3351 lines
222 KiB
Plaintext
3351 lines
222 KiB
Plaintext
THE BRAILLE MONITOR
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March, 1995
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Barbara Pierce, Editor
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Published in inkprint, Braille, on talking-book disc,
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and cassette by
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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
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MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT
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National Office
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1800 Johnson Street
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Baltimore, Maryland 21230
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* * * *
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Letters to the President, address changes,
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subscription requests, orders for NFB literature,
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articles for the Monitor, and letters to the Editor
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should be sent to the National Office.
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* * * *
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Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five
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dollars per year. Members are invited, and non-members are
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requested, to cover the subscription cost. Donations should be
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made payable to National Federation of the Blind and sent to:
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National Federation of the Blind
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1800 Johnson Street
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Baltimore, Maryland 21230
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* * * *
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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
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SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES
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ISSN 0006-8829 THE BRAILLE MONITOR
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PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
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CONTENTS
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MARCH, 1995
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BLINDNESS: HANDICAP OR CHARACTERISTIC
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by Kenneth Jernigan
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MORE DEVELOPMENTS AT THE ARKANSAS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND
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by Barbara Pierce
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PARENTS: BLIND CHILDREN'S FIRST MOBILITY TEACHERS
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by Joe Cutter
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FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT TO WORK
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by Charles Allen
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AND EVERYBODY LOSES: A HARD LESSON ABOUT DISCRIMINATION
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by Corally Littrell
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AGING AND BLINDNESS: THE DOUBLE WHAMMY
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by Mary Ellen Gabias
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OF READERS, DRIVERS, AND RESPONSIBILITY
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by Peggy Pinder Elliott and Barbara Cheadle
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SKILLS FIRST: TEACHER SAYS ADA CAN'T CREATE JOBS
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by Bill Guida
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FOCUS ON A LEADER: TOMMY CRAIG
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by Elizabeth Campbell
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SHOWCASE CHICAGO
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by Steve Benson
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RECIPES
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MONITOR MINIATURES
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Copyright <20> 1995 National Federation of the Blind [LEAD PHOTO: Caption: March 31 is the application deadline for
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the 1995 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Contest. The
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NFB Board of Directors recently decided to increase the size of
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many of the awards to be presented at the banquet in Chicago on
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Thursday, July 6. As a result this year we will present twenty-two
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$3,000, three $4,000, and one $10,000 scholarships. Application
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forms are available from the Materials Center at the National
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Center for the Blind. Pictured here are four recent $10,000
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scholarship winners.]
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[LEAD #1: Portrait CAPTION: Chris Boone, 1994 scholarship
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winner]
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[LEAD #2: Portrait CAPTION: Mildred Rivera, J.D., 1988
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scholarship winner]
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[LEAD #3: Portrait CAPTION: Dr. Robert Greenberg, 1986
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scholarship winner]
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[LEAD #4: Portrait CAPTION: Pam Dubel, 1991 scholarship
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winner]
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[PHOTO #1: Kenneth Jernigan stands at the podium reading Braille. CAPTION: Kenneth Jernigan
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reads Braille in the Assembly Room at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in 1975.]
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BLINDNESS: HANDICAP OR CHARACTERISTIC
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by Kenneth Jernigan
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From the Editor Emeritus: The first formal presentation of "Blindness--
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Handicap or Characteristic" was when I gave it as the banquet speech at the
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1963 convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Philadelphia.
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However, I had been developing the ideas embodied in it for more than a
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decade, using them in classes at the Tennessee School for the Blind and later at
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the California and Iowa orientation centers.
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After the Philadelphia convention I made a few revisions and gave the
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speech again in Albuquerque--in either 1963 or 1964. I don't remember which. In
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any case it was at a district meeting of Governors' Committees on Employment
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of the Handicapped for a number of southwestern states. The version presented
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at that time is the one we have used ever since, and I think it is fair to say that it
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has been (and still is) regarded as a cornerstone of our philosophy. It has
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probably been the subject of more attacks than most documents we have ever
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issued, and it has also been, according to many Federationists, a great help to
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them in forming their ideas about what blindness is and what it isn't.
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I think I haven't revised "Blindness: Handicap or Characteristic" for at least
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three decades, nor do I think it needs much revising now. It still represents the
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basic core of what I believe about blindness. It occurs to me, however, that a
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number of newer Federationists may not be familiar with this germinal
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document, so I thought it might be well to print it again in the Monitor.
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When I wrote it, I was Director of the Iowa Commission for the Blind, and I
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have left it that way. Even so, a certain amount of superficial changing has been
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done. Here and there I have given a nod to political correctness, and I have
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done some jumping backward and forward in time. This leaves a few rough
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edges, but the body of the document is left intact. So here, with the exceptions I
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have mentioned, is "Blindness: Handicap or Characteristic" as I wrote it over
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thirty years ago:
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It has been wisely observed that philosophy bakes no bread. It has, with
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equal wisdom, been observed that without a philosophy no bread is baked. Let
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me talk to you then about philosophy--my philosophy about blindness--and, in a
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broader sense, my philosophy concerning handicaps in general.
