Conductor

Private conversations made public

2012-01-29T20:59:00.002+01:00

Me in my earache hat, my cousin in his fishing hat and Big Sis wearing just a smile,

after a day catching shrimps, eels and whiting,

Walcott, 1963

I have not been blogging very much recently, the time and energy have been missing.

I had a tooth pulled out on Friday and the painkillers made me so sleepy that I have been wrapped up in a cosy flat all weekend. With the pain gone and a state of wakefulness returning I have been looking at my notes.

Sometimes I just write down snippets of conversation that I have with myself and if I do not post them fast enough they get buried.

This snippet has been buried for weeks. I no longer know what it was that I was reading online to cause me to write this in my note-book, no doubt it was one of many Google Alerts that land in my inbox.

The conversation went like this:

I just read something online, it said something like this:

“Conductive Education helps children with cerebral palsy as it teaches them how to use their bodies.”

You know what I would say: Conductive Education does not teach children how to use their bodies, sometimes these children will never learn to use their bodies. Conductive pedagogy can be applied to teach children and adults how to prevent themselves from becoming disabled through a motor disorder and lack of knowledge about their bodies, and can teach them how to use the abilities that they have to experience the world.

A conductive education assists them to experience the world and therefore develop socially and psychologically despite the difficulties in moving their bodies. I would say that learning to use their bodies is a side effect of teaching them how to experience the world and develop their whole personality.

Or as AP might have said, they are 'healed'... and as Mária Hári would have said they are integrated ( body and soul, not inclusion).

And if the conductive upbringing begins early enough it could be that there is actually nothing to heal!

Disability in the sense that I am talking about here can be prevented. A soul can be healthy so life can be lived.

It seems like yesterday

2012-01-29T18:15:00.001+01:00

" Path in northern Germany", by Susie Mallett, 2008

In August 2009 I took a day off from work and went on a regional train, a double-decker, to Schwabische Hall in search of an exhibition of the work of an old favourite of mine, David Hockney. One of my first art tutors had known him before he became famous and introduced me to Hockney’s work early on in my arty life. I remained a fan, collecting books of his work and I have always enjoyed dipping in to them and admiring most of all the drawings, but also the vibrant colours of his painting.

I remember the joy I had in viewing the photographic collages and the Grand Canyon paintings both of which he also made on a grand scale. I remember seeing the stage designs for The Rake's Progress and wondering whether theatre design was a path that I should take with my art training.

Now I remember the awe with which I viewed the recent exhibition in Schwabische Hall and how the colours and shapes in Hockney's most recent works inspired and delighted me more than any other work of his that I have seen. I felt like I was there, painting beside him, watching the landscape change with him as the clouds moved over the sun, as the sun sank low in the sky, as the seasons changed and as the chain-saws marched in!

I wrote about that 2009 journey and the exhibition here:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/08/bewtiched-in-fairyland.html

David Hockney is all over the British press at the moment because this same exhibition A Bigger Picture, with I expect some newer works included, can be seen in London at the Royal Academy. It has made quite a splash!

Even though I have seen these paintings in real life in that small town in Germany, I would love to see these big pictures displayed in the grand environment of the Royal Academy. The cathedral-like avenues of trees must look so majestic in their new setting.

Perhaps I will make it to the UK before the exhibition ends on April 9^th. If not, I still have my catalogue to drool over and my memories of that lovely day off in August 2009.

David Hockney, A Bigger Picture at the Royal Acadamy, London -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/artvideo/9018846/David-Hockney-A-Bigger-Picture-at-the-Royal-Academy-video-tour.html

David Hockney, official website -

http://www.hockneypictures.com/current.php

Living lives and visions

2012-01-23T23:29:00.009+01:00

My lovely, fits-in-the-palm-of-my-hand (and in my pocket),

beautifully bound copy of Dracula

Living other people's lives

I have been reading Bram Stoker's great epistolary Gothic novel, Dracula, for the very first time, and it is getting really scary.

As I was walking from the underground looking up to see what sort of moon if any I could see. I was thinking about why it is that I so love the book. Is it because of the long descriptions that I can walk into – into the character of people, and rooms and places? This is how I like to be drawn into a story and how I try to draw people into my own stories. I can only dream of ever being able to do it as well as Mr Stoker.

Other lives, other visions

And yes, what I also love is how the story is told by so many people, how we are treated to peeps into privately written dear diaries, all those personal things that you write in a journal, stuff that might be eventually read after your death but is really first and foremost only for the writer, a way of recording events, feelings, reactions etc. As I read it I feel like I am intruding a little bit into someone's secret worlds, in this case many people's secret worlds

I really love the idea of writing the journal of someone else, in the style of someone else, trying to describe the feelings that a different character may have and how someone else might see the world. I believe that people see colours differently, shapes differently. I see car headlight as stars or groups of stars but I suppose that some people see them as they actually are, as round yellowy circles of light. I think that different people see many things differently but not only because of the physical make-up of the eyes but because of the psychological connections attached, through their experiences throughout life.

I wonder how easy I would find it to pretend to be writing something that someone else has experienced, someone with a different background to my own. That is what Bram Stoker does so really well.

“I kicked the doctor into the wall”

2012-01-23T21:07:00.007+01:00

"Winter" by Susie Mallett

That is what Jason Carr tells us on his blog!

This just appeared in my inbox:

http://jasonsworld7.blogspot.com/2012/01/peto-part-1.html

Please make the time to read it, and not just this posting but all of it.

There are only three posting on the blog as yet so there is not much back-reading to do.

I, for one, will be following it in the future and I will pass the URL on to by budding students who will enjoy the inspiration that I am sure they will receive from reading this and, at the same time, they will be able to improve their English.

Well done Jason! I look forward to hearing more, especially about how you kicked the doctor into the wall!

Scritch-scratch

2012-01-21T15:12:00.001+01:00

Snow is in the air

I was sitting at the drawing-desk writing the previous posting when I heard scritch-scratch, scratch-scritch.

When I hear this noise I always hear it in double-pack! I hear the actual noise and I hear it whispered in my ear in Mum’s voice.

The spoken words are a memory from Beatrix Potter’s Mr Mcgregor who, with his glasses placed on his long nose, was busy working in his garden as Peter Rabbit made a dive for safety under the gate.

I loved this story but it made my sister cry. Mum read it to us anyway and she always whispered the scritch-scratching!

As I heard the scritch-scratch for real at midday today I wondered for several minutes what it could be. A familiar sound that I could not place it at first.

It was strange that it took me so long to remember what the noise is because last night I had told a friend that there was a familiar smell in the air, I said that I thought we would wake up in the morning in Nürnberg to a white-world.

The world was not white when I woke but it is now!

The scritch-scratch was the snow shovels out on the pavements doing the first clearing before grit could be sprinkled.

It is that dirty, slushy snow that must be cleared and salted before the evening temperatures drop low enough to freeze it thus making the pavements treacherous.

With the first scritch-scratching of the winter I will now have the extra alarm clock, that is a sign for me on snowy mornings to get out of bed a bit earlier so that, despite the weather, I can get to work on time.

Out with the sledges at last!

As the children left us on Friday evening I wished them a happy and snowy weekend. They will be thrilled to be outside on their sledges. The wetness of the snow does not deter their fun.

