Off to have a well deserved short break.

I am leaving you with a quote from Souza; which was sent to me by one of my best teachers at Petö yesterday.



“Dance as though no one is watching
Love as though you've never been hurt
Sing as though no one can hear you
Live as though heaven is on earth.” Souza

♥ ♥ ♥

Also I thought that you might like to watch this clip.



Pretending...

Reawakening Dr. Petö’s Conductive Pedagogy Seminar

The idea to offer this seminar came to me as I was going through my Autumn Term diary. The month of October is very special to me, as I always feel reenergized during this month of the year. Every October my whole being seems to be infused with the richness of the colours and the special rays of the autumn sun; reminding me of childhood feelings, flavours and aromas. As I was turning the pages in my diary I remembered the conference we ran at Southampton University in 2002 on the same dates and it brought me back pleasant memories.

So much has happened since…

I would like to offer this seminar with the intention to share with you what I learned at the Petö Institute in Budapest.

I would like to remind you of the things that matter to us and of the intention that is true and of the performance that is serving that intention.

The content and structure of the course is set out in a sequence, as I was trained and gained my knowledge and experience at Petö, from the time I stepped through the door. It would be my pleasure to serve you and lead you in your endeavour in providing holistic, integrated and meaningful services for children, adults and their families whose lives are affected by neurological dis-abilities.

REAWAKENING DR. ANDRÁS PETÖ’S CONDUCTIVE PEDAGOGY

Venue:
Brockenhurts College Business Centre and Conference Room and the Conductive Education Support Centre in Brockenhurst.

The College has facilities for web conferencing so if you live outside the UK and would like to enrol to access this facility please let me know.

Course Fee: £390

DAY ONE

9.30 Registration & Morning Refreshments Served

‘Moulding the clay’-Group Activity

Session One

10.00-11.30 Awakening – Arrival at Petö

-The beginning of the journey with personal exploration to attain realisation of 'capabilities and limitations'

-The power of everyday habits and their affect on human lives

-The structure and life of the Petö Institute

11.30- 11.45 Refreshment Break

Session Two

11.45- 1.00 Conduction.The Art of Evolving-Organised know how

-Tools of Transformation in Conductive Pedagogy

-The challenge in Self Analysis

-The Pygmalion affect

-Re-awakening the examining mind to create congruent, meaningful solutions

-Discovering and analysing essential steps in creating lifestyles, which support never-ending learning

‘Programming’ to align with an active way of life, while supporting awareness and self-realisation, activity, self-direction…

1.00- 1.30 Lunch

Session Three

1.30-3.00 Group Activit, Play - Practical Applications
- Surprise Guest Speaker
-Sketching the portrait of potentials
- Making the present practical and magical

‘Moulding the clay’-Group Activity

DAY TWO

9.30 Registration & Morning Refreshments Served

‘Moulding the clay’-Group Activity

Session One

10.00-11.30 How to activate a ‘focused mental intent’

-Creating a place for expression, learning, healing and play’

-The importance of Parameters; Fixed Points; Completion of Cycle of Intents, Awareness; Intent; Focus…

11.30- 11.45 Refreshment Break

Session Two

11.45-1.00 Patterns of functioning

“Between the voice of the brain and the sounds of the heart grow the seeds of habits”. J. Sz. 2001
- Connection between language and action
-‘A person does not speak with his mouth, a person does not walk with his feet, and the surgeon does not operate with his hands’…
- Mastery of creating an inner aid for directing own behaviour thus performance.

1.00- 1.30 Lunch

Session Three

1.30-3.00 Group Activit,Play - Practical Applications
-Surprise Guest Speaker
-Sketching the portrait of potentials
- Making the present practical and magical

‘Moulding the clay’-Group Activity


DAY THREE

9.30 Registration & Morning Refreshments Served

‘Moulding the clay’-Group Activity

Session One

10.00-11.30 Multileveled observation types and techniques I

-Facilitation (creating an innervated state, accessing the inner riches,)

11.30- 11.45 Refreshment Break

Session Two

11.30-1.00 Multileveled observation types and techniques II
-Practical structures and specific techniques of facilitation
Subtle attunements, consistency and commitment to details.

1.00- 1.30 Lunch

Session Three

1.30-3.00 Group Activit,Play - Practical Applications
-Surprise Guest Speaker
-Sketching the portrait of potentials
- Making the present practical and magical

‘Moulding the clay’-Group Activity

The practical components of the seminar are covered by slide shows, a vast range of photographs,video films and practical demonstrations.