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One prominent authority recently said, "Loss of sight is a dying. When, in
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the full current of his sighted life, blindness comes on a man, it is the end, the
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death, of that sighted life...It is superficial, if not naive, to think of blindness as a
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blow to the eyes only, to sight only. It is a destructive blow to the self-image of a
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man...a blow almost to his being itself!"
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This is one view, a view held by a substantial number of people in the
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world today. But it is not the only view. In my opinion it is not the correct view.
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What is blindness? Is it a "dying"?
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No one is likely to disagree with me if I say that blindness, first of all, is a
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characteristic. But a great many people will disagree when I go on to say that
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blindness is only a characteristic. It is nothing more or less than that. It is
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nothing more special, more peculiar, or more terrible than that suggests. When
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we understand the nature of blindness as a characteristic--a normal
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characteristic like hundreds of others with which each of us must live--we shall
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better understand the real needs to be met by agencies serving the blind, as
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well as the false needs which should not be met.
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By definition a characteristic--any characteristic--is a limitation. A white
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house, for example, is a limited house; it cannot be green or blue or red; it is
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limited to being white. Likewise every characteristic--those we regard as
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strengths as well as those we regard as weaknesses--is a limitation. Each one
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freezes us to some extent into a mold; each restricts to some degree the range
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of possibility, of flexibility, and very often of opportunity as well. Blindness is
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such a limitation. Are blind people more limited than others?
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Let us make a simple comparison. Take a sighted person with an average
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mind (something not too hard to locate); take a blind person with a superior
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mind (something not impossible to locate)--and then make all the other
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characteristics of these two exactly equal (something which certainly is
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impossible). Now, which of the two is more limited? It depends, of course, on
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what you want them to do. If you are choosing up sides for baseball, then the
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blind person is more limited--that is, he or she is "handicapped." If you are
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hunting somebody to teach history or science or to figure out your income tax,
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the sighted person is more limited or "handicapped."
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Many human characteristics are obvious limitations; others are not so
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obvious. Poverty (the lack of material means) is one of the most obvious.
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Ignorance (the lack of knowledge or education) is another. Old age (the lack of
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youth and vigor) is yet another. Blindness (the lack of eyesight) is still another.
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In all these cases the limitations are apparent, or seem to be. But let us look at
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some other common characteristics which do not seem limiting. Take the very
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opposite of old age--youth. Is age a limitation in the case of a youth of twenty?
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Indeed it is, for a person who is twenty will not be considered for most
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responsible positions, especially supervisory or leadership positions. He or she
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may be entirely mature, fully capable, in every way the best qualified applicant
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for the job. Even so, age will bar the person from employment. He or she will be
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classified as too green and immature to handle the responsibility. And even if
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the person were to land the position, others on the job would almost certainly
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resent being supervised by one so young. The characteristic of being twenty is
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definitely a limitation.
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The same holds true for any other age. Take age fifty, which many regard
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as the prime of life. The person of fifty does not have the physical vigor he or
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she had at twenty; and, indeed, most companies (despite recent legislation to
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the contrary) will not start a new employee at that age. When I first wrote those
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words in the 1960's, the Bell Telephone System (yes, it was the Bell System at
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that time) had a general prohibition against hiring anybody over the age of
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thirty-five. But it is interesting to note that the United States Constitution has a
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prohibition against having anybody under thirty-five run for President. The moral
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is plain: any age carries its built-in limitations.
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Let us take another unlikely handicap--not that of ignorance, but its exact
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opposite. Can it be said that education is ever a handicap? The answer is
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definitely yes. In the agency which I headed (I was director of the Iowa
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Commission for the Blind from 1958 to 1978) I would not have hired Albert
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Einstein under any circumstances if he had been alive and available. His fame
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(other people would have continually flocked to the agency and prevented us
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from doing our work) and his intelligence (he would have been bored to
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madness by the routine of most of our jobs) would both have been too severe
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as limitations.
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Here is an actual case in point. When I was Director of the Iowa
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Commission for the Blind, a vacancy occurred on the library staff. Someone was
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needed to perform certain clerical duties and take charge of shelving and
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checking books. After all applicants had been screened, the final choice came
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down to two. Applicant A had a college degree, was seemingly alert, and clearly
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had more than average intelligence. Applicant B had a high school diploma (no
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college), was of average intelligence, and possessed only moderate initiative. I
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hired applicant B. Why? Because I suspected that applicant A would regard the
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work as beneath him, would soon become bored with its undemanding
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assignments, and would leave as soon as something better came along. I would
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then have to find and train another employee. On the other hand, I felt that
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applicant B would consider the work interesting and even challenging, that he
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was thoroughly capable of handling the job, and that he would be not only an
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excellent but also a permanent employee. In fact, he worked out extremely well.
