What is Conductive Education? Conductive Education (CE) is a method to help people with cerebral palsy (CP) overcome motor dysfunctions while developing healthy personalities.
CE asserts that human life and development go beyond medical and social characteristics and include psychological ones, among others. And, as with all quality education programs, CE seeks to create independent, self-directed learners who build their own ways to mainstream into society and function as equals.
Where and when did Conductive Education begin? Hungarian-born Jewish physician and professor András Petõ developed CE in the 1920s and 1930s, in Budapest. Following Professor Petõ's observation that basing rehabilitation and education on motor dysfunctions results in crippled personalities, his new method encouraged children with CP to take responsibility for their lives. He called it seelische Heilung, healing of the soul.
Professor Petõ continued working with children and adults with motor dysfunctions from the late1940s until his death in 1967, when Mária Hári, his student, assumed his practice.
In the mid 1980s, following a BBC television documentary on CE, popular enthusiasm spread quickly from the United Kingdom to Israel. Here, families of children with CP who watched the documentary decided to explore the method directly. They began traveling with their children to Budapest for long periods (up to three years) of training in CE.
Who is the conductor? Conductors are specialist educators who provide CE for children and adults with CP and motor dysfunctions. Conductors are specially trained and certified education rehabilitation professionals in CE.
Professor Petõ's four-year training program for conductors, in Budapest, has, since the mid-1980s trained students from outside Hungary, too.
Israeli training program for conductors Today, at the Petõ Institute, Israeli special education teachers spend two semesters in Budapest as part of their supplementary three-year conductor training in Tsad Kadima frameworks.
Tsad Kadima offers qualified special education teachers a three-year training program leading to a CE certificate that the European Union and Israel recognize. The program graduates, who spend two semesters in Budapest, serve in the multiple frameworks of Tsad Kadima's programs throughout Israel.
