C.E. Jottings

"If I were PM for a day, I would ...." - former Civil Service Head's surprising proposal

So what one thing would you do if you were Prime Minister for the day? Lord O'Donnell, Gus O'Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, interviewed in today's The Times "Good luck dismissing the experts if your car breaks down, Mr Gove" (£ paywall), makes a somewhat surprising proposal: "If I could be prime minister for a day, the first thing I would do is to make schools measure the well-being of their pupils." Admittedly, his reasoning... Read more →

Neuroscience - education's unfulfilled promise

On June 24th this year, TES (once The Times Educational Supplement) had an article "The False Promise of Neuroeducation" by Hilary and Steven Rose. If you want to catch the article it's behind a paywall. I did't read it - because I had just then bought the Rose's book "Can neuroscience change our minds?" A good read it was too. But I didn't quite buy in to the basic premise, of which more in a moment. I did read, many... Read more →

A Charter for Conductive Education? 10 human fundamentals of conductive pedagogy & "The Aylesbury Declaration"

In my previous post, I was wondering whether "The Social Pedagogy Charter" might provide a model for something similar for conductive education. Later, that set me wondering if anything similar already existed. Digging around a bit in my files, two possibilities appeared. The first is an article by Katalin Biró "Fundamentals of conductive upbringing" published in Recent Advances in Conductive Education, 5(1), pp.4-10 possibly in June 2006. The article Abstract is as follows "ABSTRACT. Over many years the author collaborated... Read more →

The Social Pedagogy Charter - a model for Conductive Education?

Recently, I asked on CE Jottings "Is conductive education a social pedagogy?" I had been reading a description of social pedagogy and, adapting a couple of extracts to fit conductive education, thought that there might be something in this. For instance: "An action is not conductive because certain methods are used therein, but because some methods are chosen and used as a consequence of conductive thought" and this too "the question to ask is to what degree you are working... Read more →

How the world of adult social care is a construct of lies.

Another telling-it-like-it-is posting from the always worth-reading, Mark Neary: “A daily battle to hold on to my sanity - "Syb Ill. Bas Well. Man Well” (The reference is to the great British TV comedy "Fawlty Towers", featuring John Cleese.) I recommend the read. Try this for a taster: "So much of the social care world is based on lies. The promotion of Choice when there isn’t any. The push for supported living as a beacon of independence when lots of... Read more →