New books to come from Conductive Education Press

I can hardly believe that it is nearly a year ago that the book András Pető was published and, after a brief respite to re-charge our batteries, we have been planning and preparing titles for 2013.

The first, due out very soon, is a quotationary titled:

CEP Quotationary of András Pető  and his Conductive Education.

Birmingham: Conductive Education Press. ISBN 978-0-9569948-5-1

This contains over 300 quotations by 40 people, (including András Pető) from 15 different sources. You can imagine that it has taken quite a while to assemble these quotations, arrange, and reference them. Soon you will be able to see them for yourselves and learn more about this complex man and the origins of conductive pedagogy.

The second, is a collection of blog postings by Ralph Strzałkowski:

Strzałkowski, R. (2013) Never never quit; my Conductive Education. Pieces of mind, memories and opinions from the desk of Ralph Strzałkowski Esq, Lawyer on Wheels.

Birmingham: Conductive Education Press. ISBN  978-0-9569948-6-8

Ralph's own recent announcement of this on his blog can be found at:

http://blog.lawyeronwheels.org/2013/08/the-title.html

Ralph attended the Pető Institute as a young boy and reports, reflects and examines his experiences there, what Conductive Education has done for him and how it continues to influence his life. This is possibly the first such personal account of a child's experiences of Conductive Education, certainly in English.

A third new title is in the pipeline, and will be out round Christmas or the New Year.

More information will be posted soon.

Watch this space.

 

Conductive Education - getting it right?

Today a posting on Facebook by Andrew Sutton refers to a discussion thread about Conductive Education that has been written by mums of disabled children. Their knowledge of Conductive Education is patchy to say the least, with some of their comments based on hearsay rather than experience. Definitely inaccurate too, as 'pain' and 'therapy' are frequently referred to.

http://community.babycentre.co​.uk/post/a11845555/conductive_​education


I would like to hope that they come in contact with the mother whose latest blog posting gives a more accurate picture of Conductive Education and a clear description of it.

http://riddingfamily.blogspot.com/2011/07/conduction-education.html

This Canadian mum speaks for a lot of mothers I am sure, and I hope others will publicise their own experiences of just how good Conductive Education can be for a cerebral palsied child.

Poetry and Motion

Yesterday I heard that Andrew Motion, the current poet laureate in the UK, will come to the end of his term at the end of the week. Wikipedia describes such a post in the following way:

A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events. The plural form is poets laureate.In United Kingdom the term has for centuries been the title of the official poet of the monarch, since the time of Charles II. Poets laureate are appointed by many countries. In Britain there is also a Children's laureate and in the United States there is a Student Poet Laureate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poet_Laureate

This lead me to thinking about poetry and Conductive Education, and a poem I had read written by a mother whose child had benefited greatly from Conductive Education. A search on the internet for this brought up not only that, but an amazing number of references to Conductive Education and poetry. Here I will mention just the two.

REAW, an American parent has written An Ode to Conductive Education, and this is the first verse:

How have you changed me...let me count the ways.
Are you kidding? I can’t count that high yet, nor is there enough praise…
That could even begin to accurately describe,
How I found Conductive Education…and then “came ALIVE.”
A center opened near me, making history in my state,
It changed my life, my world, my fate.

Further verses can be found on her blog, A life changing experience, at http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/reaswaiss/archive/2008/05/02/a-heart-felt-poem-about-a-life-changing-experience.aspx

The second poem was written by an adult who had received Conductive Education at the ING Centre in Australia, and wrote the verses about his experiences in the Parkinson's group run there. Here is a brief extract:.

As our horizons now enlarge
Of our illness we’re in charge
So to this method we’re inducted
As we are so well conducted
And further points we hope to earn
As throughout our lives we learn.

The complete poem by Don Wilcox, was published in the ING Centre for Conductive Education Newsletter, volume 5, no.1, May 2004, and can be found at http://www.tscnsw.org.au/services/conded/info/newsletter/2004/may.pdf

Yesterday Andrew Motion described his experiences over the past ten years, and emphasised what a good opportunity it had been to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry. Neither of these people could be a poet laureate, but their poems certainly help to explain, appreciate and acknowledge the benefits of Conductive Education and hopefully raise awareness levels through desciption of their own experiences.