Can you do it?

Don’t go against yourself.
Don’t create circumstances that go against you.


Don’t align with someone who is going against you.


Could you? Would you? When?

Summer thoughts... A cup of tea

'Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"


If You Love, Love Openly

Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.

Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting.

Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written her, she said: "If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now."


Calling Card

Keichu, the great Zen teacher of the Meiji era, was the head of Tofuku, a cathedral in Kyoto. One day the governor of Kyoto called upon him for the first time.

His attendant presented the card of the governor, which read: Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto.

"I have no business with such a fellow," said Keichu to his attendant. "Tell him to get out of here."The attendant carried the card back with apologies. "That was my error," said the governor, and with a pencil he scratched out the words Governor of Kyoto. "Ask your teacher again."

"Oh, is that Kitagaki?" exclaimed the teacher when he saw the card. "I want to see that fellow."'

From 'Zen stories to tell your neighbours'

3-Day Seminar in October 2009

3-Day Seminar

Reawakening Dr. András Petö’s Conductive Pedagogy

2nd –4th October 2009

New Forest, Hampshire UK

To reserve your place, please contact Judit at

judit.szathmary@virgin.net

Chief Seattle's letter 1854...

But how can you buy or sell the sky, the land?

The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

"How can you buy the sky?

How can you own the rain and the wind?

My father said to me,

I know the sap that courses through the trees,

as I know the blood that flows through my veins.

We are part of the earth as it is part of us.

The perfumed flowers are our sisters.

The bear, the deer, the great eagle,

these are our brothers.

The rocky crests, the meadows, the ponies,

all belong to the same family.

The voice of my ancestors said to me,

The shining water that moves in the streams

and rivers is not simply water

but the blood of your grandfather's grandfather.

Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes

tells memories in the life of our people.

The water's murmur is the life of your great-great-grandmother.

The rivers are our brothers.

They quench our thirst.

They carry our canoes

and feed our children.

You must give to the rivers the kindness

you would give any brother.

The voice of my grandfather said to me:

The air is precious.

It shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

The wind that gave me my first breath

also receives my last sigh.

You must keep the land and air apart

and sacred as a place where one can go to taste the wind

that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

The voice of my grandmother said to me:

Teach your children what you have been taught.

The earth is our mother.

What befalls the earth

befalls all the sons and daughters of the earth.

Hear my voice and the voice of my ancestors,

Chief Seattle said.

The destiny of our people is a mystery to us.

What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered?

The wild horses tamed?

What will happen when the secret corners of the forest

are heavy with the scent of many men?

When the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires?

Where will the eagle be?

And what will happen

when we say good-bye to the swift pony and the hunt?

It will be the end of living,

and the beginning of survival.

This we know:

All things are connected like the blood that unites us.

We did not weave the web of life,

we are merely a strand in it.

Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.

We love this earth

as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat.

If we sell our land,

care for it as we have cared for it.

Hold in your mind the memory of the land

as it is when you receive it.

Preserve the land and the air

and the rivers for your children's children and

love it as we have loved it."

Note: The oration and the origin of the text maybe controversial, but it doesn’t take away the depth and the value of the meaning.

Will all human beings that I care for... just leave?...I am afraid so...That won't do.

"Laugh and cry
Live and die
Life is a dream we are dreaming

Day by day
I find my way
Look for the soul and the meaning

People run
Sun to sun
Caught in their lives ever flowing
Once begun
Life goes till it's gone
We have to go where it's going"






Then you look at me
And I always see
What I have been searching for
I'm lost as can be
Then you look at me
And I am not lost anymore"