Notes

Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Peter Rabbit

http://www.tonightsbedtimestory.com/the-tale-of-peter-rabbit-beatrix-potter/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbhxAm8t0JQ&feature=related

Language and angst, fear of the unknown

2012-01-21T12:06:00.002+01:00

Green Men by Susie Mallett, 1999 and 2009

Whatever do Germans think about England?

My German acquaintances often comment on things that they find rather odd about my homeland, things like the state of English food or the separate taps for hot and cold water.

I often wonder what they ate while over on the island. When I have eaten English food in England I have never found anything to complain about especially when eating at my sister’s house or with my niece or nephew and their families.

As for the taps, yes, they are different. There are only mixer taps in Germany. I do not quite understand what their problem is here except that with two taps you have to use the plug to get warm water but, probably, by doing so actually save water.

Something really shocking from England

Each night before bed I read the The Telegraph online. Sometimes I just run through the headlines and pick one or two articles to read, sometimes I get really stuck in and read it just like I do my paper version of the Weekly Guardian, word by word for hours.

Last night I just went through the headlines and something “German” caught my eye, in the same way that things “Hungarian” catch my attention or things “Norfolk”:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/pubs/9027919/Retired-Beefeater-ejected-from-pub-for-speaking-German.html

When I read this report I immediately thought about how this dreadful event really would give my German friends something to discuss, even complain about. I was shocked and I was both surprised and pleased to read that the police had been involved immediately when the incident occurred and that an official complaint had been made.

What is the world coming to?

I still can hardly believe what I read in this article. I now begin to wonder how careful I will have to be in the future when I am at home. What I wonder will happen when I meet my conductor friends, many of whom share the three languages that I speak. We could, as we often do, lapse into a language other than English. This is so easy to do, it happens quite unconsciously and sometimes we use three languages in one sentence!

Very scary! I hope very much that this is an isolated case.

Notes

The Telegraph -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/pubs/9027919/Retired-Beefeater-ejected-from-pub-for-speaking-German.html

Just a question

2012-01-16T22:29:00.001+01:00

Cromer Pier, 30th December 2011

Did any diplom-conductors who are reading this receive formal instruction, as part of their training, in passive, stretching techniques that can be practised with clients with disability?

I did not myself experience, at any time in my conductor training at the Petö Institute, anything more than some informal, practical and observational involvement when certain clients took sage-baths before the beginning of each daily session in a conductive group.

Joints were passively and actively manipulated in the sage-water, but the actual stretching was always done through the movements and activities in the group and individual programmes throughout the day.

I wonder whether perhaps other full-time conductor-training courses have included stretching in the formal training and whether as a foreign student at the PAI this was something that I missed.

Why do I ask?

I ask because I recently came across information on a one-day course for parents that I think is misleading as it tells me:

“Through the gentle stretching techniques from physiotherapy, from Conductive Education and from

Dr Pfaffenrot we wish to keep the functional movement in all joints and to build on them”

I am well aware that Dr Pfaffenrot uses a technique that many of my clients have benefitted from. I have been treated by him personally myself.

I know also that physiotherapists do a good job manipulating joints to encourage movement. I have also benefited from the work of an excellent physiotherapist when my badly broken wrist was on the mend.

BUT-

I did not learn gentle stretching techniques as part of my conductor training.

I did learn how to build up an active daily programme for my clients so that they could use their limbs, make directional movements and build on the movements of their body in order to live an active lifestyle and be as independent as possible. The clients of course received whatever assistance necessary from conductors to learn to achieve success in all that they did.

I understand this as being other than “gentle stretching techniques from Conductive Education” that I saw being offered in this workshop for parents.

I know that many conductive centres incorporate a stretching time at the beginning of the programme and I expect that the clients enjoy this and that many also benefit from it. I always understood that this was introduced from another field, such as physiotherapy or manual therapy, and that conductors had taken supplementary courses to learn the techniques. I had never before heard, however, or read, claims of its coming from Conductive Education.

What do others think?

Sometimes I wonder whether I should just let such things pass by unmentioned.

I have returned to work today, so I had the opportunity to ask the opinion of my PAI colleagues who trained in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. All said No, they had not had any formal training in stretching techniques and they too consider the group and the individual programmes the places for active stretching. Two of us have observed in different centres a pre-lying programme, passive stretching that was taught to the parents or carers by a manual therapist.

I am still interested in reading more comments, especially about how conductors integrate techniques that they have learnt on other training courses into their conductive groups.

As an art therapist I do this regularly, and I know that there are many other conductors who are trained in many different fields. It would be really good to know how this integration of techniques takes place without misleading our clients in their understanding of conductive pedagogy.

What a treat

2012-01-16T00:57:00.003+01:00

St.John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich

by Susie Mallett, 6th January 2012

Finn and Moos, River Yare

Otters in University of East Anglia Broad

by Susie Mlallett, 6th January, 2012

A kingfisher fishing the broad
by Susie Mallett, 6th January 2012

A special bits-in-between-day-for-conductors

An amazing Janet and John, or Enid Blyton, sort of day!

My first adventure was a viewing of a knitted Christmas tree, the second a walk with the dogs, two lurchers.

This day was not only special for me, it was a grand occasion for lots of other people. It remained exciting even days after when the stories had been told and pictures shared again and again. The only thing that was missing from the adventure was the lashings of ginger-beer, but Dad and I made up for that by opening a bottle later that same evening!

Holiday-time

I have been with my family. We had a few family-outings to celebrate the coming of the New Year but for me this one just about topped them all.

Twelfth Night

Dad had got the decorations out this year. This had always been Mum’s job, she kept and reused, with tender, loving care, all the Christmas decorations that we used for years to decorate my Grandmother’s pub. This year my Dad carefully unwrapped all of it to place it all over the house, and on the tiny tree, ready for my arrival at the end of the year. It looked a treat.

On the sixth of January I had the pleasure of returning the ancient “bling” to its just-as-ancient Tom Smith’s cracker box. It was a wonderful hour full of happy and interesting memories of my life, of the strange but lovely family Christmases that we spent at that pub just down the road. Memories too of joy, remembering how much Mum loved all these tinselly things and how she had cared for them so well that we could still enjoy them now. I had an hour to spend thinking about her and about her Mum!

With the re-filled cracker-box stored safely at the top of the house for one more year and the eighty Christmas cards that Dad received all in a pile on the dining-table, for him to look through later, I got ready to go out.

Knitivity

My first stop was the Catholic Cathedral that is situated just outside the city-wall, on the opposite side of the city to the Church of England Cathedral and my also my family-home.

My sister met me at the Cathedral. We were there to see something that we had been looking forward to seeing ever since she had heard about it: a knitted Christmas tree!

The tree had been made as a fund-raiser by a group of disabled people and their carers, friends and supporters of the charity involved.

You can see the photographs above of the tree and the building. Sis and I took the opportunity to look at the lovely architecture, and gorgeous flower arrangements, and as we are neither of us proud to say that after over fifty years in Norwich we have never been into this beautiful church! I use the other Cathedral often as a short cut into the city or for a coffee break, and it is always a first stop when we have visitors as it is so near to home. The Catholic Cathedral on the other hand, that always looked so dark and ominous from the outside and was never a venue for school events, was until now a stranger to me.

Not any longer, I expect my sister and I will make a point of taking our visitors there in the future and watching out for any other unusual events such as the knitted tree and nativity scene.

