I, Elliot

I’ll be exploring a different perspective — the participant’s view. Most, if not all, discussion of language issues in the conductive movement so far has been aimed at and written by the professionals (conductors and others).

‘Hands-on’, or not?

A few weeks ago, Andrew Sutton wrote via twitter, ‘Conductive Education is NOT “hands on”: a quick-and-dirty investigation.’. It was a teaser for his article is titled Balderdash today - 3.

My initial reaction was one of surprise, I thought, ‘that doesn’t sound like the CE I know, loved and hated’. What I experienced at the Pető Institute was hands on, meaning practical, rather than theoretical, meaning active participation (of both parties). I remember the close physical contact between my body and the hands (and sometimes feet) of the conductor, as they tried to coax my wayward limbs into better positions. I loved it for the sense of independence and confidence it gave me, the sense of belonging. I hated the pain, feeling that me legs were going to give way, aching with tiredness; the friction of holding the plinth, and the pain of banging my elbow as it was caught between the slats (but I’d rather that than slide about on the mats that cover the plinths these days).

Letting go

My experience may have been hands-on in the physical sense, but ‘hands off’, not holding on, was a challenge I had to face. In Conductive Education letting go is necessary. ‘I am forever telling them in the Kindergarten: “Let go but be ready to catch!”’, said Susie Mallett on her blog (Mallett, 2009). It is important that conductors and parents let go of their children, in order allow them the opportunity to learn. You can’t learn what it feels like to maintain your balance if there is somebody holding on to you! As Susie points out, “‘Hands off’ doesn’t mean ‘Mind off, and on to other thoughts’”, so a conductor must observe.

Letting go to allow learning didn’t mean I had no support or aid. I wasn’t expected to let go all at once. It was progressive, letting of one support and exchanging it for another. I remember being supported by several conductors at first to get me on to my feet. Then they started to let go, I did more of the action for myself, while they observed. I was taught how to fall safely, but they would catch as a last resort. I was encouraged to use a pair of tripod walking sticks as a substitute support. Soon enough, I was moved on to mono-ferule sticks, as my confidence grew, two sticks became one. Eventually, I had to let go of my stick, I had to walk unaided — though I was always guided and observed by a conductor.

Balderdash

In Balderdash today - 3, Andrew rightly, urges caution in our choice of words. He writes about the expression ‘hands on’:

My aversion comes to the fore when it relates uncritically and undifferentiatedly to the upbringing and education of disabled children with motor disorders (and activities on behalf of disabled adults too).

I think Andrew was referring to people who use the expression ‘hands-on’ in a different way to me. People who’d say “it’s a ‘hands-on’ system”, without understanding what it means, thereby not having to commit to describing it as either therapy or education.

It seems to me, that when people working with disabled people speak of their work, they use the phrase hands-on to emphasise that what they are doing is physically and emotionally engaging — when it comes to disability — nobody wants to be seen to be ‘hands off’. That doesn’t mean that it is a always positive or rewarding experience for disabled people or their families. However positive the phrasing may make it seem. Hands-on does not necessarily mean beneficial to the disabled.

The Compact Oxford dictionary defines, hands-on as ‘involving or offering active participation’, so you could legitimately say of CE that is hands-on. That’s what I was thinking when I read the tweet. I would describe my experience of CE as one of ‘active participation’. I don’t feel the same way about much of the physiotherapy I’ve received, however well meant it may have been. I’ve frequently felt I was being treated simply as another case, an object, they soon moved on to the next. There was rarely any standing back to observe, to allow the me space to learn.

As shown in the examples cited by Andrew, the adjective hands-on when used to describe activities in the conductive world, can be redundant — it does nothing to enhance meaning — or worse, detracts from it, failing to offer distinction from other, largely therapeutic, approaches.

I don’t know whether harm is being done to the conductive movement by this weasel word. I’d like to think it gets filtered out when people see or hear it. But I suspect that is an ideal, rather than the reality.

Stop and think

William Zinsser wrote in On Writing Well:

Most adjectives are also unnecessary. Like adverbs they are sprinkled into sentences by writers who don’t stop to think that the concept is already in the noun.

Or in the case of CE, don’t pause for a moment to consider what people might think, when they come across our false friend hands-on.

References

Mallett, S. (2009). Hands off! Retrieved 1 January, 2010, from http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/12/hands-off.html.

Sutton, A. (2009). Balderdash today – 3: Engaging the mouth before the mind An empirical study. http://www.conductive-world.info/2009/12/balderdash-today-3.html Retrieved 1 January, 2010.