Movement therapy (Alexander technique and others) assists people to increase their awareness so that they are gentler with their bodies in all movement, not just at work.
Partly because it's not accepted by the medical establishment (not having been discovered by a physician) and not reimbursed by insurance companies, and in large part because it requires willingness to change and acceptance of responsibility by the client, the potential of movement therapy has gone too long unrecognized.
As an Alexander teacher, I have worked with people who got immediate relief of their pain but chose not to pursue further study and thus fell back into their dysfunctional, painful movement patterns.
Less dramatic than a shot of cortisone, less rewarded with secondary gains than invasive surgery, change takes time and is often a struggle.
However, by addressing the person's overall movement patterns, healing can take place, and not at the expense of another part of the body.
Could this be the kind of worker training Mr. Burns had in mind?
Such useful strategies are largely ignored, as employers and their employees don't find effective help because they and their doctors don't know about, or won't explore, other options.
The possibility exists now for effective, low-cost, non-invasive intervention with no negative side effects. No dangerous drugs, no impressive machines, no pain, no "learn to live with it."
Just low-tech, gentle movement facilitating gradual change with a holistic approach.
Could this be the reason for the lack of popularity of this method?
Karen Guertler, R.N.
Baltimore
Schools Also Need Report Cards, Just as Students Do
In Maryland and across the nation, parents, students and citizens all want and expect the same things from the public schools.
We want schools that will inspire students to do their best and to take responsibility for their own learning; schools that would rather aim too high than too low. We want our children to be well-read, to be able to express themselves, to have a grounding in math and science and reasoning. We want our children to be safe, and to be able to go to schools that are free of violence and drugs.
L But how do we make our expectations of schools into reality?
Maryland is one of a growing number of states that are finding the answer: spell out exactly what students should know and be able to do, and help schools to reach this level when they fall
short.
Just as we grade our students to let them know how they are doing, it is necessary and appropriate for us to grade our schools.
Ask yourself: Is my fifth-grader now on a path in school that will enable him to assure his choice of jobs when he graduates from high school or college? Is my third-grader on a course that will enable her to work effortlessly with computers in her chosen career, whether as a doctor or a writer or an engineer, by the time she is 21? Will my eighth-grader be thanking his high school teachers 10 years from now?
Grading our schools requires acknowledging changes under way in our world -- advancing technologies, greater competition for jobs, bigger challenges facing families and communities -- and then requiring our schools to make sure that children are well-prepared for the world they will enter when they graduate.
Maryland has taken the first step. Under the leadership of the State Board of Education and Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, the state has undertaken a program crucial for the future of Maryland's children that is watched with great interest by others across the country -- to evaluate all of Maryland's 1,254 public schools.
The program begins with a report card, graded once each year for every school, that looks at student scores in a carefully-chosen variety of academic and reasoning skills. Each school's report card shows where that school is strong and where it needs to improve in preparing students to succeed. With the benefit of this crucial information, parents, teachers, principals and civic leaders in each community work together to make changes their particular school needs to succeed.
The effort is working. Even at this early date, schools are &L beginning to see improvements in how students perform.
In its third year, Maryland's report card for schools already is being praised by school systems nationwide as the example of positive action needed to rebuild public education. While communities across America struggle to begin to address the problems of public schools, Maryland is already on its way to solving those problems.
The Maryland Business Roundtable for Education is comprised of 60 Maryland companies that are committed to improving student achievement and believe strongly that Maryland's report card for schools is the right idea.
If we want children to grow up having choices and opportunities, we must prepare then for tomorrow's world -- a big challenge. The economies of our country and the world are changing.