It was quite an impressive object, that tree. It would not have fitted into our living-room that’s for sure. It did not look out of place in the wonderful towering arches of the cathedral either. A lot of very hard work had gone into the design and making of this work of art.

It really was a work of art. Blankets made from knitted squares and stuffed knitted toys are usually seen on stalls at the church fete. Many artists would turn up their noses if anyone ever suggested that they were art-works! But here, on the tree, were knitted shapes artistically sculpted together. Leaves and grass, paper-chains, crackers, candles, lanterns, presents, toys, and even a knitted star, really did create a wonderful work of art.

The story behind the creation of this sculpture made the whole event even more special. Read about it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h7TnO6TBx4

There was more about artistic work with people with disability in the news in Norwich this week:

“More than just basket-making at the centre for the blind and partially sighted”

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/derek-james/bringing_new_senses_to_the_world_of_art_1_1170636

I now know where I will be taking the art materials that I have had stacked away for thirty-years under several beds in my Dad’s house!

On with the tales of adventure

With two dogs waiting patiently for their part of the adventure we carried on with our journey to the outskirts of the city.

Walking dogs

I enjoy walking with my sister and her husband and their two dogs. Both dogs are lurchers. One looks exactly like a border-collie, even though his mother was a whippet, so he attracts a lot of attention. The other, only seven months old, looks exactly like a lurcher should look, skinny and shaggy and grey, with a long neck, hanging head and doleful eyes, so he gets his fair share of doggy-comments too.

We trudged through the mud from the car park, across the parkland down to the river. I suppose the mud was preferable to the ice and snow that I encountered on my last walk in the same place. The dogs paddled, one even had a quick swim, before both shook water all over us before chasing each other and a variety of interesting smells.

As well as observing the action of the hounds I observed nature, and what a lot of it there was too.

Our walk followed the River Yare towards the south-west end of the University of East Anglia Broad.

We then turned turning sharply left to take us though an ancient wooded area where bluebells were already bravely showing their bright green shoots through the decaying leaves, before making our way towards Earlham Hall and its parkland, leading us to the Park Café and a warming cup of tea.

The Café allows dogs on leads to enter as long as they do not bark!

Before entering the bluebell-woodland we walked close to the reeded bank of the Broad and it was here that our adventure continued.

It was at this point that we encountered several dog-walkers and non-dog-walkers all facing the water in silent observation. In whispered tones I asked what was happening, I could hear, splashing and rustling and chomping but could at first recognise nothing in the wintering colours and tangle of decaying vegetation.

It was an otter!

The first man in the line, whose dog was patiently waiting several yards behind us, told us that he knew that there had been a mother and her three cubs spotted in the spring by walkers on the adjacent river.

Cubs stay with their mother for quite some time so maybe this was not just an otter but several, perhaps the same family from the river. From the noise being made chomping on the fish it could have been a whole romp of them.

I had been watching for quite some time before I remembered that I had my camera in my pocket. I had never seen an otter in the wild before and I was fixed to the spot with my eyes peeled and with a fixed grin on my face.

What no pics?

I had not considered that I could be taking photographs. I did not wish to miss a second of the action through fumbling with my camera. When I was certain that the close proximity of a dozen adults, a couple of children and several well behaved dogs, was not disturbing these rare creatures too much and I felt sure that they would stay in view for a while longer, I reached for my camera. I began snapping in the direction of the noises and the moving weeds hoping that when I got home I would see something on the computer pictures. I certainly did, we spotted three if not four creatures on one picture.

After a couple of shots the commotion in the shallow water moved over to the left and all of a sudden out popped an otter on to a log, already chewing on a silvery fish, probably a dace. He remained in full view, just a couple of metres away from us for several minutes, and at the same time a blue flash flew through the air between us and the otter.

Young enthusiasm for wild life

I had been distracted earlier in my otter viewing by two little girls, who were beautifully dressed and looked as if they had just stepped out of an Enid Blyton novel or the Janet and John first readers from infant school days.

These children were so excited about the otters but even more excited when they were able to show me where, in the tree just above the otter’s head, the most beautiful kingfisher was sitting. Just at the moment that I had it in my site it plummeted down into the water, like a bomb dropping, to emerge seconds later with a silvery catch in its mouth, just like the otter’s catch but much smaller.

As my Dad described to me later, the kingfisher took his catch to eat on a lower branch before returning to his look-out position.

I had never seen a kingfisher before either!

As you can imagine I was delighted with our nature walk!

The Janet-and-John-children were delighted to see all the photographs of the otters in my camera, they enthused over my artistic skills and lamented that they had not had a camera with them. They were so excited when their mum swapped email addresses with me so that the girls would have pictorial-proof of our adventure to include in their nature diaries at school on Monday morning. A real nature trail would be travelling through cyberspace!

Notes

Janet and John –

http://www.google.com/search?q=janet+and+john+books&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=GyY&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8EgTT_bEDJD-sgbtiokL&ved=0CEoQsAQ&biw=807&bih=412

Enid Blyton –

http://www.enidblyton.net/

Tom Smith’s Crackers –

http://www.tomsmithcrackers.co.uk/

Knitivity –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h7TnO6TBx4

University of East Anglia –

http://www.uea.ac.uk/about/gettinghere/map

Rolling Stones – Walking the Dog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lnkm9ReVyo

River Yare at Earlham –

http://www.literarynorfolk.co.uk/yare,_river.htm

University of East Anglia Broad –

http://www.ueasaac.co.uk/

Conduction In China

2011-12-25T02:11:00.003+01:00

Hong Kong, 2010 by Susie Mallett

A wonderful Christmas gift

I wrote in an earlier posting that my first book was in the process of being translated into Chinese and that it would hopefully be launched at a Conductive Education congress in Shanghai, on 26^th December 2011.

Yesterday I received the a lovely surprise Christmas Gift; the news reached me that the book has been printed, that copies are on their way to me, and that each person attending the congress will be given a copy!

Wow!

Of course I cannot read the Chinese version of my book. I have no way of knowing through looking at the pages whether the translation reflects my style or if my soul and my passion for my work shine through. I trust the project leader to have done a wonderful job.

I respect very much the work that is being done conductively in Hong Kong and I am amazed at the speed with which SAHK (formerly the Spastic Society of Hong Kong) is spreading the conductive word in mainland China.

I am very proud that they have chosen my book to assist in describing now to live conductively and how to practice conductive upbringing. I am thrilled to have received an English translation of the preface by Ivan Su and thank him for allowing me to publish it here:

Preface

The original English version was written by Ms Susie Mallett, the first book in her writing series debuted at the 7^th World Congress on Conductive Education in 2010. Using narrative essays to illustrate conductive upbringing and lifestyle is a rare form that is not always available on the market, and the realization of this Chinese version for the Cross-Strait-Four-Region readers happened only by chance.

While hurrying to the pre-Congress workshop held at our Conductive Learning Centre, Ms Mallett came across an expatriate woman in the street and asked her for directions. The lady was Sister Joan O’Connor (Chairman, Marion Fang Conductive Education Management Committee, SAHK). They met for their first time and appeared to have hit it off. Ms Mallett gave Sister O’Connor her new book as a gift. After reading the book, Sister O’Connor showed great appreciation and highly recommended it to Mr. Fong, Chief Executive Officer of our Association. This has given rise to the Chinese translation.

