokarcú Pető – a konduktív nevelés kezdetei. In Kálman,
Z., ed., Negyedszázad a kommunikáció bűvöletében. Budapest:
Bliss Alapitvány, pp.73-101.