Lyrics: Celine Dion Then you look at me

Picture: Rear view of a skeleton Leonardo

Matrix - The pill

"The question is not about pills, but what they stand for in these circumstances. The question is asking us whether reality, truth, is worth pursuing.
The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of habit, of things we believe we know. We are comfortable, we do not need truth to live. The blue pill symbolises commuting to work every day, or brushing your teeth.
The red pill is an unknown quantity. We are told that it can help us to find the truth. We don't know what that truth is, or even that the pill will help us to find it. The red pill symbolises risk, doubt and questioning. In order to answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and world on a reality you have never experienced.
However, in order to investigate which course of action to take we need to investigate why the choice is faced. Why should we even have to decide whether to pursue truth?The answer in short, is inquisitiveness. Many people throughout human existence have questioned and enquired. Most of them have not been scientists or doctors or philosophers, but simply ordinary people asking 'what if?' or 'why?' Asking these questions ultimately leads us to a choice.Do you continue to ask and investigate, or do you stop and never ask again? This in essence, is the question posed to Neo in the film.So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters in the film says, "ignorance is bliss" Essentially, if the truth is unknown, or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry about?
By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to 'fit in', which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution.This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system.
Morpheus says to Neo "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."
The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a trailblazer.
Another argument on the side of the blue pill is how does anyone know that the status quo is not in fact the truth? The act of simply questioning does not infer a lack of validity on the questioned. Why not assume that your experience is innocent until proven guilty? Just accept everything?
So if the arguments for the blue pill are so numerous, why take the red pill? Why pursue truth even though it may be unpalatable and the journey to it hard?In the film, Neo risks death to escape the virtual reality and discovers a brutal reality from which he cannot return. As he discovers the trouble with asking questions is that the answers are not necessarily what you want to hear."
Author: Dave Droar
Tutor: Oliver McAdoo MA


Matrix - The pill



Holographic 3D image of Kate Moss floating during the Alexander McQueen Fall/Winter 2006 runway show.




Picture: Trinity and Neo
fanpop.com

I am still wondering why it was so hard this time...

It has been one of the hardest summer schools we have run so far. Every day I was wondering what was going on? The children got fired up as usual, but they were so tired. Quite unusual I thought… I was wondering what we could do about it… Everything we tried ended up with a request from our best students… by saying I am so tired… can I just sit down and have a little rest?
Have you experienced the same during your summer camps?
Some of our students left this week… they still achieved remarkable results and one of them even got a platinum award, the first time since we opened our centre.
We had our certificate presentation and as usual we had some joyful tears and lots of hugs from students and parents… but I am still wondering why it was so hard this time?

Love will find its way through all languages on its own. Say whom I am...Say I am you...

"There are many people with their eyes open whose hearts are shut. What do they see? Matter. But someone whose love is alert, even if the eyes go to sleep, he or she will be waking up thousands of others." The Rumi Journal
Rumi's poem elegantly and without fail touches our inner being and inspires us to go beyond our limitations towards the Divine.

"I am dust particles in sunlight,
I am the round sun.
To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.
I am morning mist,and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,a spark of stone, a flickeringin metal. Both candle,and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingalelost in the fragrance.
I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,and the falling away. What is,and what isn't. You who know Jelaluddin, You the one in all, say who I am.
Say I am You." Rumi







Picture: Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273)

SEROTONIN RISING 2010 • Deepak Chopra, David Lynch & Donovan

"The idea for the film SEROTONIN RISING came to me in the year 2000. I was watching a PBS TV special and the narrator read a few lines from a medical study. He said that if you do a good deed for someone your serotonin levels will rise and your immune system will be strengthened. He went on to say that the same thing happens to the recipient of the good deed. The final words on this subject were what really hooked me: Any observer of the good deed will also feel their serotonin rise and have their immune system strengthened. I wrote down a treatment for a future documentary based on those words and filed it for when the time felt right to produce it. A few years later, I came across a study conducted at the National Institutes of Health by Dr. Jordan Grafman . The research proved that the same regions of the brain that were activated when one received money were even more activated when one gave money to non-profit organizations.After reviewing my notes from the PBS special and conducting more research on the topic, I was convinced that people would respond favorably to these findings. I set about contacting Dr. Grafman and other medical experts to confirm the NIH experiments. At the same time, I began interviewing more doctors as well as noted authors, spiritualists, visionaries, religious leaders, mind-body specialists and philosophers. Everyone agreed with the basic premise and many added their own views and advice to the subject. Within six months word spread within the spiritual cinema community about what we were doing and I began to receive calls and e-mails from people wanting to be a part of this production. SEROTONIN RISING took on a life of its own soon after co-producer and writer, Darren Foster , joined me on the production and journey. Darren suggested that we add a dramatic storyline about two television news reporters to the interviews we already conducted. We developed a concept for this unique integration together and Darren wrote the original screenplay. Soon we began acquiring an incredibly talented cast and crew to produce this very unique feature-film.By merging the scientific evidence with a dramatic story and the words of wisdom from our experts, SEROTONIN RISING blossomed into a very special film.When my very talented brother Russell Perri agreed to create some amazing music for our film, we knew we were on the right track. As we watched the interview clips and reviewed stories of altruism and compassion, we all felt something wonderful. It soon dawned on us that we were becoming the "observers" of good deeds and our own serotonin levels were dramatically rising.It was at this point that we decided people needed to see this film and that it could make a positive difference in our world. We are now convinced that this documentary is the World's First Truly 'Feel-Good' Movie."
Tony Perri
Director and Co-Producer

http://www.serotoninrising.com/project/about.aspx






Photo: Reverend Friendly and Wilbur rest on Pearl Street Mall during set-up.
http://www.serotoninrising.com/film/photoPearl.aspx

Standing first time on my own...

"Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake."
Henry David Thoreau

"May you live all the days of your life!"
Jonathan Swift





Photo: Crisp and Judit at the Conductive Education Support Centre in Brockenhurst, Hampshire UK.

Transdisciplinarity as Methodological Framework for Going Beyond the Science-Religion Debate By Basarab Nicolescu

"Modern science was born through a violent break with the ancient vision of the world. It was founded on the idea — surprising and revolutionary for that era — of a total separation between the knowing subject and Reality, which was assumed to be completely independent from the subject who observed it. This break allowed science to develop independently of theology, philosophy and culture. It was a positive act of freedom. But today, the extreme consequences of this break, incarnated by the ideology of scientism, become a potential danger of self-destruction of our species.

On the spiritual level, the consequences of scientism have been considerable: the only knowledge worthy of its name must therefore be scientific, objective; the only reality worthy of this name must be, of course, objective reality, ruled by objective laws. All knowledge other than scientific knowledge is thus cast into the inferno of subjectivity, tolerated at most as a meaningless embellishment or rejected with contempt as a fantasy, an illusion, a regression, or a product of the imagination. Even the word “spirituality” has become suspect and its use has been practically abandoned.

Objectivity, set up as the supreme criterion of Truth, has one inevitable consequence: the transformation of the Subject into an Object. The death of the Subject is the price we pay for objective knowledge. The human being became an object — an object of the exploitation of man by man, an object of the experiments of ideologies which are proclaimed scientific, an object of scientific studies to be dissected, formalized, and manipulated. The Man–God has become a Man–Object, of which the only result can be self-destruction. The two world massacres of this century, not to mention local wars and terrorism — are only the prelude to self-destruction on a global scale.

In fact, with very few exceptions – Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer or Cassirer – modern and post-modern thinkers gradually transformed the Subject in a grammatical subject. The Subject is today just a word in a phrase9.

The quantum revolution radically changed this situation. The new scientific and philosophical notions it introduced – the principle of superposition of quantum “yes” and “no” states, discontinuity, non-separability, global causality, quantum indeterminism – necessarily led the founders of quantum mechanics to rethink the problem of the complete Object / Subject separation. For example, Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize of Physics, thought that one must suppress any rigid distinction between the Subject and Object, between objective reality and subjective reality. “The concept of “objective” and “subjective” – writes Heisenberg – designate […] two different aspects of one reality; however we would make a very crude simplification if we want to divide the world in one objective reality and one subjective reality. Many rigidities of the philosophy of the last centuries are born by this black and white view of the world.”10 He also asserts that we have to renounce the privileged reference to the exteriority of the material world. “The too strong insistence on the difference between scientific knowledge and artistic knowledge – writes Heisenberg – comes from the wrong idea that concepts describe perfectly the “real things” […] All true philosophy is situated on the threshold between science and poetry.”11

My line of thinking is in perfect agreement with that of Heisenberg. For me, “beyond disciplines” precisely signifies the Subject-Object interaction. The transcendence, inherent in transdisciplinarity, is the transcendence of the Subject. The Subject can not be captured in a disciplinary camp.

The meaning “beyond disciplines” leads us to an immense space of new knowledge. The main outcome was the formulation of the methodology of transdisciplinarity, which I will analyze in the next section. It allows us also to clearly distinguish between multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.

Multidisciplinarity concerns itself with studying a research topic in not just one discipline only, but in several at the same time. Any topic in question will ultimately be enriched by incorporating the perspectives of several disciplines. Multidisciplinarity brings a plus to the discipline in question, but this “plus” is always in the exclusive service of the home discipline. In other words, the multidisciplinary approach overflows disciplinary boundaries while its goal remains limited to the framework of disciplinary research.

