Dore pulls plug (2) or Dore has his plug pulled
Most people who maintain blogs, I suppose, do so in the hope that our postings might spark the odd thought in the occasional reader or, better yet, tempt the reader to leave a comment.
In a welcome comment added to my posting Dore pulls the plug, (May 29th) Brainduck gently but firmly chides me on my admittedly rather loose use of the phrase 'dancing on Dore's grave' and corrects (as Brainduck sees it, to be more strictly accurate, my statement, borrowed from The Times report, that Wynford Dore had 'pulled the plug' on his various international centres, whereas, says Brainduck, Dore was forced to, having been trading (allegedly) insolvently in Australia.
Brainduck may very well be right. I simply do not know. I have not investigated the legal and financial circumstances. My chief interest in the story was to do with Dore's financial model - a business financed apparently by fees charged to individuals plus income from another source, in this case from Dore himself, in the expectation of government funding at some future date. We in the "Third Sector" or the 'non-profit' world, do not spend over much time discussing the 'financial model' by which we run our 'worthy causes'. Perhaps we should? Perhaps there are lessons for us, as we strive for a sustainable future ourselves, in the collapse of Wynford Dore's venture? The financial model of most conductive education resources that I know of derives income, like the Dore Centres, through a mix of fees-and-other-income - 'other' in our case usually being from grants or fundraising. Is this a viable and sustainable model? What options are there? That was what I was wanting to pause and consider, avoiding joining those who, in some of the comments I read, seemed to rejoice in the closure - brought about solely by financial reasons, as Brainduck says - of the Dore Centres and in the closing off of access to a treatment that many parents believed to be beneficial to the children.
Brainduck makes another important point, quite separate from questions about sustainability and the financial model, and, moreover, one with which I wholly agree. "Evidenced-based treatments matter, because people deserve what works and can be shown to work." Brainduck also writes: "I believe everyone should have access to the best possible evidence-based treatment" and "I believe in informed consent" - statements with which it is hard to disagree. (My interest is, of course, in education rather than "treatment")
Where I do hesitate to share Brainduck's certainty is Brainduck's apparent belief that Wynford Dore is to be held responsible for the lack of evidence: "There are no excuses for not doing the research, or (as Dore did) doing it so badly that it tells you nothing about a treatment." (Immediately, I must say that I simply do not know that Wynford Dore deliberately produced and promulgated fraudulent research - for that is what Brainduck is effectively saying. I cannot comment on the specifics. I do know that there is an awful lot of poor - or 'crap' to use Brainduck's choice of adjective - research. One notable example familiar in the world of conductive education was the so-called "Birmingham Report" (Bairstow et al 1993) that did so much damage to conductive education, the effect of which still reverberates around the internet today.)
Why though do I hesitate? Here are some 'headline' thoughts, that I would want to consider carefully, regarding 'evidence' and who is responsible for it.
1. One major scientific process (and I am lay person so the learned ones amongst you must excuse the terminology) is to proceed from theoretical insights via research to evidential proof. In other words, do what you think right and hope the science catches up, to put it crudely.
2. "Lack of evidence" is only that. It is not proof. The collapse for financial reasons of the Dore Centres, the lack of proper research, if such it was, does not prove that there was not a benefit; it does not prove that the treatment did not work. It is only that there was a lack of evidence.
3. Almost everything that we do in education is based on the flimsiest of scientifically-based educational research. Education is 'pre-scientific', more Art than Science. By that, I mean that little in education has predictive force. ("Evidence in Education: Linking Research and Policy" OECD 2007). Some, no doubt, would say it should stay that way.
4. Finally, speaking personally, as a parent who saw in conductive education not just a theoretical breakthrough in understanding but a practical, lived and learned transformation in my own (then, young) daughter and others' children, and on that basis sought with others to introduce conductive education into my home city of Sheffield, by setting up actual services, I would be delighted to see proper research undertaken but Paces does not have the resources ourselves to invest in research. I would be delighted if the Government nationally or locally, that has no more evidential proof that what happens in mainstream and special schools for children with motor disorders actually works than we have at Paces, would be willing to undertake with Paces a major research programme - or if not with us, with the National Institute for Conductive Education. And that, for me, is the nub of where I suspect I cannot follow Brainduck: without the evidence, Brainduck, not unreasonably, would deny Government money to the Dore Centres and probably to Paces, as we too cannot yet "prove" that conductive education works. Without Government funding for research, there can be no evidence: without research Brainduck would have the Government withhold funding. That is a paradox to which I do not have an easy answer. However, I do not regard as satisfactory continuing to muddle on as we have been in the state education of children with motor disorders (no proper initial training for teachers and other practitioners; no theoretical - never mind evidential - understanding of pedagogy or learning or why the curriculum is as it is: in other words no-one having any wholly satisfactory reason why they are doing what they do daily in the classroom) based only on custom-and-practice and the wisdom of experience.
At this point, I would - with a huge smile - urge Brainduck to join with me in demanding the Government refuse to fund all educational practices in state schools for children with special needs that are not fully evidenced by research.
[Endnote: to be clear, nothing I have written here is intended to endorse or refute the efficacy of the Dore programme nor to pass comment on the performance of any company responsible for promoting or delivering the programme.]
