Paces

Xavier Response

On 24th June, I posted ("Xavier Support") a copy of a letter which I sent to Jenny Haddrell, Assistant Director-General, Education Queensland, about the future of the Xavier Special Education Unit.

I have received the following response. (Is there someone who might update the Xavier weblog with the latest news?).

Dear Mr Perrin

Thank you for your letter dated 23 June 2008 regarding recent OECD research, conductive education and the work of Queensland's Xavier Special Education Program.

I am pleased that the worthwhile work of the teachers and specialist staff at Xavier Special Education Program is internationally recognised. I have forwarded your letter to my colleagues Mr lan Hawke, Assistant Director-General, Strategic Policy and Performance and Mrs Clare Gardiner-Barnes, Acting Assistant Director-General, Student Services for their consideration. The Strategic Policy and Performance Division oversee the department's research program while the Student Services Division oversee funding and support strategies for students with disabilities.

The Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts has an active program of research which informs evidence-based decision making in policy and program development. I would encourage you to examine the department's research website as it provides information on the department's research and development priorities, research application process and summaries of recent educational related research.

If you have some preliminary ideas or a more developed research proposal I would encourage you to contact one of the above officers. In the first instance, I believe that Mrs Gardiner-Barnes may be the most appropriate contact. She can be contacted on telephone (617) 3235 4172 or by email clare.qardinerbarnesädeta.gld.gov.au

Once again thank you for your interest in Queensland education and the Xavier Special Education Program.

Jenny Haddrell
Assistant Director-General

Xavier support

I have this week sent the following letter to Ms J Haddrell, Assistant Director General, Department of Education, Training & The Arts, Queensland, Australia.

Whilst fully respecting the importance of the issues Andrew rightly raises and the contributions to the short but important debate that followed, I decided that some sort of action was required.  I had an acknowledgement from the Northern Ireland Assembly re Buddy Bear,  but haven't heard further news as to whether they won the financial backing needed.  I shall be interested to follow the Xavier story further.

Most of all, I would like to contribute to a growing sense of confidence in the international conductive education community that, no matter what our internal and professional debates within conductive education, we can collaborate across the world through the internet in ways that we can barely begin to imagine.

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23 June 2008

Ms J Haddrell
Assistant Director General
Department of Education, Training & The Arts
Level 22, Education House
30 Mary Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
Australia

Dear Ms Haddrell

Re: Xavier Special Education Unit

You may be surprised to receive a letter from England in the matter of the future of Xavier Special Education Unit. However, I trust you will not find the communication unwelcome.

My simple purpose is to draw to your attention two very recent scholarly publications from the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, of which Australia is a member nation.

The first, Evidence in Education: Linking Research and Policy (OECD 2007), based in studies initiated by a 1995 CERI report and centering on a series of international workshops held between April 2004 and July 2006, addresses the increasing pressure felt by all within the education community for greater accountability and effectiveness and also the increasing prominence given by governments to evidence-based research in setting education policy and in allocating public resources.

The second, Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science (OECD 2007), the outcome of an international CERI project launched in 1999, aims at encouraging collaboration between policy makers, researchers and the education community “to open new pathways to improve educational research, policies and practices”:

We are all familiar with the importance of peer-reviewed, evidence-based practice in medicine, and the thoroughness with which theoretical and scientific knowledge are fused with professional experience. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of modern medical practice without its emphatic foundation in scientific research across a range of disciplines.

Like medicine, education relies for its theoretical foundation (the understanding of learning and the practice of teaching) on other disciplines, such psychology, philosophy and sociology.

Unlike medicine, however, the theoretical foundation of education is “pre-scientific” – which is to say it lacks as yet either predictive or explanatory power. How children learn is not sufficiently understood to offer a guarantee of educational outcomes. The practice of education is still an art, not a science. The understanding of learning and practice of teaching are not as yet underpinned by a secure base of scientific and theoretical knowledge. This applies as much to the learning and teaching of children in mainstream schools as in special education.

Clearly, one conclusion might be that “more research is necessary”. In the interim, another conclusion might be that for as long as we must depend upon the judgments of professionals and parents as to what works and what does not, we should value, and even celebrate, the schools we have that command the support of these same professionals and parents.

From the late 1940s, a Hungarian physician, Andres Peto, elaborated his theoretical and professional insights into learning and the practice of teaching to create a unified system of education of children with motor disorders now known in the English-speaking world, perhaps losing something in the translation, as Conductive Education. 

The Executive Summary of Understanding the Brain states: “It is possible to take advantage of the brain’s potential for plasticity and to facilitate the learning process. This calls for holistic approaches which recognise the close interdependence of physical and intellectual well-being and the close interplay of the emotional and cognitive” – precisely the position taken by Andras Peto and conductive education.

There is, of course, much more to be said about conductive education as a unified system and, speaking personally, I might well wish to debate theoretical differences with the professionals and parents at Xavier Special Education Unit. Nevertheless, the work at Xavier is internationally known, through conferences, congresses and reports. Their work brings recognition and credit to Queensland and enhances the reputation of Queensland Education.

