Silence is golden, and duct tape is silver!

I'm so excited about the next step here, a conductor actually MOVING to the Lower Mainland (Vancouver area), that I feel somewhat gagged into silence. Over the years, I've learned there are plenty of people and organizations who like to have conductive education velcroed to their names; but once it becomes clear how much work and love is involved, well, fads fade.

I have also found that cerebral palsy (or insert your favorite motor disorder here!) does not fade. (That's my newfound acceptance and awareness and [big yawn] action!) It's like being tied to a railroad car but given the blessed permission to pull it with your arms and legs instead of just your teeth!

I have also learned that researching, talking, marketting, blogging, blah blah blah about conductive education is anti-climactic at best. The real magic happens in that tiny little world between the konductor, the kid, and the kparent. I get little bits of that magic every day as Blue and I continually discover different ways to achieve the same goals. Explaining it matters only to the esoteric few; which is good in some ways. After all, who wants the pressure of the attention of curious consumers of "news" peering into your fishbowl to see if a fish can really use a bicycle? No thanks!!

So, as the blessed moment draws nearer, our very own conductor coming here to stay and pay taxes with us; I find myself having less and less to say. She's going to build something and like my Dad always said: "You want to help? Get out of the way."

the rut thing to say. . .

Like any dork who thinks he knows his stuff, I have found myself becoming stale. It's gotten so repetitive with my boy, that I have little motivation to try new things. I am forgetting to speak more to him; to ask him to vocalize. I notice when we're 'struggling' to make a transfer in or out of the van that I am doing too much work again, and he's relying on me to do it. Usually all it takes is one-deep breath and a moment's concentration to see what it is I must say to him. Like "put your foot down", "stand up", or "just relax". A touch, a word, a smile; very little does the trick, but I've become so entrenched in the repetitions, the maintenance, that it begins to look like a life's unchanging routine. This is not good.
Hence, with a little input, and I do mean a little; one can 'freshen' up a great many tasks. (So here we go . .) If one had access to a conductor on a more regular, and less intense, basis than say, a summer 'camp;' well, there'd be a lot more humanity to it I say. Participating in a summer session of six to eight weeks was really great the first and second times; but holy smokes, can I be honest?! Who in the world is happy to give up their summer ( a precious and wonderful time in B.C.) for a 5-hour learning workshop, Monday to Friday? Parents, of course, and let me add, dissatisfied parents; hopeless parents; desperate parents. Well, now that a bevy of us curious folks have had the curiousity somewhat attended to, it's time to stop acting like novices entering some weird monastery; hiding our secret methods from a misunderstanding public. Bollocks. (Of course, bollocks is hardly a Canadian term; but it sounds so much less offensive than well, you know.)
Therefore, I think, organizations that focus on starting a somewhat exclusive program, apart from already established institutions are not necessarily serving the families who need conductive education. For a time, for a cost, and in a proprietary way, they are definitely serving them; but my list of non-returning families is a lot longer than my list of steady clients. Why? Cost, of course, and this "magical-mystery" garbage that often makes practitioners of CE act like 'nobody wuvs me.' I cry, alas. Give me a break.
If it's going to work, it has to not only work; it has to FIT. It should start in the home, then seep into the normal, everyday school life. Working from the inside; where it's already a given that we're all here for the kids, and oh guess what? The kids are here too. Hmm, I rather like that.

Out of the goldfish bowl indeed. . .

Mr. Sutton is right. Talking of CE outside of CE circles is rather important. I used to blather about it like a 'natural' when I first became involved with it. Now I don't even mention it until the conversation has moved along to a point where it might seem logical to explain "where I learned this stuff." 'This stuff' is utterly useless to me as a parent if it's not translatable, applicable, USEFUL in the real world. Because the things Blue and I have learned from CE are pragmatic and helpful in our family life, well, because of that I have kept up what I can. I wouldn't be "blogging" about it these ten years later if it hadn't somehow become useful and worthwhile.

Even today Blue and I were at the Sunnyhill Centre for Children in Vancouver. We were there to see Nicole, who for years has been seeing to his wheelchair and such gear; that it fits, works, functions. She casually remarked that I "handle him so well." This really made my day. There was no need to blather on and on about CE; though I did mention that British Columbia's 2nd resident conductor ever is coming at the end of the summer. Nicole smiled and enjoyed this news with me. It was no big deal, and we moved on to other topics; but it showed me that it's not always a battle. People see the sense in something and simple as that, they don't mind its presence.