Interdisciplinarity has a different goal than multidisciplinarity. It concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another. Like multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity overflows the disciplines, but its goal still remains within the framework of disciplinary research. Interdisciplinarity has even the capacity of generating new disciplines, like quantum cosmology and chaos theory.

Transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline. Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge12.

As one can see, there is no opposition between disciplinarity (including multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity) and transdisciplinarity, but a fertile complementarity. In fact, there is no transdisciplinarity without disciplinarity. In spite of this fact, the above considerations provoked, around 1990, a more a less violent war of definitions. This war is not yet finished."

Basarab Nicolescu is a major advocate of the transdisciplinary reconciliation between Science and the Humanities, Science and Religion and Science and Spirituality.

Basarab Nicolescu is a Theoretical physicist and philosopher; a Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), University of Paris 6, France; a Professor at the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; a Member of the Romanian Academy; the President-Founder of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies (CIRET), a non-profit organization (161 members from 26 countries); Founder and Director of the "Transdisciplinarity" Series, Rocher Editions, Monaco and of the "Science and Religion" Series, Curtea Veche Publishing House, Bucharest.

Link to whole article: http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10013/Default.aspx

You might also like to read:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17922700/Transdisciplinarity-in-Science-and-Religion-No-4-2008

Photo: Universitatea Babes-Bolyai -1972 Inchide imaginea

http://www.stirilocale.ro/cluj/Poze_vechi_din_JUDET_CURENT-IDIV5983-P2.html

Life is really about a spiritual unfolding that is personal and enchanting.An unfolding that no science,philosophy or religion has yet fully clarified

"By seeing the beauty
in every face,
we lift others into
their wisest self,
and increase the
chances of hearing a
synchronistic message."
J. Redfield

Photo by Jules 1405 'Little boy Fulkharka'

Conductive Summer Programme. If you and your child are participating in a Conductive Education Summer Course you might like to consider the following

Summer always brings us warmth and a new season full of hope, amazing galore of colours, lights, fragrances, delicious fresh food, new friendships, lots of outdoor activities, barbequing and celebrations.

It is amazing what the sun can do to brighten up our day and our outlook on life.

The summer sun helps to heal and nurture our bodies. The health benefits of the sun have been known since ancient times.

Summer is a time to move freely and sing with joy, time to be filled with love and to give love unconditionally. A time to honour what gives us life and what warms our hearts and minds.

Conductive Education Summer programmes grant us the opportunity to embrace all what summer is about at the Conductive Education Support Centre in the South of England, UK.

We are fortunate that our centre is based in the heart of the New Forest, where ponies are grazing and galloping even on the streets, followed by the sure steps of huge highland cattles.

The local donkeys and wild ponies often visit our local Lloyds Bank and bakery and can be found standing half way in the doorway.

During the summer we have opportunities to meet new children and parents and they all add to our colourful extended family hamlet.

You can often find groups of mums chatting in the car park, attempting to solve the problems of the world, while dads getting their bikes ready for miles of cycle run. Family dogs sniffing the air and hardly can wait to jump out of the cars for their forest run.

Some mums go out together for coffee, or lunch, some have a relaxing massage or a swim at one of the local hotels, some drive off to the forest or to the local beaches with a good book or a magazine, just to be away from it all and have some quiet time for themselves.

For us it is time to have fun, to enjoy ourselves while learning different survival, independence and lots of different social skills.

We have huge debates about life, we make fresh fruit and vegetable juices in the juicer, we prepare and serve our snacks and lunch together, we have early morning outdoor breathing practices.
During these breathing tasks everyone chooses a tree and they practice different breathing techniques while looking at the shapes and colours of the tree and observe the light dancing amongst the branches.

Some task series and games are run outside, even in the rain. Everybody is challenged in many different ways and given opportunities to find special talents and gifts within.


Amongst many others one of the challenges is that the children are encouraged to drink plenty of fresh water instead of sweetened and fizzy drinks.

Parents are asked to bring healthy, nutritious fresh food, no red meat, no sugar and no additives. It is amazing how much difference can be observed within just one or two weeks if they can stick to this during the times they spend away from the centre too.
Children become more energised, awake, and aware and sleep better at night.

The first week is always very hard for the children and the programmes seem to run slow as the children find it hard to focus, concentrate and participate. Even children who are in traditional primary or secondary education find it hard when they are asked to take full responsibility for themselves.

It seems that their attention flickers as most of the time usually they are taken care of so they switch off and don’t think for themselves.

