From the mouth of Hári Mária

It is that time again

Three years have passed since the last World Congress for Conductive Education so it is poster designing time again.

I have not published a new book this year but I am going to present a couple of posters. Today I was handed a surprise free day so I have been able to devote some time to them.

One poster is a joint effort and the work on that went really well this afternoon.  Actually, it was really motivating, so I got on straight away with the other one.

Out came all my old faithful books in my search for a few quotes – Mária Hári and her Conductive Education, Mária Hári on Conductive Pedagogy, Makarenko’s The Road to Life, to name but a few.

As I got engrossed in Mária Hári on Conductive Pedagogy I had an idea –

I really want to get back into blogging but never seem to get the time to think these days let alone write creatively.

But what about if I let someone else do the creative thinking and I offer a thought for the day, just like on BBC Radio 4, a series of conductive snippets, from the mouth of Dr Hári, or Road to Life snippets from Makarenko, to start off, or close, our busy days during the run-up to the World Congress.

So here goes with my absolute favourite piece in Mária Hári on Conductive Pedagogy and it really is the reason that I knew all those moons ago that Conductive Education is for me –

‘The most important aspect of behaviour of the conductor is the habit of observing and watching the minds, movements and states of the children. She sees what kind of practical demands there are in life, what can be achieved psychologically, in which position or posture, on which intention and during what time a solution can be achieved, in which stage help is needed, how this support can be decreased or substituted, how faulty reactions can be prevented. She combines testing with teaching. She is planning the solution of tasks on the basis of continuous evaluation and making use of every possibility, all displays of spontaneity in guiding the children. The ways and hows of certain performances are different in every child to a small degree but are still of great importance. There cannot be any uniform and concise techniques. On the basis of learnt basic principles, knowledge and objective observation the conductor has to establish the child’s ability. She makes suitable plans for lessons and can explain why she has chosen the give solution in the case of each child. The conductor is also in an advantageous position because she has the opportunity to make and change her timetable. The time devoted to academic teaching can be fully exploited because there is the possibility to develop abilities required for school-work out of school time.

She controls, designs and guides all the above work. She breaks the whole programme into parts, taking special care of children’s mental and psychological characteristics and organises the entire life of this small community. But this does not mean she is left alone with problems, as there are specialists in every profession who are helping regularly. ’

References

Hári, M. (1970) The short story of Conductive Education, Mária Hári on Conductive Education, the Foundation for Conductive Education 2004, page 57

BBC Radio 4, Thought for the day –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00szxv6/episodes/player