SUSIE MALLETT

My visitors today

Wednesday 14 March 2018

Conductive upbringing is still alive and well



My newest creative activity

A new lease of life, for me and maybe  for my blog too!

It is almost twenty-five years since I received my Conductor diploma from Dr Hári and I am still astonished at how it suddenly appears to be that Conductive Upbringing seems to be working right in front of my eyes! Of course it isn't sudden, not really, and of course it is always working, but it just seemed that way today because I had the time to step back for a moment and observe what tremendous progress a group of Kindergarten children can make after spending 18 months working and playing together. 

18 months seems such a short time to us but it is half or perhaps just a third of these children's lives. The progress we have made together in this small group of five (and within the big integrated group of twenty) entailed a lot of hard work from everyone - parents, conductors, therapists, Kindergarten staff and of course the children themselves.

It is a slow progress but when it works it is wonderful to watch the results, like it was today for a just a few seconds this morning before getting back to work and joining in the fun. And it is still fun even after all those years.

We had a visitor to the group today. A conductor who also received her diploma from Dr Hári, a few years after me. It was having a visitor that made me sit back and look, almost as if I was observing through our visitor's eyes.

It was a very special morning, the children where lovely. They were friendly to each other and with our guest because as always, in a group that is working well together, any friend of ours is a friend of theirs.

One little boy, who is just learning to talk, went up to our guest, looked her in the eyes and told her his name! We all hugged him with delight. That was not the only surprise - another child put her shoes on alone for the first time and another used his new found language to express his feelings without being grumpy. It is all those little things from each individual that makes the group gel and work so well.

It often takes a change in the routine, a visitor in the group like today, or a holiday programme, a trip to the shops, or a walk in the park to allow us to observe what our children have learnt and for them to show us what they can do; how they can convert what they have learnt in the group to everyday-life situations.

Thank you visitor for allowing me to see all of this today and perhaps thanks also for nudging me back to the blogging.

Sorry there are no photos of today's events, not even of today's art work- wonderful paintings of a chicken, Elfrida, who visited us today. I will try to remember to take some photographs tomorrow.