They want to do so many things and so eager to participate, but the planning is missing and they need considerable time spent on paying attention to the details and sequences of their performance.

These children are in fulltime education and spend most of their lives growing up amongst the walls of educational establishments. Highly trained specialists design their curriculum… and even so they know so little about basic, vital and important things.

Their lives have such limited and reduced access to information and experiences that are essential part of life and are necessary to live a dignified life.

When parents choose to enrol their children for one week only there is very limited what one can achieve which will make a real difference in the life of the child and the family.
Children are eager to live up to the expectations of their parents, but this is an incredibly difficult task for them to adhere within a week.
Especially if they never sat on a chair without side supports and straps, if they never asked to adequately participate during snacks and lunchtimes and if they spent most of their time being carried, crawling on the floor or sitting in a wheelchair.

It takes a massive shift of consciousness within the children's mind to see themselves as walkers and not crawlers, to take full responsibility to learnt to sit safely while dividing their attention between many things that are presented within each moment.

Every day when parents arrive to take their children home we tell them what the children have been doing, how they solved problems and what they were capable of during the day. We also show them ways of solutions and also photos, or short video clips, which were taken during the day. We encourage them to reinforce skills at home, which were learnt on the day.

Summer programmes need to be seen as active participation from both the parents and the children. We don’t ask parents to stay and work with their children after the age of three. We conductors facilitate the birth of new solutions and the mastering of oneself, but we ask parents to follow up the functional skills at home, which were achieved.

If you and your child are participating in a Conductive Education Summer Course you might like to consider the following. ♥
Always encourage your child, by talking about the fun sides and the advantages of spending time in a summer camp. All children need preparation, but our children often more sensitive and fearful.

When you drop your child off in the morning please refrain from saying that he, she will not be good today as …whatever reason, fill the gap. Children listen to their parents and perform accordingly. I know it is hard to believe that they listen to you but they do.

If you want your children to learn quicker, ensure that you talk highly about their conductors and teachers in front of them. You might have something to question or complain about, but leave that conversation for adult’s ears only.
Don’t expect that your child would want to learn from someone you might disapprove of, even though you might have a good reason for it.

If your child has prescription glasses don’t for get to bring them.

If children didn’t have breakfast for whatever reason tell the conductors as they wont be able to concentrate with an empty stomach.

Comfortable closing is essential to feel free and unrestricted. Tight garments and skirts for girls hinder performance. Send plenty of change of clothes especially if you are attempting toilet training during the summer course.

Please follow up toilet training at home too. There is no point to attempt toilet training if it is just done during the programmes.

Spend the afternoons and evening relaxing and enjoying together and by practising a few skills which were learned on the day and by finding ways of integarting them into everyday routeens. It helps your child to focus more on the solutions and to tune in more for further learning.
Don’t over tasks your child by spending hours in the swimming pool, or spending hours in crowded shopping centres and attending late night parties. The next day children would be washed out and withdrawn.

Children will be tired mentally and physically and they need time to balance out their energies between activities and adequate rest periods.

Please inform the conductors about changes related to your child, i.e. change of medication during the course, any sleeping pills, sedatives, laxatives, herbal remedies etc. given to your child during the course, possible seizures, changes of behaviour, changes of health, possible emotional problems, possible family problems etc.
To ensure that your child gets the most out of a Conductive Education Summer programme following the above could give you a good start.




photo by Adrian Allain

Photo by Chalkie CC

Summer Travel... Drugging Our Children - Video Travel Alert™

Family travel isn't what family travel used to be.

The medicated child

"Statistics Confirm Rise in Childhood ADHD and Medication Use

Education World examines the rise in the number of prescriptions written for stimulant medication to treat ADHD -- an increase of 500 percent since 1991, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Included: Highlights of research tracking the rise of childhood ADHD and medication use.

Recent research investigations confirm what school administrators and teachers have realized for many years: The number of kids taking psychotropic medication has increased substantially in recent years. That increase is consistent with the rising number of kids diagnosed with ADHD.


Psychotropic medications treat a variety of behavior, emotional, and mental disorders, including ADHD.






Most children treated with medication for ADHD are prescribed stimulant medication, such as methylphenidate (Ritalin is the brand name). Stimulants increase nervous system alertness by stimulating neurotransmitters in the brain, according to the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). When used, the stimulant helps a child who has ADHD focus and reduces the child's excess fidgeting and hyperactivity.