The OECD, in its reports, confirms both how much in education practice is still to be supported by research evidence and also the challenging but still elusive potential being proposed by neuroscientists.

A bold, innovative and forwarding looking education authority might do a great deal worse that to cherish embryonic education systems and practices which appear to offer ways forward, such as Xavier Special Education Unit; to work in partnership with those committed parents and professionals; and together to seek ways of better integrating the work at Xavier into the mainstream.  Who knows, Queensland Education might consider its most valuable contribution to such a partnership to be funding a post for a full-time conductor and contributing to a research project?

Yours sincerely

Norman Perrin
Chief Executive
Paces Shefield

Conductive Education. The International Community. Xavier

Allow me first to start this way: I emailed Andrew Sutton with the observation that whilst I could imagine (speaking purely theoretically ) a conductive education school or centre, staffed by conductors, that was less than satisfactory, I could not imagine such a school or centre being excellent without any full-time conductors.  My rationale for this opinion, for that is all it is, having no evidence to prove the case either way, is training. When the day comes that I go for my brain surgery, I hope and expect the operation will be carried out by - or at least under the direction of - a brain surgeon. Similarly, I hope all children who can benefit from conductive education, whether in schools or centres, are able to do so in the trained hands of conductors.  Whilst I would not assert that everything that conductors everywhere do is conductive education as, for instance, Dr Hari would have recognised it, I do find it difficult to imagine conductive education without conductors. It's the training. And "die seele'.

Allow me to start again, in a different place.  I do not need to be an airline pilot to understand the physics of flight.  I do not need to be violinist to appreciate the beauty and freshness of the playing of Tasmin Little.  I do not need to be a conductor to understand and appreciate the radical break with the traditional and state-funded education of children with motor disorders such as cerebral palsy that conductive education represents.

From these two brief beginnings, I hope everyone who might be reading this will accept (a) my complete confidence in the trained and practiced skills of conductors and (b) that "conductive education", as a unified system of knowledge, is a system that is accessible to others.

So let me now make a proper start. For conductive education to thrive and flourish, for conductive education to be embedded in the national institutions that deliver public services, for conductive education to be more than a fringe or esoteric practice and make the leap into mainstream of public services, it will depend not on conductors but upon many diverse people who are not conductors, who are not trained in conductive education: on parents, for instance, who will not accept the status quo for their children and form charitable schools and centres; on voluntary trustees and governors who, for whatever reason, give freely of their time and support, often in fundraising or governance matters. More, perhaps, than these, it will depend on those professionals already working in related health and education services - the physios and OTs and teachers and care workers, who, coming into contact with conductive education, see for themselves the benefit and value, without rejecting out of hand what they see. And beyond them, those public service officers who plan strategy, finance programmes and manage delivery. So to the politicians, the local councillors and national members of parliament, who set public policy. And beside them, the academics and researchers, and more yet. All of these people have to be engaged with, conversations kept up and dialogue maintained. It will not alone be sufficient that conductors are excellent conductors; the story has to be told, the message conveyed, the argument made and won. We must assume that all these people can be helped to see the value of conductive education, and that conductive education is not a mystery, not some arcane art, but that it is accessible as a unified system, one that it is possible for non-practitioners to understand.

Recently, James Forliti in Canada asked if there was an international conductive community ("World-wide conductive community?"). Recently, too, Andrew Sutton urged support for Buddy Bear in Northern Ireland and, more recently still, puzzled ("A hard call to make?") whether similar support for the threatened Xavier Special Education Unit at Whites Hill State College in Queensland, Australia posed a problem for conductive education. This prompted a "Strong response on Xavier" from Amanda Elliott (Hello Amanda. How about you or Judit setting up a blog?), of Conductive Education Support Services, by email to Andrew which he posted on his blog. Amanda, a conductor, has been involved with Xavier since 1995.  One paragraph of her response struck me particularly:

I think that it is very easy to judge others work from the outside without knowing the full background of how services operate, the challenges which the management and staff face on a daily basis and the issues surrounding getting Conductive Education accepted and respected as a valuable system for success. (My italics).

Colleagues at Xavier clearly regard themselves as members of the international conductive education community or 'family'.  I'm not sure whether anyone from Xavier made it to the 6th World Congress of CE in Sweden but they contributed a paper, listed in the Abstracts for the Congress. Funny things, families. I've been researching mine for the best part of 30 years - and come across some unusual circumstances. If we are to get "conductive education accepted and respected as a valuable system for success", the case needs to be made and won with those who are not conductors, who need to have conductive education explained to them, who are public officials and others, even with those who intent on shutting CE down.  For the moment Xavier wave the flag for CE in their part of the world; the public officials who approve or disapprove them, who have the power to fund them or close them down, need to be persuaded and won over.

Andrew's postings about Xavier, and Amanda's response, prompted the thoughts in this posting. Though I do so with some reservations (whilst also recognising, as Amanda says, my own lack of specific knowledge 'on the ground' ), I would hope that others in the international conductive education community would stand alongside Xavier in making their case - and their case for conductive education - to the Queensland Education authorities.  Other matters can be sorted out later, if they survive. If they do not, parents following them will find the case for conductive education that much harder to make, all over again, in future.