Ms Mallett is a native British Hungarian-trained conductor, currently practicing in Nuremberg, Germany. She speaks fluent English, German and Hungarian. This gives her enormous leverage in acquiring the essence of Conductive Education as founded by German-speaking Jewish-Hungarian Prof. Petö. Susie Mallett once discovered an early German writing of Prof. Petö from an old book shop. Since then, she has spent a substantial amount of time and effort in the search of the gestation of Conductive Education in Petö’s time. Her perseverance and seriousness in pursuing the truth has engendered my greatest salutation.

Thanks to Principal Lui Kwong Bin’s volunteered translation work, we maintained a close communication throughout the translation period. We pay tribute to her endeavor, to the utmost of her ability, to provide a faithful rendering of the jargons in the conductive world. We also thank Ms Karen Lau and Mr. Simon Lee for their careful proofreading and liaison.

Ivan Su

Winter 2011, Hong Kong

As I implied in the title of this blog, what better Christmas present could I wish for than this.

Thank you to Ivan and SAHK.

I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and I welcome any new readers who find me and my blog this weekend after receiving my book in their Shanghai Congress package.

If there is anyone in Shanghai who would like to send me a photograph of a Chinese copy of Let me tell you a story, Book I, I would be extremely happy to receive it. This really is a time when I can honestly say that I wish I was there to take it myself!

Notes

Let me tell you a story, Book I, by Susie Mallett -

http://www.susie-mallett-booksandmore.com/

Christmas is a-coming

2011-12-24T13:55:00.000+01:00

Better late than never

Christmas caught up with me but I have just about caught up with myself just in time to join my German family this evening with a sing-song around the Christmas tree and the traditional simple meal together. They have boiled white sausage and potatoes and, for the non-meat eater, there will be carrot soup!

Unfortunately I left the song-sheets at work!

One of my stroke clients printed for us lots of Christmas songs in large and clear script so that the group could sing loud and clear to the little ones last Thursday at their Advent’s celebrations. It all sounded all very jolly and quite professional especially when we were accompanied by one lady’s husband, on his mouth organ. The children were wide eyed and joined in with their jingle bells that another of the group had repaired, replacing the missing bells the day before.

Spontaneous decision making

Work finished yesterday with just me and Jolly Professor there at the end to un-decorate the tree. He decided quite spontaneously that he would take it to his Grandma on Christmas Eve morning, complete with the homemade decorations. Now there is a child who knows his Mum well! He was quite right to guess that she would pack the tree in the boot of the car with a smile and say: “What a great idea, Grandma will love it”.

With a family like his it is no wonder that Jolly Professor is doing so well.

As I watched his Mum’s reaction to hearing that the tree was going home complete with handmade ginger-biscuit decorations, and carried all alone to the car. I knew that my Mum would have done exactly the same and found a corner somewhere for the extra Christmas tree, brought home with such love and determination.

We had a lovely relaxing afternoon together painting, trying out a reading box, riding a walking/balance-bike and learning how to steer it, listening to Christmas songs and best of all chatting all afternoon. He has not done that for a long time, since our group doubled in size a year ago.

My spontaneous Christmas

Today I have to be ready to celebrate in a couple of hours, and I will be.

I was up early to finish the sweets and wrapped presents while talking to a friend who phoned me from New Zealand. Now I am making the final presents, necklaces, and in an hour I will be off on the tram to meet my German family at church to join with the children’s Christmas service.

What is more, at midnight I will come home on the tram too. How is that for service!

It is actually warm enough for the bike that is still not in the cellar, but I today I will put on some glad-rags instead of cycling gear, just for a change.

And now to bed!

2011-12-20T00:18:00.002+01:00

It was a long and difficult day

Not the day off I expected but a day of meetings, which are something that I am not used to.

I learnt a lot, achieved a lot, and worked alongside several different people who are involved in the life of one of my middle-sized littlies.

Later this evening I went off to the dentist and achieved what I had set out to do there too; put an end to the pain in my face and make an appointment to get the impacted wisdom teeth removed. After Christmas though!

After that and with the realization that I had forgotten lunch I walked into the festive shopping mall at the underground station and had something to eat, but not before first going off to find the traditional Christmas scenes that are always so gorgeous at this mall.

Do you know the sort I mean?

Like those that in the sixties adorned the windows of Selfridges and Hamley’s in London, with moving puppets and jolly Christmassy animal scenes that attracted children’s so that their noses became glued to the window.

I remember when I moved to Nürnberg that that first year’s Christmas delight was several scenes depicting the Christmases of different species of animals. The decorations on the tree related to the habits of the animal in whose home it stood. I was inspired by the rabbit family’s tree and that year I hung fresh, young carrots, complete with green tops, from my huge Tannenbaum, just like the rabbits had done!

Wow! Look at those trains!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that although there were no cute animals to be seen, there were still lots of children’s noses pressed up against the glass of the huge cabinets containing large-scale model-railway layouts! Trains that until a couple of years ago were produced in Nürnberg.

After coffee and food and more coffee, I hopped on to the new underground for the first time, the line that since a week now runs almost to my front door, all on its own without a driver!

I hope that I got the shots before the battery ran out in my camera. I will now take a look to see if I can adequately illustrate this lovely conclusion to a successful, difficult day.

I nearly forgot, I also bought a new dress at half-price in the pre-Christmas sales.

The pre-Christmas sale is something new to Germany although I noticed that the January Sales had changed their name to December Sales some time back in the UK! It appears that the Euro is catching up with the pound in many different ways.

Notes

LGB - http://www.haertle.de/welten/lgb/?adword=Google/LGB/Global/LGB

Where is the best place to be when digging a hole?

2011-12-18T22:10:00.002+01:00

Not a soul in sight at 6 pm on the last weekend before Christmas!

Quick sand

Whilst on the tram on Saturday with The Guardian Weekly I read the leading article:

Year ends on grim financial note, by Larry Elliott and David Gow

The article tells us that Mr Lyons, an economist, identified, as one of the dangers in this world wide economic crisis, “…the tendency of those in charge to carry on digging when they are in a hole.”

The hotline

How thankful I was this week that I only had to make a phone call and the person in charge got everyone out of the hole that they had been digging around in all week and quickly filled it in!

Oh what a different world it would be if it were so easy everywhere.

Eyes like a hawk

In my own small world I can hold my head up and keep my eyes peeled. I can observe and react appropriately, and, when possible, do something to prevent myself and others from digging themselves deeper into problem situations.

Back to being an ostrich

As for the wider view, and as far as the Eurozone and the rest of the world are concerned, I think I am best to keep my head buried in the sand and to keep on hoping.

I do not think I will be able to get that deep hole filled in with just one phone call!

Just after I had written, this while on the underground after the tram, I spotted a picture on the front of a trade-union newspaper that I tried to capture with my camera but I missed half of it. I quickly noted what I remembered, but you can view the real thing by artist KCEB, here:

https://publik.verdi.de/2011/ausgabe-12

Notes

The Guardian Weekly, 16,12,11 -
http://www.guardian.co.uk

Verdi -

http://www.verdi.de/

Something from the BBC for the fourth Advent Sunday and a couple of Bits-in-Between for conductors!

2011-12-18T13:07:00.001+01:00

Children-in-Need star stand, Nürnberg

16th December, 2011

A bit of rap

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16236129

It made me smile out loud!

A bit of sparkle

On Friday evening I was working, as I have done for the past ten years, on the stand selling hand-made stars for child's charities.

