CCCI Student handout
in...@alexanderschool.edu.au
School for F.M. Alexander Studies
This year we will be reading Constructive Conscious Control of the
Individual. We will start on Tuesday 30th January with Part One -
pages 3 - 12 of the Mouritz edition.
We will not be covering the Foreword by Walter Carrington, Prefaces by
Alexander or introduction by John Dewey, but I would recommend that
people do read them.
In overall structure the book is divided into four parts with a short
conclusion. As Alexander makes clear in his Preface the importance of
the role of sensory appreciation is emphased by the names he has given
these four parts - the name of each part is prefaced by the words
"Sensory Appreciation in its relation to...."
1. Sensory Appreciation in its relation to Man's Evolutionary
Development
2. Sensory Appreciation in its relation to learning and Learning to do
3. Sensory Appreciation in its relation to Man's needs
4. Sensory Appreciation in its relation to happiness
The emphasis on sensory appreciation and Alexander's emphasis on the
need to undergo a process to move from faulty to reliable sensory
appreciation is one of the basic refrains of Alexander's writings. As
he states in the "Use of the Self" whilst describing his journey in
overcoming his voice problem, "If, then, as I suspected, this
untrustworthiness of feeling was a product of civilized life, it would
tend as time went on, to become more and more a universal menace, in
which case a knowledge of the means whereby trustworthiness could be
restored to feeling would be invaluable. I saw that the search for
this knowledge would open up an entirely new field of exploration and
one that promised more than any that I had yet heard of, and I began
to reconsider my difficulties in the light of this new fact."
Dewey in his Introduction points out the uniqueness of this approach.
As he points out a large number of approaches emphasise the need for
"consciousness (which merely registers bad conditions)". In some other
approaches he continues "this conciousness has been neglected entirely
and dependence placed instead on bodily exercises, rectifications of
posture etc."
Reading the text
Alexander's writings are on the whole not an easy read especially for
those unused to the close study of dense writing. Some trainees
struggle to come to grips with the writing in the first year, but by
the third year the difficulty becomes much less and the level of
comprehension much higher, both because they have a much deeper level
of practical experience of the work and they have developed the
conceptual skills to be able to read the texts. Alexander was
struggling to put into words a genuinely new way of thinking. He put
enormous care, and was helped by editors of the calibre of John Dewey
to put down his discoveries as clearly as possible. The considerable
subtlety of many of his ideas and the fact that Alexander like many
philosophers was not a natural writer means that we often have to work
to extract the meaning from the writing
He alludes in his Preface to the difficulty he had in setting down "in
a sufficiently clear way, the results of my experiences in unfamiliar
fields. This difficulty lies in the fact that the adequate description
of these experiences, for purposes of practical application, calls for
new and more comprehensive words than we have at our command. It is
obvious that the most appropriate word (or words) chosen in order to
convey an idea, will prove inadequate to express the aggregate, after
an element that is new has been added to the idea. In such a case, we
are forced either to use a word (or words) that is inadequate, or to
coin one in an attempt to express adequately the expanded idea.
Expanding ideas are the forerunners of human advancement."
We expect that you will read the text critically. It is not holy writ
and from time to time Alexander makes statements, which are simply
wrong. But texts can only be read critically if we first understand
what is actually written and it is your responsibility to come to each
book session with either a clear understanding of what is written, or
a clear understanding of what it is you don't understand.
In each of his books, Alexander begins in the first section to provide
clear definitions for how he is using his specialist vocabulary. This
is the vocabulary we are using in the training course, and this is the
vocabulary, which along with the underlying basic concepts of the
technique, all of us as teachers need to be able to translate and
transmit to our pupils and to be able to apply to ourselves. The book
sessions are aimed at developing these competencies by the time
trainees get to student clinic in the second half of their third year.
The book session and the rest of the week.
We have a more formal discussion on the book session each week, but
all teachers at the school will also have read the relevant passage,
and in both groups and turns the current book-reading may provide a
starting point for further discussion and exploration. Feel free to
bring up any points which remain confusing from the weeks reading with
other teachers for often one teacher's explication will help
illuminate a point which you may have been struggling with.
Book Reading (page references refer to the Mouritz edition
1. Tuesday 30th January CCCI - Part One - Pages 3 - 12 (up to
heading "Recognition & Satisfaction of Essential Needs")
2. Tuesday 6th February - Part One - Pages 12 - 21 (up to heading
"Influence of Sensory Appreciation upon Conception).
3. Tuesday 27th February - Part One - Pages 21 - 38 (up to heading
"Specific Remedy Chosen).
4. Tuesday 6th March - Part One - Pages 39 - 53 (up to heading "Need
for Substituting in all Spheres).
5. Tuesday 13th March - Part One - Pages 53 - 66 (end of Part One)
6. Tuesday 27th March - Part Two - Chapter One "Education and Re-
Education"