 

Putting in a word for Buddy Bear and Conductive Education

Yesterday, following the lead taken by Andrew Sutton, I sent the following letter together with the separate  attachment below it, in support of Buddy Bear and Conductive Education in Ireland.

30 April 2008.

The Rt Hon Dr Ian Paisley MP MLA. First Minister.
Mr. Martin McGuinness MP MLA. Deputy First Minister.
Office of the First Minister and Deputy first Minister
Castle Buildings
Stormont
Belfast
BT4 3FW

Dear Dr Paisley and Dear Mr McGuinness

Conductive Education in Northern Ireland

Like Brendan McConville of the Buddy Bear Trust, I too am a parent who has sought to achieve change in the education of children with cerebral palsy having experienced conductive education in the life of my daughter, in my case through founding the registered charity Paces in 1992 and helping open Paces Campus and School in Sheffield, England in 1997.

I am aware that Andrew Sutton has written to you in support of Brendan McConville, of the work at Buddy Bear and of conductive education.  I wish to add my voice to his, and trust that this will be of use to you in your deliberations.

My daughter, a young woman diagnosed shortly after her birth with spastic quadriplegia, now 25 years old, is currently participating in a programme that includes age-appropriate conductive education which will lead her to living independently with two friends in a home of their choice.  Her mother and I attribute her achievement almost entirely to conductive education, of which she has had the benefit since the age of 6 years.

Why conductive education? The reason for me is simple and can be expressed through four straightforward questions that I invite you to ask of yourselves and your colleagues in the Assembly and in the Ministry of Education. Please see the enclosed sheet. My answers apply to England and Wales.

There is much more that I could say about conductive education, about learning and about the education of those with motor disabilities. I would be happy to do so if requested.

Yours sincerely

Norman Perrin
Chief Executive, Paces Sheffield.
Churchill Fellow 2007

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The following was sent as a separate Table, which I do not know how to replicate here. (It looks more impressive as a Table, with the column of "No"s against State Schools and the "Yes's" beside Conductive Education).  The information was as follows.

Title: PERSPECTIVES ON THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN WITH CEREBRAL PALSY AS BETWEEN THE STATE SYSTEM IN ENGLAND AND CONDUCTIVE EDUCATION

Question 1.  Initial Teacher Training
Do trainee teachers who would work with children with disabilities such as cerebral palsy in mainstream English schools undergo specific training in order to qualify as teachers of children with disabilities and specifically cerebral palsy?
State schools: No   
Conductive Education: Yes

Question 2.  Pedagogy
Is there recognition of the need for specific pedagogies for specific needs?
State schools: No   
Conductive Education: Yes

Question 3. Curriculum
Is there recognition of the appropriateness of specific curricula for specific needs?
State schools: No
Conductive Education: Yes

Question 4. Understanding Disability
Are teachers in training or qualified teachers required to have any understanding of the nature of the disability  (such as cerebral palsy) of the pupils they might be teaching?
State schools: No
Conductive Education: Yes

An orthofunctional organisation?

On Saturday, I found myself in much the same situation as Jane, "Student Conductor" blogger at Birmingham, pondering answers to the question "what is conductive education".

I was attending the spring meeting of the East Pennine Association of Churchill Fellows at Leeming, an association of which I am member as a result of being awarded a Travel fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. (You can register now to receive information when the Trust opens for applications for the 2009 travel grants on 2nd June.) 

As it was the first meeting I had attended since completing the Fellowship, people naturally asked about it .... which led inevitably to conductive education and the "What is .... ? question."

Of course, it's a question I have now been asked many times (though I do not have a rehearsed and simple answer).  Earlier on Saturday I had read Jane's blog and added a comment, hopefully encouraging. I pointed her to an article by Dr Hari "Conductive Education. Occasional Papers 2. Orthofunction - A conceptual analysis."

I wrote: "In my own mind, I fall back on my version of something Dr Hari wrote. It's a bit of a polysyllabic mouthful but it keeps my head on the right lines: 'Conductive education is about enhancing the quality of intention to achieve'. You can peel that apart, onion-like, layer upon layer of meaning."

What Dr Hari actually wrote was: " ....conductive education enables individuals to build up a new quality of life and a new quality of intention to achieve higher levels of co-ordination and some increase in coherence and power .... For the everyday course of life this means that the individual is able to establish aims (intentions, to retain them, to monitor progress towards them, to resist failure and to overcome obstacles to their achievement."

Since Saturday, this last bit put me in mind of a thought my colleague, Karen Hague, once asked: was it possible for management to be conductive? I recall we spent some time pondering this. Dr Hari is writing about the individual and orthofunction: "establish aims ....  retain them .... monitor progress .... resist failure .... overcome obstacles .... achievement" - a near perfect description of how to carry out strategic planning for an organisation.  Which suggests that organisations, as well as individuals, can be orthofunctional.  With the flipside that if organisations can be orthofunctional, they can just as well be dysfunctional - all parts pulling in different directions.  I wonder how far Paces is an orthofunctional organisation?