Gale-force winds were forecast, at midday the city council were considering closing the Christmas Market in fear that it would be blown away. It stayed open and it rained a lot, but the wind never came. The people did not come either kept away by the storm warnings.

It was s till fun and despite the awful weather the takings for the various charities was on its way to two thousand Euros for the day.

And a sprinkling of snow

We could have done with the icing sugar snow on Friday evening to create a romantic atmosphere to attract the visitors, instead we have it today while put the finishing touches to the Christmas cards beside the now four candles and decorate my tree.

Who painted the sky this morning?

2011-12-13T23:24:00.001+01:00

Pink sky in the morning shepherd's warning!

Sometimes it is really nice to have to be at work before eight

Today was one of those days. I would not have missed this sky for the world, it looked just as if I had been out there, up a ladder with my paint-box.

As for the pink-sky-in-the-morning warning, it is not something that rings true here like it does in Norfolk, there was a clear, sunny sky all afternoon.

Europe

2011-12-12T13:04:00.000+01:00

Germany is getting on with it!

Many people are out on pre-Christmas shopping sprees spending what seems like lots of money. Others, or maybe the same people, are eating highly priced sausages and drinking over-priced not-so-soothing, mulled-wine at the Christmas Markets, and to top it all the new underground station at the end of my street is celebrating the opening of un-manned underground extension with a bit of a party.

Life in Germany goes on, in fact everyone seems to be happy that Angela M. is taking control and at least giving the impression that she is sorting things out so that the folk can get on with Christmas.

I wonder whether this optimism is wise, but I too prefer to bury my head in the sand and get on with making Christmas Cards and preparing for the annual marzipan-sweets-creating marathon and hope for the best!

Conductors as school assistants?

2011-12-10T18:17:00.002+01:00

"Now come on AP, speak to me, tell me what you think."

Petö Institute, 28th Novemeber 2011

Conductors as assistants, that is my thought of the day!

On the first Sunday in Advent I was in Budapest, reminiscing and thinking about things Hungarian and conductive.

On the Second Advent’s Sunday I was in Nürnberg, looking at the photographs that I took in Budapest, so I was still reminiscing, and thinking, as always, of things conductive.

Over breakfast with two candles, I was thinking especially about things conductive with school children.

Main-stream school

I wondered how many conductors there are working as classroom assistants for children with special needs, and how many conductors, like me, are working closely with assistants in an advisory role and often wishing that certain children could have a conductor as a personal school assistant.

I think that this could possibly be the way forward here, in Germany, where so many of our “conductive lifestyle” children are now attending mainstream school. Could it be possible, would it be a good idea, to introduce conductors as school assistants?

I know that there are already two conductors in Germany doing this work. I know that already several ex-middle-school teachers are doing this work too. Could and should more conductors take on this role?

What do readers think?

One of my colleagues has worked in her homeland as the classroom assistant for a child with physical disabilities for two years, with much success. She was employed by the child’s parents to work in this position.

Conductive input for school children

In Germany he six-and seven-year-old children have a short school day, finishing at 11.30. When they are eight or nine the school-day is longer, sometimes extending to 13.00. There is still time for these children to attend conductive sessions two or three times a week.

As children get older the school day gets longer, there is also more homework to complete and more after-school commitments.

What happens then?

What happens to the conductive input? How does the conductor keep an eye on the various areas of the children’s lives if they no longer have the time or the energy to attend conductive sessions once or twice a week? There are of course house visits, and summer intensive blocks or conductive holidays for the children, but perhaps the best solution is to have the conductors there is school as the children’s personal classroom assistant.

Conductive upbringing for at least six hours of the day, that sounds pretty good to me.

Still deep in thought while counting the candles

It is now the third Advent weekend and I am still thinking about this subject that was prompted by a presentation given by Dr Franz Schaffhauser in Budapest on 25^th November, titled the Philosophy and Pedagogy of Inclusion.

I have a case at the moment where a conductive assistant would, I believe, be the perfect solution. I think it would ensure that this specific child makes it. He needs that certain extra to makes the grade for gymnasium, which is his ambition for his future. I think that finding solutions for the complexity of his problems needs a conductive eye, and especially as this child has been brought up conductively for six of his nine years he would take to it like a duck to water.

We will see what the future brings

Have any other conductors got experience to share of working as a child’s classroom assistant in a main-stream school? Any comments and information, experiences and advice all gratefully received.

Lametta

2011-12-09T10:31:00.000+01:00

"Out of stock"

Every year the Lametta theme comes up

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/12/no-longer-lamenting-loss-of-lametta.html

I noticed from the sitemeter that yet again it had been googled and whoever it was who was searching for Lametta came across my blog.

As I have said before I have a good supply so I do have a while before I need to search for it, although if ever I see any of course I still buy it. I think it will not be long before it is impossible to get it anywhere.

I cannot imagine my tree without it.

That reminds me, I will be off on a tree hunt tomorrow!

Private view

2011-12-07T22:53:00.000+01:00

My getting-big-littlies

When I was in Budpaest, nearly two weeks ago now, my getting-big-littlies went to a private view!

All dressed up to the nines they went off after school to a local bank ,for the opening of an exhibition of their, and others’, works of art.

I was so disappointed to miss this occasion, now the third exhibition of my clients’ artworks. It was the first that had press coverage and a proper flyer! And I missed it!

Take a look here and pick out a Christmas present for someone:

http://www.behinderte-nuernberg.de/sonstiges/bilderpraesentation.html

In the photographs above you can see on the title page of the flyer a painting by the eleven-year-old autistic child who draws and paints, bakes and plays with me and more, every Tuesday afternoon.

We are getting on so well these days that I will be soon writing a whole blog dedicated to our lovely sessions.

A trip down a book-lined memory lane

2011-12-06T23:02:00.001+01:00

Lanterns in Hong Kong, last year

A few of my books from years-gone-by

Making lanterns with Grandma!

I was Google Imaging Andy Pandy. I wanted to know if his blue and white all-in-one suit had a bit of red bric-a-brac trim on the hat. I questioned, while googling, how I actually knew at all that his suit was blue and white because I only ever saw him on Watch with Mother in different tones of grey on a black-and-white TV!

I expect that he featured in a comic book at some time, or that there was an Andy Pandy Christmas Annual. We always got a heap of annuals for Christmas, perhaps we had that one too.

I found an Andy Pandy picture and discovered that there was no red to be seen, and at the same time I discovered lots of other Watch with Mother You Tube clips to watch.

A while back I watched Tales of the River Bank and The Wooden Tops, but today I discovered another, Picture Book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE9dsOu3oE8&feature=related

I have the Picture Book book that is shown at the very end of this clip but I had not realized before that it accompanied this programme.

As I watched this show with the proper BBC lady, with her sausage-dog, showing us so precisely how to make paper lanterns, I was suddenly six years old again. I realized that I had watched this very programme with my grandmother at her house. The only place where my sister and I were able to watch Watch with Mother was in the private living-room of my Grandparent’s public house, the Pineapple Hotel.

I also realized that it was because of this programme that garlands of pretty wallpaper-paper lanterns were brought out annually to decorate the front and the back smoke-rooms of the pub.

Not only did my sister and I watch the lovely BBC Picture Book lady with Grandma but went on to produce strings of paper lanterns to decorate her home and ours. I found one of said lanterns lurking in the box-room at my Dad’s house the last time I was home!

