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It’s been a quiet week in Cuyahoga Falls…
Late Thursday night in Syracuse I was wakened by a young girl’s shrill question: “Why are these hallways so long?!!” Right outside my door her friends laughed loudly and several spoke at once, as if it weren’t possible for anyone else to hear them, as if there were no possibility that an old, tired guy like me could be a dozen feet away and sound asleep.
I startled and thought, “Context” and I knew I had been given this week’s column about my trip.
This month I’ll increase my teaching schedule from 6 courses a month to 9. I’ll get used to it, and I know that the sheer number of experiences in front of a class will teach me things I couldn’t possibly learn another way. What I look forward to the most is the discovery of a few phrases that others find compelling and that drive their understanding in a direction I’d like it to go. I know a few, but as the course evolves in relation to my reading other phrases show up. Bert Lahr of “Cowardly Lion” fame once told his son, “I don’t know what’s funny – the audience tells me.” For me, good teaching is like that.
I believe it was Ian Stevens from Scotland that sent me this link months ago. In this short, wonderful essay, Frank Forencich echoes some of the revelations offered us elsewhere by Diane Jacobs regarding the role of embryologic development. Specifically that the ectoderm uses the mesoderm, that ectodermal action is context dependent, and that the culture creates the context.
Let me explain. If you see a child being admonished to keep their voice down in a restaurant you know that the child’s brain (ectoderm) is being trained to use the muscles (mesoderm) that drive speech in a certain way when in a restaurant. He or she eventually learns that within the context of restaurants there are vast variations as well. As Forencich notes, “What we call “education” is the process by which we learn to recognize context, operate within it, and move fluidly from one context to another.” Forencich calls it “context appreciation,” and, to me, it has everything in the world to do with the effect of manual care. As Cory Blickenstaff has helped us understand in this amazing thread, “Those interventions which allow a movement to be performed in a non-threatening context will be successful.”
Now, when I touch another I have offered them an entirely new context to sense and respond to. If my handling is non-threatening and my manner implies no judgment or intention their brain now has an opportunity to drive their muscles in a unique fashion. If it’s an instinctive response beyond protection it will be ideomotion; it will be corrective and it will help in ways most have not previously seen or imagined possible. It’s manual magic, and pretty cool, in my experience.
And this “magical” care has everything in the world to do with context. I say to my classes, “Create a culture between your hands that the patient senses as safe, novel and inviting. Introduce them to their own instinctive inclinations and they will surprise you with what they can do. When the characteristics of correction are evident encourage more of that behavior, especially when you’re not around.” It appears that this explanation about Simple Contact is something the class can relate to and that I’ve recently found the words that compel them to change what they do. Of course, the culture of their clinics rarely encourages such behavior on their part.
One day that young girl outside my hotel room door will realize that others are probably sleeping nearby and she will change her behavior to fit the context. When the context changes a few moments later she’ll seamlessly shift again and that’s what we call maturation.
It’s my job as a therapist and teacher to show others how powerful this is, and how we ignore that power at our peril. Like anything else, knowing about it not only helps us control it, it helps us understand when we can’t.
I didn’t open fling open the door and tell these girls to shut up. I’ve finally learned that this isn’t the best way to teach others. I just smiled slightly at the lesson, turned my head, and went back to sleep.
Late Thursday night in Syracuse I was wakened by a young girl’s shrill question: “Why are these hallways so long?!!” Right outside my door her friends laughed loudly and several spoke at once, as if it weren’t possible for anyone else to hear them, as if there were no possibility that an old, tired guy like me could be a dozen feet away and sound asleep.
I startled and thought, “Context” and I knew I had been given this week’s column about my trip.
This month I’ll increase my teaching schedule from 6 courses a month to 9. I’ll get used to it, and I know that the sheer number of experiences in front of a class will teach me things I couldn’t possibly learn another way. What I look forward to the most is the discovery of a few phrases that others find compelling and that drive their understanding in a direction I’d like it to go. I know a few, but as the course evolves in relation to my reading other phrases show up. Bert Lahr of “Cowardly Lion” fame once told his son, “I don’t know what’s funny – the audience tells me.” For me, good teaching is like that.
I believe it was Ian Stevens from Scotland that sent me this link months ago. In this short, wonderful essay, Frank Forencich echoes some of the revelations offered us elsewhere by Diane Jacobs regarding the role of embryologic development. Specifically that the ectoderm uses the mesoderm, that ectodermal action is context dependent, and that the culture creates the context.
Let me explain. If you see a child being admonished to keep their voice down in a restaurant you know that the child’s brain (ectoderm) is being trained to use the muscles (mesoderm) that drive speech in a certain way when in a restaurant. He or she eventually learns that within the context of restaurants there are vast variations as well. As Forencich notes, “What we call “education” is the process by which we learn to recognize context, operate within it, and move fluidly from one context to another.” Forencich calls it “context appreciation,” and, to me, it has everything in the world to do with the effect of manual care. As Cory Blickenstaff has helped us understand in this amazing thread, “Those interventions which allow a movement to be performed in a non-threatening context will be successful.”
Now, when I touch another I have offered them an entirely new context to sense and respond to. If my handling is non-threatening and my manner implies no judgment or intention their brain now has an opportunity to drive their muscles in a unique fashion. If it’s an instinctive response beyond protection it will be ideomotion; it will be corrective and it will help in ways most have not previously seen or imagined possible. It’s manual magic, and pretty cool, in my experience.
And this “magical” care has everything in the world to do with context. I say to my classes, “Create a culture between your hands that the patient senses as safe, novel and inviting. Introduce them to their own instinctive inclinations and they will surprise you with what they can do. When the characteristics of correction are evident encourage more of that behavior, especially when you’re not around.” It appears that this explanation about Simple Contact is something the class can relate to and that I’ve recently found the words that compel them to change what they do. Of course, the culture of their clinics rarely encourages such behavior on their part.
One day that young girl outside my hotel room door will realize that others are probably sleeping nearby and she will change her behavior to fit the context. When the context changes a few moments later she’ll seamlessly shift again and that’s what we call maturation.
It’s my job as a therapist and teacher to show others how powerful this is, and how we ignore that power at our peril. Like anything else, knowing about it not only helps us control it, it helps us understand when we can’t.
I didn’t open fling open the door and tell these girls to shut up. I’ve finally learned that this isn’t the best way to teach others. I just smiled slightly at the lesson, turned my head, and went back to sleep.
ABSTRACT
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