Led Teaching or the Pető Method

'Entwined spirals' by Susie Mallett, Cambridge, April 2012

 Awakenings

I woke up a little recently, having gained some extra energy, so I have cared a little more for my blog. Not only have I posted something, I also took a look at the sitemeter.

I do not often look at the sitemeter to discover the location of my visitors.What interests me more are the 'referrals'. I like to ask myself – ‘Where in the internet do the visitors come from, or what motivated them to Google and land on my site?’

Sometimes the referrals come from Google Images. Pictures of oak trees, snow and city landscapes seem to be most popular.

Sometimes they are from the Conductive Post (see the foot of my right-hand column for link), or from other people’s blogs or Facebook pages that have a link to –

 www.susie-mallett.org

What I find most interesting is when the visitors comes from another 'Blogspot', one that I have not seen before.

This happened a while ago with ‘deans' stroke musings’ at – 

 http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/  

I have mentioned ‘deans' stroke musings’ before on my Conductor blog.  It is a site that I now read regularly because it really is a mine of very interesting and often useful information. I  haave recently noticed on sitemeter that I now get regular visitors from that URL to my own blog too.   

This morning, when I decided that it was time to take more interest in my poor old blog, I discovered another new 'Blogspot' on the referrals list –

http://maszunia.blogspot.de/

I went straight over there to investigate, expecting to discover someone else searching for clothes that conductors (the musical kind) wear! 

What I discovered was a new blog. A new blogger with an interest in conductive upbringing who has just discovered my blog.

This new blog is written by a Mum with two children, the youngest of whom has cerebral palsy. She writes about her family; a family that is just beginning their journey and their search, building up that team of people around them who can help them all.

The family live in Poland and as Polish is not a language that I am at all acquainted with I have used Google Translate to read the blog postings.

The most recent posting on the blog is called –‘Pető’. 

Naturally this was also the first posting that I put into the translating machine. I was rewarded with a very well written description of the family’s pre-diagnosis, knowing-but-not-knowing life, the post-diagnosis, knowing-and-searching-for-a-way-ahead life, and the beginnings of a new, hopeful, finding-a-conductive-upbringing life.

Led teaching 

That is what the translating machine thinks Conductive Education is – 'Led Teaching', and the machine is probably right!

I find the Polish term ‘Led Teaching’ preferable to the German  konduktive Förderung. In Germany many people prefer to call it the Pető Method as the Mum writing this blog mentions here – 

Istnieje sposób rehabilitacji dzieci z mpd, który obejmuje wszystkie sfery rozwoju dziecka, nie tylko ruchową. To Kierowane Nauczanie (Conductive Education), metoda, stworzona w połowie XX wieku, w Budapeszcie, przez Andrása Petö (dlatego bywa nazywana metodą Petö). Jest popularna w USA i Wielkiej Brytanii, w Polsce istnieje zaledwie kilka ośrodków, oferujących zajęcia prowadzone wg. tego systemu. Od ponad dwóch tygodni, Maszunia uczęszcza do jednego z tych ośrodków. Ale o tym co tam robi i jak sobie radzi, będzie w następnym poście. Gdyby, do tego czasu, ktoś chciał się więcej dowiedzieć o samej metodzie, polecam stronę Instytutu w Budapeszcie: www.peto.hu

Google translation –

‘There is a way of rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy, which covers all areas of child development, not just physical. That is Led Teaching (Conductive Education), a method developed in the mid-twentieth century, in Budapest, by András Peto (hence sometimes called the Peto method). It is popular in the U.S. and the UK, in Poland there are only a few centers that offer classes conducted by this system. For more than two weeks, Maszunia attend one of these centers. But what they are doing and how the Council (outcomes), will be in the next post. If, by this time, someone wanted to know more about the method, I recommend the website of the Institute in Budapest: www.peto.hu’

I am looking forward to reading soon about the outcome of Maszuna’s, and her family’s, first conductive experience.

Notes

Dean’s stroke musings –

http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/

Maszunia – 

http://maszunia.blogspot.de/

Upbringing in the slow lane or in the fast lane?

  "Foraging for food" 1981

Wherever the upbringing takes place it still needs time!

Another posting “From the desk of R. Strzalkowski, Esq.” that is a good read for anyone embarking on a conductive lifestyle:

http://blog.jordanklausner.org/2012/03/parenthood.html

While you are there spend some time to read a few more postings because R. Strzalkowski, Esq. has a lot to tell us and we can all learn a lot from him.

"Autumn poppies" by Susie Mallett, 2008

As I mentioned this morning on Conductor Anne Wittig, over the Atlantic in British Columbia, and I have been communicating in the form of comments on this site. I have decided not to leave this communication buried but to publish it here Perhaps it may encourage others to start communicating with us on this or another theme.

It may even encourage someone out there to send me something of their own to post on this site. I am still enthusiastically waiting for a response!

Anne Wittig said on 16 October 2010:

Susie,

I agree with you when you say: "I believe that the term conductive upbringing as Mária Hári described it and used it, has still not been fully understood everywhere where “conductive education” is being practised ". In fact I just had conversation with my conductor friend in Winnipeg about it.

