Re: Beyond Deming

[bracken.berry@freeuk.com]

Myron Tribus:
> 
> I believe that i have found the method in the works of Reuven 
> Feuerstein, the Israeli psychologist who opened my eyes to what was 
> possible in changing the way people think.  > >


I came to Feuerstein's ideas partly through serendipity - vital 
learning agent - and partly through MT's own excellent articles in the 
education area. It was great to find a thinker who was prepared to say 
that children were capable of much more than the existing system 
allowed or admitted; the link with Deming's guiding ideas seems obvious,
once you think of it. I have difficulty imagining a Feuerstein 
revolution in the English state  educational system because the people 
in it, by and large, see that system as serving them, rather than the 
kids and their parents. I have met with strong resistance to the notion 
of 'Special Needs' kids might achieve more. The last time because a 
Headteacher was afraid the kid in question might then stop being '
Special Needs' and therefore the school would lose the Special Funding 
it got because of the child's Special Needs.....

With this sort of thinking endemic, which way into this system to 
change it? I've had to move most of my activity out of the system, to 
write about and study it. The System - any? -  is comfortable with that 
sort of 'academic' distance, but not with changed re-entry. I believe 
Feuerstein's notion, if not his system, applies to all children. But in 
a closed system, out of competitive markets who do you tell? Do you 
have to create a parallel system out of your own, necessarily depleted. 
pocket??

Paul Ingram
Shropshire, England


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