Yesterday news of Júlia Dévai's hundredth birthday appeared on Andrew Sutton's blog at
Who is Júlia Dévai, you may ask. Well, she played a major role in the development of András Pető's Conductive Education from 1947-1952 and worked with him in his Institute.
In recent years she has spoken and written about this period in her life and I first came across her when a paper that had been read at a conference in Israel, was donated to the National Library of Conductive Education in the late 1990s. When Andrew and I were preparing our recent publication András Pető, I contacted her to ask permission to include her paper in the book. She responded by offering to re-write it, including more detail, and that is what we published. In 2012 the Hungarian- language version of this was also published in a book, edited by her daughter, Sophia Kalman.
Investigating further I realised she had produced other reminiscences too of the early days of conductive pedagogy, so here is a list of them all to celebrate her 100th birthday:
Devai, J. (1997) The first years with András Pető ; the birth of Conductive Education.
Unpublished paper read at Conductive Education conference, Tsad Kadima, Jerusalem, October 1997.
Dèvai, J. (1999) The first years with András Pető: the birth of Conductive Education. In Forrai, J., ed., Memoirs of the beginnings of conductive pedagogy and András Pető. Budapest and Birmingham: Új Aranyhíd and Foundation for Conductive Education, pp. 151-156.
Dèvai, J. (2005) Emlékeim. InBalogh, M. (ed.) Hári Mária (1923-2001).Budapest: Pető Institute,
pp.46-52.
Dévai, J. (2007) My memories. InBalogh, M. ed., Hári Mária and her Conductive Education.
Budapest: Pető Institute, pp. 46-53. [English translation of Emlékim]
Dèvai, J. (2012) Personal memories from the days of the beginning of Conductive Education. In
Maguire, G. and Sutton, A. ed., András Pető. Birmingham: Conductive Education Press, pp.45-70.
Dèvai, J. (2012) Egyszer volt, s ma is van: a sokarcú Pető – a konduktív nevelés kezdetei. In Kálman, Z., ed., Negyedszázad a kommunikáció bűvöletében. Budapest: Bliss Alapitvány, pp.73-101.