Conductive education has always had that immediate sort of "curb appeal." Families who are confused, desperate, scared, and weary of hearing bad news are buoyed up by CE; not because it's CE, but because it hits home and matters right away in their every day lives. At least, for a great many it does.

Setting something straight. . .

Andrew's latest blog has me thinking, and Rony's ideas too. In British Columbia, the most beautiful place on Earth, the home of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the great, wet coast, etc. . . . well, there isn't really much conductive education at present. What there is, is a few families. I know them. I won't name names, but what we have is NOTHING AT PRESENT. I am not offering a service from which I make a living. It's not my business; it's my 'hobby.' (I think obsession is more likely the truth.)

For several years, I have had families contacting me to inquire about our CE program. Goodness! There's only a CE program for 3 reasons:
- a few of us choose to kitty up for it,
- a splendid, community-oriented, non-profit society (Purpose, in New Westminster) has supported our efforts,
- we've been able to pay the occasional conductor for short-term contracts.

All this is changing now, because the conductor coming will be living here and building a business. Do you think this is going to be some sort of magical, easy service that will be ready for those with loads of money? I know that people don't have a lot of cash for this. I also know that EDUCATION shouldn't be reserved for those with money. I also know that it's an insult to sell CE to people who want it at high prices, after school and on holidays.

There are a lot of wonderful things happening, but we need to hear from people. I would bet that the Purpose CE program has been the most cost-efficient CE program in the world. Nonetheless, that isn't satisfactory. It needs to be happening through schools too. That will not happen without the voice, the request, and the action of families and individuals looking for that something different.

Speak up.

B.C. conductive education services starting up again soon, check the Purpose website

Since, October 2000, I have been organizing bits and pieces of CE in B.C. through the Purpose Society. Here is the link to our webpage:

http://www.purposesociety.org/conductive/conded.html

If anyone is interested in setting up some CE time, be it privately, in a group, or in one of our longer programs, or in the school, or anywhere or anyone you'd like to meet and work with the conductor; let me know.


I look forward to hearing from folks. Let's build this program!

You're soaking in it.

No, I didn't relieve myself in my Dickies; though I remember it being really nice and warm for the first minute or so. Crassitude aside, I also remember there was a cheesy advertisement (is there any other kind) on the TV years ago for a dish soap: palmolive. One of the traits of the soap they were selling was the notion that it was so wonderful that a manicurist might dare to soak her clients' hands in it before she got down to the dirty work. After suggesting to her thoroughly unsuspecting television hand-soakers that they might do something so preposterous, "Madge" gently shattered their universes with the horrid news that: yes, you're soaking in it! Aha, what to do but accept this daring foray into unorthodoxy?

Well, the other day ago, I had that annual event in my house occur where the PT and OT and any other T who has T time in her (aren't they all women?) agenda come visit our little home to see how kosher we can be with therapeutical interactive conjunctivitis mechano-troublesome-equipment stuff. Well as a 'devotee' of conductive education, I tend to be allergic to the accoutrements and more rabidly fascinated in the organic machinery that arrived with Blue: namely him.
So, anyways, I showed 'em how we stand up, walk with Dad in front and in back, use large rice-filled denim legs for positioning and such, how to use the you-walk-I-steer method and what not; and before the time was T'd up everyone seemed happy and that was that. I didn't say the "C" word once, nor the "E" word either. Why bother? Nobody wants to make a wheel when there are already so many people trying to reinvent the square. So, I squared up with them, but I took a page from Madge and soaked them in it.

now the only complaint would be . . .

that I have nothing to complain about! After so many years of "voice in the wilderness," or "pissing into the wind" this new mindset of GET BUSY is fantastic.
On principle, I stopped organizing little fly-in sessions about 5 years ago. I'd been burned once (by a very well-known Canadian charitable service organization, which I won't name here; oh, modesty prevents it) and one gets very tired of watching conductors leave and families all wondering when is next. So, I had stopped altogther.
Then Zsuzsi sent me an e-mail. A real-live conductor living in Seattle?! So close! And she was what? Working as a nanny? HOly smokes, talk about hiring an electrician to change a light bulb! So, she was available to actually take up my half-time job offer spread liberally over six months. It went very well, and just like that we were somewhat re-ignited. A local school board took interest. Proposals were begun, but nothing really happened because I am still waiting on the proposal and Zsuzsi got married and settled down in the Seattle area. Hmph. This was all still hopes and prayers until the conductor who we won't name yet decided to just come out here and go for it him/herself; knowing that I and all "my families" are behind him / her. Every possible family/client into the future is there for him/her as well.
This blog then is to somehow say that I don't really know what else to blog about now; but I will think of something.