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In other words, in that situation the characteristic of education--the
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possession of a college degree--was a limitation and a handicap. Even
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above-average intelligence was a limitation, and so was a high level of initiative.
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There is a familiar bureaucratic label for this unusual disadvantage: it is the term
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"overqualified."
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This should be enough to make the point--which is that if blindness is a
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limitation (and, indeed, it is), it is so in quite the same way as innumerable other
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characteristics to which human flesh is heir. I believe that blindness has no
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more importance than any of a hundred other characteristics and that the
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average blind person is able to perform the average job in the average place of
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business, and do it as effectively as the average sighted person similarly
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situated. The above average can compete with the above average, the average
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with the average, and the below average with the below average--provided (and
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it is a large proviso) that he or she is given training and opportunity.
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Often when I have advanced this proposition, I have been met with the
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response, "But you can't look at it that way. Just consider what you might have
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done if you had been sighted and still had all the other capacities you now
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possess."
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"Not so," I reply. "We do not compete against what we might have been,
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but only against other people as they now are, with their combination of
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strengths and weaknesses, handicaps and limitations." If we are going down that
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track, why not ask me what I might have done if I had been born with
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Rockefeller's money, the brains of Einstein, the physique of the young Joe
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Louis, and the persuasive abilities of Franklin Roosevelt? (And do I need to
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remind anyone, in passing, that FDR was severely handicapped physically?) I
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wonder if anyone ever said to him:
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"Mr. President, just consider what you might have done if you had not had
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polio!"
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Others have said to me, "But I formerly had sight, so I know what I am
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missing."
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To which I might reply, "And I was formerly twenty, so I know what I am
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missing." Does this mean that I should spend my time grieving for the past. Or
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alternatively should I deal with my current situation, sizing up its possibilities
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and problems and turning them to my advantage? Our characteristics are
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constantly changing, and we are forever acquiring new experiences, limitations,
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and assets. We do not compete against what we formerly were but against other
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people as they now are.
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In a recent issue of a well-known professional journal in the field of work
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with the blind, a blinded veteran, who is now a college professor, puts forward a
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notion of blindness radically different from this. He sets the limitations of
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blindness apart from all others and makes them unique. Having done this, he
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can say that all other human characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses belong
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in one category--and that with regard to them the blind and the sighted are just
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about equal. But the blind person also has the additional and unique limitation of
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blindness. Therefore, there is really nothing the blind person can do quite as
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well as the sighted person, and he or she can continue to hold his or her job
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only because there are charity and goodness in the world.
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What this blind professor does not observe is that the same distinction he
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makes regarding blindness could be made with equal plausibility with respect to
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any of a dozen--perhaps a hundred--other characteristics. For example, suppose
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we distinguish intelligence from all other traits as uniquely different. Then the
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person with above 125 IQ is just about the same as the person with below 125
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IQ--except for intelligence. Therefore, the college professor with less than 125 IQ
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cannot really do anything as well as the person with more than 125 IQ--and can
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continue to hold his or her job only because there are charity and goodness in
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the world.
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"Are we going to assume," says this blind professor, "that all blind people
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are so wonderful in all other areas that they easily make up for any limitations
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imposed by loss of sight? I think not." But why, I ask, should we single out the
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particular characteristic of blindness? We might just as well specify some other.
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For instance, are we going to assume that all people with less than 125 IQ are
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so wonderful in all other areas that they easily make up for any limitations
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imposed by lack of intelligence? I think not.
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This consideration brings us to the problem of terminology and
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semantics--and therewith to the heart of the matter of blindness as a handicap.
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The assumption that the limitation of blindness is so much more severe than
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others that it warrants being singled out for special definition is built into the
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very warp and woof of our language and psychology. Blindness conjures up a
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condition of unrelieved disaster--something much more terrible and dramatic
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than other limitations. Moreover, blindness is a conspicuously visible limitation,
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and there are not so many blind people around that there is any danger that the
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rest of the population will become accustomed to it or take it for granted. If all of
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those in our midst who possess an IQ under 125 exhibited, say, green stripes on
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their faces, I suspect that they would begin to be regarded as inferior to the
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non-striped--and that there would be immediate and tremendous discrimination.
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When someone says to a blind person, "You do things so well that I forget
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you are blind--I simply think of you as being like anybody else," is that really a
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compliment? Suppose one of us went to France, and someone said: "You do
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things so well that I forget you are an American and simply think of you as being
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like anyone else." Would it be a compliment? Of course, the blind person should
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not wear a chip on the shoulder or allow himself or herself to become angry or
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emotionally upset. The blind person should be courteous and should accept the
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statement as the compliment it is meant to be. But the blind person should also
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understand that it is really not complimentary. In reality it says: "It is normal for
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blind people to be inferior and limited, different and much less able than the rest
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of us. Of course, you are still a blind person and still much more limited than I,
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but you have compensated for it so well that I almost forget that you are my
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inferior."
