Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Where's the pudding?

I'm pushing 50, so let me add whatever curmudgeonliness I have to Andrew's remarks on yet another "study" that fails to glorify conductive education.



So many ask, "Where's the proof?" I say first, how about some pudding! Where's the pudding? Can we start there? If a verifiable "study" was required to do anything worthwhile, sliced bread would have never been invented. It's truly sad that they don't erect statues to critics, because all that pigeon poop would then trickle down the shoulders of the deserving.

We all know cerebral palsy is for life; yet we're still ignorant and stupid and pie-eyed and Pollyanna enough to still do something about it, oops, I mean, conductive education. When folks are convinced that they want something, they want it.

Who these study-writing clowns really are are just simply the other clowns who look at folks like me and ask, "Who is that clown?" I must ask, "Why do you ask?" And further, "Who cares?" And also,"What is to be done with all those holiday leftovers anyway?"

You know who amazes me in her utter ignorance about conductive education? The conductor! That's who! She's the most lost of them all when it comes to CE; and that's what makes her the BEST. She's a student first and always. She leads by example. Without her curiosity and dogged seeking for the next idea, the next moment, the next Aha or Eureka or Whatever; then she'd be just like all the bored and boring and disinterested professionals who profess to profligate progress on my poor palsied progeny. Holy smokes! What did the school system ever do for him? As my Grandpa used to say, "Zero with the rim knocked off." That's what.

Give me a curious conductor any day before a conference crammed with the collectively comatose charisma of "the team." I'll take a conductor anyday. I love those idiots. And Lord, make me a bigger fool than all of them.

5 comments:

Andrew Sutton said...

Not yet 50? A mere boy!

A curmudgeon? Your best years are yet to come!

Here's to years more of your kicking against the pricks, with ever greater vigour...

I love your alliterative 'five Cs': a conference crammed with the collectively comatose charisma of "the team"'.

What, job protection' aside (the days of job-creation are gone now, probably for good), argues against you one-C alternative: a conductor?

By the way, have you seen Norman Perrins respose to the same posting?

http://www.conductive-world.info/2011/07/just-another-brick-in-wall.html

No need to take comparative analysis of common understandings too far but... two long-experienced fathers who have acted.

Andrew

Andrew.

Anonymous said...

What I wouldn't give to be pushing 50!

Just been talking with a journalist from a national paper. Unlike my rather irritable responses to Andrew's posting, I do my best to be helpful. But should I really have to explain to a professional education journalist that in the UK the mainstream is staffed by teachers who have no specialist initial training to teach children with cerebral palsy, who therefore begin their working lives in classrooms with no understanding of specific pedagogies or curricula or cerebral palsy? And having explained this and tried to answer the inevitable question "what is conductive education" .... find that 30 minutes have gone by and there is no time left to talk about what matters?

I really enjoy the way you write: makes for a good read and sometimes a chuckle. As ever, good fortune to you and the new school.

Conductive World said...

sessesuaI would like to add a jot to expand what Norman says.
In the UK teachers do not just begin their teaching careers in a statae of pedagogi bliss, thay have little/no chooice to continue this wat, and trhis does not of course applt solely to teaching pupils with motor disorders.

Would that this were all! All human beings learn from their experience, whatever those experiences might be. What ideologies are practising teachers socialised into at their workplace? What is their experience of their pedagogically neglected disabled pupils, and how do they make sense of this?

Andrew.

Conductive World said...

Whoops typos etc... I hope that this version is better!

I would like to add a jot to expand what Norman says.

In the UK teachers do not just begin their teaching careers in a state of pedagogic innocence, thay have little/no choice but to continue this way, and trhis does not of course apply solely to teaching pupils with motor disorders.

Would that this were all! All human beings learn from their experience, whatever those experiences might be. What ideologies are practising teachers socialised into at their workplace? What is their experience of their pedagogically neglected disabled pupils, and how do they make sense of this?

I suspect that, soaked in the negative notion of 'special needs', many will learn that their pupils can't, and will therefore will not be able to. So, absolved of responsibility, they might sensibly conclude that there is little that they, their school or society should aspire and work towards.

I suppose that this goes for 'professional educational journalists' too.

Andrew.

James Forliti - Blue's Dad. said...

"I suspect that, soaked in the negative notion of 'special needs', many will learn that their pupils can't, and will therefore will not be able to. So, absolved of responsibility, they might sensibly conclude that there is little that they, their school or society should aspire and work towards." You have summed it up exactly as I have experienced it Andrew. Just last month, I was in my son's new high school for a visit to prepare for the Fall. As usual, (for years now) I put the question to them AGAIN as to why they insist on using a lift and diapers when my son CAN and NEEDS TO use his legs in that tiny little walk to the toilet from his wheelchair. One of the professionals there actually rolled her eyes and said, "OH James, you're up on your soapbox again." They simply refuse to look at it, and now here's a quote from the "special education manual" in B.C. regarding establishing Individual Education Plans: "Documentation to support the claim for Level 1, 2 and 3
students must include:
• Evidence that a parent has been offered the opportunity to consult on the IEP."

I wait twice yearly for my 'opportunity to consult' and go away three steps closer to heart disease.