Guess what we will be making at work next week!

More bits -in-between for conductors

2011-12-06T21:15:00.000+01:00

A favourite "bits-in-between" at the Petö Institute, Türö Rúdi and cappuccino

Despite my never-ending list of conductive posting that are floating around in my head or in note-form in my notebooks, I just have to write a bits-in-between-for-conductors piece.

I love recording first-time experiences. I actually have a book where I try to remember to write them all down.

Sometimes I make a point of actually doing something that I have never done before just because I have never done it before and that is now I got to be at a Tupperware Party on Saturday night.

Such parties were a part of my growing up. I think that there was even one at my house once when I was very little. Although I cannot imagine my Mum’s doing it more than just the once! Even so Tupperware for mixing Yorkshire pudding has long been the most used item in the family kitchen in Norwich.

The joke’s on me

For me and my art student friends in the 1970s, Tupper-parties were a standing joke, but really, deep down, we would have loved to have given one, or even just attended one, only because of the anachronistic qualities we saw in it.

They did not fit into our life-styles any more than the huge art school that we attended fitted to the small Surrey town where it was situated.

A week ago I received an email from a friend that said:

“On 3.12 I will give a Tupperware Party at mine. Sounds odd, it is too, somehow, but I am curious about it!

Do you want to come? It will be a pure ladies-evening and certainly has the potential for being very funny!”

It appeared that she found the Tupperware Party phenomenon slightly peculiar too so I thought this is probably the opportunity to try it out.

So I went

And while I was there I did an awful lot of observation!

A brand new world opened up before my eyes, a world of plastic boxes.

I was amazed at the amount that some people knew about Tupperware and how much interest they can have in containers for storing food.

It is an interest that has been sustained for fifty years in Germany and since 1946 in America. I questioned how the business can survive when most items have a thirty-year guarantee. I am still using the metal cheese-grater that my grandmother bought when she set up home in the 1920s. It is metal not Tupperware, it had no need for a guarantee, it is not vivid purple or bright green and I have no intention of replacing it with another.

I remember from my childhood, a Tupperware salad bowl for picnics and a salt and pepper set. They were in pastel greens and yellow. At Saturday’s party the kaleidoscope of colours was something out of this world, so gaudy, enough to put me off my food. Apart from this it was all incredibly expensive.

Another first

I have never owned a piece of Tupperware in my life but that will change soon, as each guest will receive a small, very small, fluorescent-pink lunch-box. Perfect for keeping pins, beads or wobbly eyes in!

I still do not understand the attraction of Tupperware but if I was a mother with a family of six I might think otherwise.

I went with the purpose of finding out about the attraction of plastic boxes and also to purchase a Spätzle-maker for the children at work so we can make our own Bavarian cheese noodles/dumplings.

Attending Tupper-party is an absolutely brilliant thing to put on the Firsts list. I had such great fun watching people get excited over a plastic box.

There was of course more than just plastic boxes, there was a man, yes a man, there to demonstrate how to use some of the tools. Our male demonstrator was also a professional cook and had a good sales pitch because he not only knew how to use the tools he also knew how to cook. He really could tell us which items were good for what purpose.

We tried out the Spätzle-maker and tasted the products and we tried out an odd roller used for making lattice pasty.

These are the gadgets that caught my attention, rather than a lime-green, multifunctional lunch-box or a cerise set of tableware dishes!

Better things to party over

Thinking about all that oil being pumped out of the earth, to produce millions of plastic containers in the most poisonous-looking colours imaginable, convinced me that I am better off keeping my grandmothers cheese-grater until the end of its or my life.

However, my friend had been right, it had been quite good fun discovering together what I Tupperware Party really is and it was in reality not much different to the pictures from the 1960s that I looked at online. In the end we decided however, that next time an underwear party might be even more fun!

Notes

Tupperware -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupperware

CE books in China

2011-12-05T17:10:00.001+01:00

"The Big Buddha"

One year to the day and still enjoying the excitement

One year ago today I was in Hong Kong for the 7th World Congress on Conductive Education.

During the months before the congress I worked very hard to prepare my first book so that it could be launched there. It was launched and was well received. You can read about it here:

http://www.susie-mallett-booksandmore.com/

I have been working on books Two, Three and Four all this year but none of these had reached the printing press, until today.

It was just a nice coincidence that this morning, on the anniversary of Hong Kong 2010, I had a meeting with the designer of that first book to discuss the second in the series. This will be a joint project with one of my clients and we hope it will be in print ready to be launched at a conference in Germany, in March 2012.

I just arrived back home from that meeting to discover, amongst my emails, that yet another book story.

Another book is about to be launched!

Last year when I was in Hong Kong I was approached by SAHK (formerly the Spastic Society of Hong Kong) in regards to translating my first book into Chinese. We made plans.

I heard today that the translation is finished, a preface has been written and the book is in print, ready to be launched and distributed at a conference in Shanghai that begins on 26th December.

As I said the excitement of my trip to Hong Kong just goes on and on and on!

I wish I could be in Shanghai to see the launch of that Chinese version of Book One. I am relying on others to send me a photograph or two for my blog!

With many thanks to Ivan for making my day today!

In the Mária Hári Library at the PAI

2011-12-04T20:00:00.001+01:00

“Look who's sneaked in!”

I was in the library at the PAI last Monday really enjoying being with András Petö’s books.

At first I was working in a meeting room, working at a desk beside the book case full of writings by, and books that were owned by, Dr Andras Petö.

I had to relocate when a group of people involved in conduction from all over Europe, wanted to use the room.

I moved with all my reading material to another part of the lovely Mária Hári library and got buried in the books again. Imagine my surprise when I looked up for a moment to take a deep breath before starting again and saw that I was sharing the space with Mickey Mouse!

Of course I captured the moment on camera. He is a very old Mickey Mouse, who stands beside Tom and Jerry, next to the television in the children’s corner of the library.

Lots of big, old books

Frans van Mieris, Der Ältere Trinkende Paar

Jan Steen, Der Violinspieler in der Schenke

There have been two sets of books added to the AP book shelf since I was last in the library:

Volumes 1-15, Nagler‘s Neues allgemeines Kunstler Lexikon, Schwarzenber and Schuman Varlag, Berlin

and

Nine volumes on European art, from the Kurt Wollf Verlag, Berlin.

These books that were discovered in an antique-book shop in London last year, 2010, when the owner of the shop, who purchases stock from Germany and Austria, contacted the Petö Institute after finding the Ex Libris of András Petö inside the front cover of some of the volumes.

It was lovely to handle these volumes knowing that they had adorned AP’s shelves in Vienna. I could not help wondering whether the backs of some of them were broken in several places because these were AP’s favourite works of art or whether it was wear and tear from other owners or from travelling here and there over the last 70 years.

Who knows?

As with many things associated with András Petö, we can only speculate and create even more myths about him.

I heard many stories while I was in Budapest last weekend told by people who knew AP, I also read poems about him and writings by him.

We can do nothing but guess

Do I get a deeper understanding of this man as I hear and read all of this?

Or do I just form my own image of him, just as many other people have done in the past?

I will keep on reading and asking questions and my own personal ideas will develop on who the man was who developed a method of conductive upbringing, who appears to have been interested in human nature and its development. I will read about the man who was influenced by the arts and philosophies of many countries, a man who wrote about the works of numerous doctors, scientists and therapists. I hope that I will continue to hear about the man who shouted till he was red in the face, who was so kind to the children, in a brusque sort of way, but often impatient with adults. I hope to hear more stories of his kindness, his generosity and wide ranging interests and hear about his abrupt no nonsense manner.