The increase in the number of prescriptions doctors write for treating ADHD is staggering. According to the Congressional Testimony of Terrance Woodworth, a deputy director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the number of prescriptions written for methylphenidate has increased by a factor of five since 1991. About 80 percent of the 11 million prescriptions doctors write for that medication each year treat childhood ADHD, he said. In addition, production of Adderall and Dexedrine, also used to treat ADHD, has risen 2,000 percent in nine years.

The increasing use of stimulant medication to treat ADHD in the United States differs significantly from practices in the rest of the world, according to United Nations data, Woodworth said. The U.S. produces and consumes about 85 percent of the world's production of methylphenidate.

The significant increase in stimulant medication prescribed to children has raised concerns that our society is choosing quick-fix remedies to treat ADHD. "How we deal with our kids' problems reflects our thinking and a much larger problem in our culture," said Lawrence H. Diller, who practices behavioral pediatrics in California and is author of Running on Ritalin: A Physician Reflects on Children, Society and Performance in a Pill.

Although Diller prescribes stimulant medication for children with ADHD, he questions the large number of children currently on the medication in the United States.


INCREASED DRUG USE FOR KIDS OF ALMOST ALL AGES
The use of stimulant medication is not seen just in school-aged children. The number of preschool children using stimulant medication for ADHD has increased significantly as well.
A study, Trends in the Prescribing of Psychotropic Medications to Preschoolers, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that psychotropic medication use tripled in preschool children ages two to four over a five-year span.

The researchers also stated that though the use of methylphenidate had significantly increased among all age groups, it had increased by 311 percent for 15- through 19-year-olds during the past 15 years. Use among children ages 5 to 14 increased by approximately 170 percent."

Link to full article: http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/issues148a.shtml


Famous People with Learning Disabilities

"Albert Einstein showed learning disability. He was a ‘below average’ student at school. He could not speak until he was three and was weak in Math. He grew up to become one of the greatest Mathematicians.

Other famed people with learning disabilities were Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. Edison found difficulty in reading until he was twelve and in writing, even after that.

It is believed that Leonardo Da Vinci, needless to say who he was, was dyslectic. Sylvester Stallone, Cher, Tom Cruise, Mozart and Robin Williams, who are enlisted as being famous in the field of art, have been victims of learning disabilities.

Lewis Carroll, famous for authoring ‘Alice in Wonderland’, suffered from a stammer in speech. George Bernard Shaw is reported to have had an Attention deficit disorder.

Suzanne Somers, famous for her work in ‘Three’s company’ was a poor student at school and was diagnosed of dyslexia. A relatively recent example of a learning disability is Phillip Manuel, a famous jazz vocalist who was identified of having AD/HD in the year 2000.

The very well known Napoleon Bonaparte had to struggle with dyslexia. Winston Churchill, who is famous for leading Great Britain during World War II, suffered from speech impediment during his childhood.

Woodrow Wilson did not learn the alphabet until an age of nine and was unable to read until an age of twelve. This shows that he probably had a learning disability.

We know of Jackie Stewart. He has described in his biography, his dyslexia. He has written about his inferiority complex at school and how he overcame it.

Bruce Jenner, the world’s greatest athlete as he was called, had fallen prey to learning disabilities.

Business Entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, David Neeleman and Charles Schwab were dyslexics. Donald Winkler, defeating his dyslexia, inspired many to become successful.

The Indian movie, "Taarein Zameen Par", brought learning disabilities in children under the Spotlight and counseled parents about how they should react to children exhibiting such disabilities.

Actor Aamir Khan was shown to illustrate the learning disabilities in some well-known people, thus rousing the parents all over the world to realize the possibility of some very unique talent to stem out of their kids!

The movie also tries to comfort children with learning disabilities and here were some examples of some famous people who had learning disabilities when they were young.

All the celebrities mentioned above and those left unmentioned had one commonality of striving towards success and attaining it, in spite of their learning disabilities.
Feelings of shame, fear, depression and loneliness are evident in dyslexics.

These famous people got over all these negativities and conquered not only their disabilities but also the world, by winning hearts and becoming inspirers for the aspirants world over!"

Link to full article: http://www.adhdsignsandsymptoms.com/robin-williams-with-adhd


The Wall Street Journal on 18th May 2009 Published and article written by David Armstrong titled Children Use Of Psychiatric Drugs Begin To Decelerate.
Link to article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260376459428599.html