"Education has an emancipatory, liberating, value .... [it].... allows individuals to become authors of their own life story."
I was re-reading Andrew Sutton's blog posting "What use is physical therapy?" and the exchange that followed with Rony Schenker by way of Comments. I had downloaded and read Diane Demiano's paper to which Andrew and Rony refer. Now these are two very clever people, much cleverer than I, so I hesitate even to think of introducing a contrary thought.
I hope I summarise their discussion correctly as, borrowing Rony's phrase 'reinterpreting conductive education'. She writes, "Re-interpreting CE into a more measurable construct? I believe that in the current era where EBP rules, we should obey, by finding the way to measure our achievements." (It took me longer than a moment to realise 'EBP' is 'evidence-based practice').
Firstly, I am very much in favour of finding divers ways of measuring and evidencing the achievements of conductive education. Secondly, I would 're-interpret CE' by underlining education (and upbringing) and so open up a chasm between physical therapy and conductive education. And that means I must ask and answer a fundamental question, one precisely parallel to that asked by Diane Demiano: What use is Education? [In a hundred or so words in a blog posting, too. Give me a break, as they used to say.]
Then I remembered something I'd read recently that excited me, that seemed to capture not only what Education was about but, for me, what Conductive Education was about. [Conductive education] .... "allows individuals to become authors of their own life story."
And how, then, do I measure and evidence the value of an individual's life story?
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"What is Education for?" Speech to the Royal Society of Arts, 30 June 2009 by .... (You must take a look for yourself.)
