[Xmca-l] Re: Conductivism

Tue Aug 9 18:15:10 PDT 2016

Hi Andy,
I have a copy of "Butterflies of Zagorsk" and it is not a piroted one, it was bought by Simon Fraser University at my request many years ago from BBC. Students like it.
Cheers,
Natalia.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net>
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
Sent: Monday, August 8, 2016 5:54:17 PM
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Conductivism

Here is what Andrew said when I asked him about Butterflies:

Dear Andy,
Yes, Lois Holzman is sort of right. Around 25 or so years 
ago the world was rather different from today and the BBC 
was easily persuaded to invest the small fortune that it 
took to make a number of documentary films around the theme 
of the transformability of human psychic development. Not 
only did I spark these off but served as 'technical advisor' 
to all of them and was quite closely involved in their 
making. The BBC distributed information to viewers who wrote 
in after seeing the programmes, and even published a small 
book. It was all great fun and for while I risked a little 
optimism, but the world changed... They were quite good 
films in their way. Not at a technical level, if by that one 
means in terms of how well they portrayed the 
psycho-educational principles and the philosophies that each 
concerned, but as propaganda that move people who knew. The 
director and writer had their own ideas of what could make 
powerful television and parts of all these films are 
technically weak at what I regarded as their central themes. 
What did I know, though? I was just pleased to let Ann Paul 
the producer/director and Michael Dean the writer have their 
head. One of the films enjoyed some critical acclaim and 
even for a time affected social policy at the national level 
(not The Butterflies of Zagorsk). Many professionals in the 
relevant sectors hated them. That was all fun too. The 
Butterflies of Zagorsk was a hour long, and perhaps it might 
have been better at more tightly edited at fifty minutes. At 
the superficial level it portrayed the work of the Deaf-Bind 
Children's Home at Zagorsk (now Sergiev Posad). that was the 
concrete heritage of Sololyanskii and Meshcheriyakov, and of 
course Il'enkov, represented in still living pedagogy and 
upbringing. More deeply it tried to convey the 
social-cultural/historical understanding of L. S. 
Vygotskii's social-cultural/historical understanding and 
what this implies. So, Lois Holzman rather overstated my 
role in all this. I did not make them and had no formal 
ownership. Ownership was with the BBC and the BBC is 
notoriously jealous of its intellectual property – hence 
their later absence from YouTube. One could for a while buy 
tapes of these films above board (at a fiendish cost) but 
following major reorganisation at the BBC, including closure 
of its Documentaries Department, this facility disappeared. 
A few years ago I wrote to ask about the present situation 
but could find no one at the BBC who knew even how to find 
out about this, and by then I knew nobody higher up who 
could lean on the organisation! As an an immediate response 
to your question about availability' of The Butterflies of 
Zagorsk I can give only the same answer that I have had to 
give so many times over the years. Unless you come across a 
copy of a pirated example somewhere, you may search in vain. 
I do not have one myself (the early nineties were tumultuous 
times for me), nor do I think that Ann Paul (long now 
retired) has either. I am in Germany for a few days at the 
moment but when I get back I shall follow one lead that 
occurs to me. Nil desperandum, but don't hold your breath! 
Of course, if your Portuguese is up to it, in the meantime 
you can watch this film on YouTube, under the title of As 
borboletas de Zagorsk.: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKnQt9F--NgHfOKHCpRwxKClD4Eo0lY87I 
suspect that this is a pirated version of a 'official' 
version sold abroad by the BBC, probably for broadcast in 
Brazil. It sold the film to other foreign broadcasting 
companies too, so a thorough search might find other 
leads.The Portuguese one references above is a terrible 
print, and of course probably loses something in translation 
of what the original actually said. Look up the Portuguese 
title on Google, though, and you will see that even so the 
film is still powerful enough to attract attention. Best 
answer that I can offer in my present situation, Andrew.

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy 
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 

On 5/08/2016 11:27 AM, Lois Holzman wrote:
> Hi Andy,
> I know of it through Andrew Sutton andrew@conductive-education.org.uk
>
> http://e-conduction.org/ceinformation/category/andrew-sutton/ <http://e-conduction.org/ceinformation/category/andrew-sutton/>
> http://www.blurb.com/b/1736366-internationalising-conductive-education <http://www.blurb.com/b/1736366-internationalising-conductive-education>
> /http://www.specialworld.net/2016/04/05/conductive-education-the-unfinished-story/ <http://www.specialworld.net/2016/04/05/conductive-education-the-unfinished-story/>—read this one for the latest
> http://www.conductive-world.info <http://www.conductive-world.info/>—Andrew's site
>
> I met Andrew a long time ago because as the person who made the documentary Butterflies of Zagorsk (mentioned on XMCA a bunch of times) and learned of his work with conductive education from him.
>
> I hope this is helpful.
>
> Lois
>
> Lois Holzman
> Director, East Side Institute for Group & Short Term Psychotherapy
> 119 West 23 St, suite 902
> New York, NY 10011
> Chair, Global Outreach, All Stars Project, UX
> Tel. +1.212.941.8906 x324
> Fax +1.718.797.3966
> lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org
> Social Media
> Facebook  <https://www.facebook.com/lois.holzman.5>| LinkedIn <http://www.%20linkedin.com/pub/lois-holzman> | Twitter <https://twitter.com/LoisHolzman>
> Blogs
> Psychology Today <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/conceptual-revolution>| Psychology of Becoming <http://loisholzman.org/> | Mad in America <http://www.madinamerica.com/author/lois/>
> Websites
> Lois Holzman <http://loisholzman.org/> | East Side Institute <http://eastsideinstitute.org/> | Performing the World <http://www.performingtheworld.org/>
> All Stars Project <http://allstars.org/>
>
>   
>
>> On Aug 4, 2016, at 9:14 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone know anything about "conductivism"?
>>
>> I understand it is a school of educational psychology which is used in the education of severely disabled children, it came out of Hungary and they have an interest in Vygotsky. And I think the name is an allusion to the "conductor" of an orchestra.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> -- 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden
>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>
>