As I try to piece it all together the image that I form will still only be the myth of what I think AP was like. I will never really know. I will form an image that will no doubt also be influenced by my personal understanding of conductive upbringing, by what I learnt from Maria Hári that in its turn had been influenced by AP and others, and by how my work has developed over the past thrity years,

Is there anyone out there still alive who really knows who AP was, what he thought or believed in?

Does anyone apart from ourselves really know who we are?

Second Advent Sunday

2011-12-04T17:09:00.001+01:00

It is time that I at least have an idea as to what I shall be sending this year with my Christmas greetings.

Yesterday I was wondering when the inspiration would come.

Today when a friend phoned I did a bit of market research. This particular friend must have received at least thirty Susie-Christmas-greetings, so I asked him about his favourites.

He told me: “The decorations are nice” but added “They take you so long to make though”.

I know that many friends save these decorations that I have made to hang year-after-year on the ir Christmas tree. That is just what I do too with all the handmade greetings that I have received , while hanging them up I enjoy thinking about these special people. I put things on my tree that I received as a four-year-old and still remember with affection, fifty years on, the people who gave them to me. Many of the presents came from friends of my Grandmother.

So a decoration it will be

I think it will have to be a painted decoration as this is the quickest method for me. I have already made a prototype and prepared for a few more to experiment with before I hit on the one for the production line.

I hope that I come up to scratch again this year!

I remember meeting an Auntie a many years ago, who has sadly since died. She told me that she always waited in anticipation for the arrival of my letter at Christmas time. The family would discuss what I would come up with next!

The joy that this Auntie showed in "my works of art" still motivates me to keep on creating, even though sometimes I would love to be one of those who chooses from tthe many lovely, but expensive, greetings cards on sale in the shops.

I always hope to be inspired during my summer or autumn holiday, then I would have time to paint to my heart’s content. It never happens that way and often my last minute cards arrive long after Christmas. Last year many got delayed on route from Hong Kong!

This year I endeavour to get them in the post so that they arrive before the end of 2011, with time left to be hung on the tree!

Olympics Games 2012

2011-11-30T19:36:00.003+01:00

Petö Institute, 1993

Several people who I met at the weekend appear

on this photograph. It was taken just after I had received

my diploma from Dr Mária Háriwho is seated in the centre of the front row.

Football training camp

I have written about Jesse Powers on my blog before.

He is an inspiration to us all

He is a keen photographer using this skill to raise money to attend Conductive Education camps by selling his art. He held an auction several months ago of his own work and that of others. I sent him some of my own paintings and a couple of books to include amongst the lots.

Jesse is also a keen sports man

Take a look at this to discover just how keen he is:

http://www.canadasoccer.com/canada-s-para-soccer-team-gearing-up-for-final-camp-of-2011-p147988

I have an inkling that two other past clients are training hard for next September too. They both ride tricycles in road-racing events.

http://www.canadian-cycling.com/disciplines/sites/default/files/Immunity-FX%20Canadian%20Road%20Championships%20-%20Para%20-%20T1-T2%20Men%20-%20Results.pdf

Best wishes to you all!

Notes

Jesse Powers - http://power2jesse.blogspot.com/

Összhang a Petö Intézetben

2011-11-26T01:37:00.004+01:00

Harmony at the Petö Institute

An international conference at the András Petö Institute of Conductive Education

And what a wonderful atmosphere there was there.

This was not only my opinion, I heard a German visitor describing how cold and dull such conferences can feel in Germany. He was absolutely right, they can be a bit icy back “home” and the PAI got it just right at this Hungarian Science Festival 2011 event.

Of course I am very biased.

A singing soul at the PAI

My soul was singing as I walked up Kútvölgy, past the cog-railway terminal, past János Kórház and the other hospital, the name of which I can never remember, with the rumbling of trams in my ears.

The only thing that I felt was missing was the smell of a Traubant chugging up the hill beside me! They are noticeable through their absence!

I walked through the door of the Petö Institute with my head held high, I did not have to sneak in like I had had to do ten years ago, and from the first moment the atmosphere was almost electric. An atmosphere had been created that any conductor would be proud to have achieved in a group.

For me there followed a continuous bumping into old friends, mostly from twenty years ago! It was like we had always been there. Some of my Hungarian friends were visiting for the first time after many years too. This made for a really harmonious singing-of-souls.

During the lunch-break I went up the stairs that for once were not filled with singing children, until I found the red floor and made my way towards my first-ever group, then the spina bifida group. There,in that group, with little Hungarian to my name in the early months of my training, I soaked up as much through my skin and my soul, as if by osmosis, as I could. I believe that many students and conductors had singing, happy souls working in that particular group and that is why we all get attracted like a magnet back there, and why when I opened the door today Laci básci had beaten me to it. He was already there enjoying being back home too.

Laci bácsi had been a special friend to me during the early months in Budapest because he was learning English at about the same rate as I was learning Hungarian. Sometimes as he gave me a lift in his brown Láda he would give me a Hungarian lesson.

I am sad to say that his English today is far better than my Hungarian is nowadays, but, never-the-less, as in Rome you do as the Romans and today I insisted that we speak Hungarian!

That funny language

When I was still at work in Nürnberg on Thursday, my colleagues were teasing me and insisted that we spoke Hungarian together in the lunch-break. They thought that I needed to practise, but I could not utter one word. My mind went blank.

I travelled to Budapest with a Hungarian colleague and still our common language remained German, until Friday morning when I walked through that door at the Petö András Institute. It was like one switch was turned off and another turned on.

My two languages today were English and Hungarian because I still cannot deal with all three at once.

The conference was in Hungarian. I decided that I would manage the introductions without a headset for translation, but I asked for one later, just in case, for when the lectures began.

The first stumbling block

I managed so well when Mihály Szivos Ph.D., from The Hungarian Ministry of Sciences, was speaking about the significance of unspoken knowledge in general pedagogy and Conductive Education. I did just as well, if not better, when Franz Schaffhauser Ph.D. spoke on the philosophy and pedagogy of inclusion.

The going got tough when Dr Ildikó Kissné Horváth, from the Ministry, was at the podium. Everyone in the audience I think realised, even before she told us at the end of her speech, that she had not known that the Institute worked mainly with disabled children and apologised for preparing a presentation about rehabilitation with adults. This lady spoke really quickly so I finally decided that I must reach for the head-phones.

I then did what I always did as a trainee conductor, I held one ear piece to my ear and kept the other ear free to get the gist in real life! I find it so important when listening to a speaker to hear how they actually say what they say, and despite it being very tiring with two ears listening to two different people I get more out of it than just hearing it in English.

A favourite voice from the past

As I put the headset to my ear I got such a lovely surprise. Twenty-four years, almost to the day, since I first met her, I heard once again the voice of our regular translator. Kati translated for us British trainees from the word go, in 1987. She was our favourite translator. She knew so much about Conductive Education, even then in the early days, so she knew how to translate lots of the in-house terms that usually mean nothing to an outsider. She also knew how to translate what we said in English into the Hungarian Conductive Language

Anyone watching me today would have wondered what the translator was saying to make such a huge grin cross my face. As I sought her out later just as big a grin crossed her face in the moment that we met.