I might be a bit controversial with saying this but I think its because the understanding of conductive education is not consistent within the conductive professional. One of our lectures at University said that her understanding of conductive education changed with time. It was different from when she started studying it, evolved when she finished her degree, changed again when she had 5 years and at 10 years experience, etc..

I am in total agreement with this. My understanding of it changes a lot and it really is as if it develops the more experience I gain. Lately, I have been more aware of the importance about increasing motivation, creating activity and allow spontaneity to happen.

It's not that I never heard about those things before, they are a huge part in the training to become a conductor, but relevance and interrelationship between each thing we do becomes more apparent with time. It actually starts to have a meaning to me that I'm more able to verbalize which I know couldn't before. I think in the beginning you work a lot on developing your teaching skills and when you become more confident with them you are able to really explore each aspect of CE with fresh eyes and learn. I do have a question: what do you mean by" it depends on ... to develop a system? I feel I might not fully understand it.

Susie Mallett replied:

Anne, yes I think you are right some conductors do feel that they need to develop their teaching skills when they first begin working as conductors. Others have a need to develop different skills. I think this is very much dependent on where they work and what experience they already have.

I had been a teacher and an art therapist for several years before trained as a conductor.

When I began to work as a conductor I began immediately to work as a pedagogic up-bringer and I developed these skills. These were the skills that I wished to acquire and the reason for my studying at the Petö Institute.

Conductive work takes place all over the world in a way that suits the country, the users and/or the providers. In the case of self-employed conductors, to suit conductors too.

It is the pedagogy that directs how we work, the type of practice takes its shape from the situation that we find ourselves in.

Yes, I think too that the understanding that we have of conductive pedagogy develops with time.

I have never worked in a country where the work is known as conductive education so my understanding of the work of a conductor has always been that it is nevelés, Erziehung or Förderung, upbringing or development. I think that this has had a huge influence on how I understand it.

Our aim as conductors is to guide our clients, children or adults, so that their lives becomes conductive. The conductor is present in the clients' life as much or as little as is necessary or that the situation allows.

The conductor also educates the other up-bringers and carers of the clients so that the whole life transforms into a conductive upbringing.

This will result in the client using their full potential in all situations with the assistance required given at the right moment, but not necessarily by a conductor.

For me conduction never meant working for an isolated three hours with my client, it always meant reaching further a field, visiting and working together with as many of the people as possible who are involved in the twenty-four-hour day of the client.

If I had written this posting today I am sure that I would have worded the sentence you ask about differently. I would almost certainly have used the words conductive lifestyle instead of system. That is:

“...it depends on the willingness to transform, to bring about changes and to develop a conductive lifestyle”.

For a conductive upbringing to be successful we need cooperation between lots of people, with transformations continuously taking place as conductive living seeps into every aspect of a client's life.

Anne Wittig’s response to this:

Hi Susie...

Thanks for your long response.

I really like the phrase "it depends on the willingness to transform, to bring about changes and to develop a conductive lifestyle".

I also agree that conductive upbringing should reach in all aspects of the person's life. I feel that the way I work now (independently) I have a better opportunity to do so than I had before working in a center. At the center working with all aspects of the clients life was encouraged and we tried as good as we could. Different circumstances meant that some clients CE upbringing stayed at the center.

I think you made a good point with this sentence: "I have never worked in a country where the work is known as conductive education so my understanding of the work of a conductor has always been that it is nevelés, Erziehung or Förderung, Upbringing or development. I think that this has had a huge influence on how I understand it" .

I think that sometimes peoples understand education as something that happens in an educational setting Kindergarten, school, university etc., so somewhere else. Not necessary, as something that happens at home.

And you are right, its our job to change this.

Learning how to sprial upwards and outwards!

Conductive upbringing is not something that you go somewhere to have done to you. It is something that you learn to use as your way of life. You may do this learning through your parents, or through a carer, with the guidance of a condcutor. Learning about a conductive upbringing or lifestyle can be done in a group or in individual sessions. At home, at school or in a specialist centre.

Conductive upbringing

By Susie Mallett, 2010

I have decided to make things a bit easier for people who come to my blog, by creating this second site. My initial plan is that it will be entirely about conductive upbringing, but we shall see how it develops.

My wish is to publish articles by different people, by anyone who has a story to tell, questions to ask or information to share.

Of course I shall publish my own writings on conductive upbringing but essentially this space will be for anyone who wishes to send me something to publish.

This can, for example, be something already published, either on another blog or as a paper. It can be a summary of something that has been discussed at a conference or between a group of colleagues, friends or parents. It can be something written especially for the blog about personal experiences,. It can be something that has been discovered somewhere on the internet that can be discussed here on the blog, or it can be a posting full of questions for readers to attempt to answer.

It can be anything that, you the readers, wish it to be.

I also wish to use this site to link to anything that I or readers discover anywhere, online or on paper, about conductive upbringing.

I sowed the first seeds for this blog over a year ago now, then I began planning it online in the spring. Although the layout is not finished and I am having a lot of difficulties getting the gadgets to work, I think it is time to press the button to get it going, and let the rest sort itself out along the way.

If anyone wishes to publish something here all that is needed is to send it to me in an email. There is also opportunity to publish comments that can be moved into the main body of the block when necessary