Andrew Sutton distinguishes "ability" and "potential" saying "The two should never be confused." Personally I would not confuse them as I have no use (and especially see no use in Conductive Education) for the term when thinking about the education or upbringing of children. I added a Comment to Andrew's post to this effect. "Whether fulfilling, reaching or unlocking, I am at a loss to understand how the notion of potential, however defined, contributes anything to my understanding of pedagogy. It seems to me to be a relic term from a whole different era of understanding (still sadly widespread)."
This post is actually not to pursue that thread but just to point to an article on pedagogy, the recollection of which was sparked off by Andrew's, I'm sure, deliberate use of the term "conductive pedagogy" rather than the familiar, in English, term "conductive education". The author of the following is Professor Pat Petrie, of University College London, an article originally published in the journal Social Work in Europe (Vol 8. No 3. 2001)
"Pedagogy is difficult for English ears, and, outside certain specialist circles, it is largely unused. In my own institution and similar places, we mostly use it in the sense of the science of teaching and learning as it relates to the formal curriculum of school, college and university (e.g. Mortimore, 1999) - what many of our European colleagues might refer to as ‘didactics’, rather than pedagogy or education.
Not only is ‘pedagogy’ used differently, in the Anglophone world, it is a term that can disappear in translation. In papers that I have had translated, ‘pedagogy’ too often becomes ‘education’. However, in some countries, such as France, éducation and its variants are, like ‘pedagogy’, given a much broader meaning than they have in the UK. Education and ‘pedagogy’ as used in continental Europe, often relate to the whole person: body, mind, feelings, spirit, creativity and, crucially, the relationship of the individual to others - their connectedness. The domain of pedagogy/ education is, therefore, the social domain, and the work of the pedagogue/educator is conducted via relationships; relationships in which the pedagogue/ educator is often the member of a group, of children or adults, but sometimes works one-to-one."
The italics are mine but what is described here seems to me to be closer to conductive pedagogy (or conductive education, if we prefer) than any sense we might make of "potential" - and much of what still passes for education ("schooling") in the UK.
PS. The whole of Professor Petrie's article, with some reservations where I have questions I would like to ask her, is worth reading. Her concluding paragraph is: "Moreover, at the level of practice, the pedagogue, exercising an emancipatory pedagogy and respecting children as social agents, could ensure that children and young people were themselves brought more fully into the discussion." I rather like the sound of an "emancipatory pedagogy".