Thanks to Zsuzsi

It was Kati’s non-English speaking, school-teacher sister who had taught me to speak Hungarian in two lessons a week for four years. This was the first time that Kati discovered what a good job her sister had done. Previously we had only spoken English with each other.

Today I was very appreciative of the good work that Kati’s sister had done with me so long ago. Speaking the Hungarian language somehow allows me to feel so much at home in the place that I spent four of the happiest years of my life.

The lovely one-day conference is over, but the weekend of meetings has only just begun. Also in the bits-in-between-for conductors I will be meeting people including at least one, if not two of AP’s first students, from 1947. I also dream of a dip in the Gellert baths, but can hope for a trip up to the castle and a long visit to the Mária Hári Library.

More about all of that later.

Széll Kálmán tér

2011-11-25T23:52:00.005+01:00

Sure enough

I have seen it with my own eyes.

The clock is still there, for meeting friends under. The brilliant book-stall is still there, so I just had to buy a book. I chose one about story-telling and the wishes of children, and perhaps adults, to live in such a fairy-tale world.

The ticket-office is still there, where I bought my first monthly student-ticket for two-hundred-and-forty forints. That was in Septenber 1989 and today, twenty-two years and one month later, I bought a three-day pass for more than three thousand forints!

The pot-holes are all still there in the same places. The red letter-box is still there with the lovely post-office building towering behind. The clattering, yellow trams are still there, the pogácsa stand is still there and the icing on the cake, there was one tessék néni selling flowers. At this late hour she was no longer calling "Tessék Tessék Virágok!"

Moszkva Tér is still there, except somehow it isn’t

Széll Kálmán tér is there instead looking exactly like Moszva tér always did, except for the sign on the metro station.
It is still a grubby, yellow round-about of clattering trams and dark figures always rushing in all directions, with a few standing still under the clock.

I took myself off down the road this evening after the conference that I attended had finished. I just had to check that nothing had really changed, even though the bus pictured above, that I saw outside the Petö Institute at nine o‘clock this morning, had Széll Kálmán tér clearly as its destination.

I feel relaxed that Budapest is still Budapest even if Moszkva tér, in name only, has vanished.

Notes

Pogácsa - cheese scone
Tessék néne - a lady from the countryisde selling wares, often flowers

Arty beiginnings

2011-11-25T23:39:00.003+01:00

I have so many stories to write, perhaps a weekend in Budapest will give me the time to get the words down. Despite a busy programme and the obvious draw back of the return to my second home handing me a dozen new stories on a plate.

Abscent, arty-grauntie

My big Sis sent me a short message two days ago telling me of her latest adventures with Aimee, my Dad’s great-grand-daughter, and when I got home I found an email with pictorial evidence.

The message said: “Sure Start painting with lots of different cars, Aimee loved it.”

I replied: “Wow, I will do that tomorrow!”

The picture, sure enough, showed the tracks of vehcles that had travelled over a piece of paper almost as big as our Aimee.

Yesterday another message: “Did you try it?”

Sadly the answer was: “No, no time.”

Today I made time

The conversation with the three three to six-year-olds, who were watching as I prepared for our arty crafty activity, went a bit like this:

“Are we going to play cars?”

“Yes.”

“Are we going to paint too?”

“Yes”

“How are we going to play cars?”

“With the paint!”

I do not think they believed it until they actually saw me wheel a Matchbox ambulance, then a Playmobile wagon, followed by a Formula One racing car through stripes of colour on my paper.

They could not wait to get stuck in, neither could my colleague who created the circular image above with a red fire engine!

So Aimee and Sis, thank you very much for the tip, it was brilliant. I hope Sure Start sends lots more ideas my way. After more than thirty years in the business of being arty with children and adults, some new inspiration is always very welcome.

Our Petö children were delighted with their gallery of motorised art! I think they went off to lunch still not believing quite what they had just done.

The chasis of the Formula One racing car was a bit too low-lying for this kind of painting, perhaps with a thinner paint it would produce a finer print, with thick finger-paints it was the least succesful of all our vehicles.

Have lots of fun all of you who give it a go.

Notes

Sure Start – Government funded groups for early education. Aimee is only twenty-months old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sure_Start

Oh I do so hope that the clock is still there.

2011-11-25T23:21:00.002+01:00

Budapest

I have been put right before I even get there!

In an email today, after my enquiry as to now to reach my appointment for Saturday lunch:

" I am right in thinking I have to go from Moszkva Tér over Margit Bridge and then walk a short way to the left?"

I received the answer:

"
Susie,

they have already changed Moszkva Tér to Széll Kálmán Tér. But yes, get on the 6 tram in the direction of Pest and get off just over Margit Bridge, walk a little way then press button number 3 until I open up."

I wonder how many times I will have to be reminded once I get to Budapest that names have been changed yet again. I had to remember the changes once already, shortly after I arrived in Hungary for the first time in 1989. That time no sooner had I learnt all those terribly long foreign street names than they all changed.

I look forward with excitment to my visit but also with a fear that in the past three years so much will have changed beyond recognition, not only in name.

Having a great experience and enjoying it!

2011-11-17T23:54:00.001+01:00

I will be back soon with lots of lovely stories to tell. I have been too busy doing them to write them down just like some of my clients too.

Here is a snippet for now:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/telegraphchristmasappeal/8896876/Christmas-Charity-Appeal-2011-Riding-for-the-Disabled-Association.html

Riding was always the treat of the week for so many of the young people that I worked with at Macintyre, Bedfordshire in the 1980s and it is the highlight of the week for lots of our littlies and for our adult clients here in Germany.

Therapy, I do not know but it is a lot of fun and enjoyment for all those involved, including the teachers.

Photo call to receive a cheque

Jolly Professor and Little Princess are off next week on another photo call to collect a cheque for our riding centre. I hope that Riding for the Disabled, UK. get lots of people helping them out with donations too.

St Martin

Laddo, up North, took on his riding job permanently last Friday when he became his village’s St Martin. HE was seen on 11.11.2011 riding his stead through the village with the band and children with lanterns following him. It is a job that he might quite possible keep for the next fifty years just as his predecessor did. Uncle Karl Otto, as all the children call him, handed the reins over last year to Laddo in an emergency. A broken foot made it impossible for Uncle Otto to do the job then and has now decided that it is time at seventy-five to let Laddo take over for good.

Laddo is twenty-one and has athetoid cerebral palsy. He has been riding since he was six and yearning to take over the job of St Martin since about the same time. Luckily he did not keep his ambition a secret so when it came for a change it was he who was the only possible choice.

We spoke on Thursday and spoke of our hopes of better weather than for his premier performance last year when it teemed with rain. I think it was Laddo who phoned me this evening leaving no message, probably wanting to report on his success. I have spoken to his mum this week so I know that he now takes on such roles without sleepless nights, and that Mum was not even there to watch as she had another appointment. It is all part of life now. All part of his and his family’s contribution to village life.

I have more such stories from the past few weeks when I get time to write them down, stories that are all about life and making the most of it, just as so many of my clients do.

Several of these clients have been in the lime-light these past few weeks and on one occasion they let me share it with them.

There will be more snippets of those stories if I get time at the weekend.

Notes

Saint Martin -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin%27s_Day

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinstag

Lest we forget

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000+01:00

Friends did not forget me either, providing me with poppies once again.