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The social attitudes about blindness are all-pervasive. Not only do they
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affect the sighted but the blind as well. This is one of the most troublesome
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problems which we have to face. Public attitudes about the blind too often
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become the attitudes of the blind. The blind tend to see themselves as others
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see them. They too often accept the public view of their limitations and thus do
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much to make those limitations a reality.
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Several years ago Dr. Jacob Freid (at that time a young teacher of
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sociology and later head of the Jewish Braille Institute of America) performed an
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interesting experiment. He gave a test in photograph identification to black and
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white students at the university where he was teaching. There was one
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photograph of a black woman in a living room of a home of culture--well
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furnished with paintings, sculpture, books, and flowers. Asked to identify the
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person in the photograph, the students said she was a "cleaning woman,"
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"housekeeper," "cook," "laundress," "servant," "domestic," or "nanny." The
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revealing insight is that the black students made the same identification as the
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white students. The woman was Mary McLeod Bethune, one of the most famous
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black women of her time, founder and president of Bethune-Cookman College,
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who held a top post during Franklin Roosevelt's administration, and a person of
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brilliance and prestige in the world of higher education. What this incident tells
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us is that education, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and that when members of a
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minority group do not have correct and complete information about themselves,
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they accept the stereotypes of the majority group even when they are false and
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unjust. Even today, after so many years of the civil rights movement, one
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wonders how many blacks would make the traditional and stereotyped
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identification of the photograph--if not verbally, at least in their hearts.
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Similarly with the blind--the public image is everywhere dominant. This is
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the explanation for the attitude of those blind persons who are ashamed to carry
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a white cane or who try to bluff sight which they do not possess. Although great
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progress is now being made, there are still many people (sighted as well as
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blind) who believe that blindness is not altogether respectable.
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The blind person must devise alternative techniques to do many things
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which would be done with sight if he or she had normal vision. It will be
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observed that I say alternative, not substitute techniques, for the word
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"substitute" connotes inferiority, and the alternative techniques employed by the
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blind person need not be inferior to visual techniques. In fact, some are
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superior. Of course, some are inferior, and some are equal.
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In this connection it is interesting to consider the matter of flying. In
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comparison with the birds, humans begin at a disadvantage. They cannot fly.
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They have no wings. They are "handicapped." But humans see birds flying, and
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they long to do likewise. Humans cannot use the "normal," bird-like method, so
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they begin to devise alternative techniques. In jet airplanes humans now fly
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higher, farther, and faster than any bird that has ever existed. If humans had
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possessed wings, the airplane would probably never have been devised, and the
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inferior wing-flapping method would still be in general use.
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This matter of our irrational images and stereotypes with regard to
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blindness was brought sharply home to me in the early 1960's during the course
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of a rehabilitation conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. I found myself engaged in
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a discussion with Father Carroll, a well-known leader in the field of work with the
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blind at that time. Father Carroll held quite different views from those I have
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been advancing. The error in my argument about blindness as a characteristic,
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he advised me, was that blindness is not in the range of "normal" characteristics.
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Therefore, its limitations are radically different from those of other
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characteristics falling within the normal range. If a normal characteristic is
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simply one possessed by the majority in a group, then it is not normal to have a
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black skin in America or a white skin in the world at large. It is not normal to
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have red hair or to be over six feet tall. If, on the other hand, a normal
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characteristic is simply what this or some other authority defines as being
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normal, then we have a circular argument--one that gets us nowhere.
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In this same discussion I put forward the theory that a person who was
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sighted and of average means and who had all other characteristics in common
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with a blind person of considerable wealth would be less mobile than the blind
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person. I had been arguing that there were alternative techniques (not
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substitute) for doing those things which one would do with sight if one had
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normal vision. Father Carroll, as well as several others, had been contending
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that there was no real, adequate substitute for sight in traveling about. I told the
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story of a wealthy blind man I know who goes to Hawaii or some other place
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every year and who hires sighted attendants and is much more mobile than any
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sighted person I know who has ordinary means since most of the people I know
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can't go to Hawaii at all. After all of the discussion and the fact that I thought I
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had conveyed some understanding of what I was saying, a participant in the
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conference said--as if he thought he was really making a telling point, "Wouldn't
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you admit that the wealthy man in question would be even more mobile if he
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had his sight?"
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This brings us to the subject of services to the blind, and more exactly to
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their proper scope and direction. There are, as I see it, four basic types of
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services now being provided to blind persons by public and private agencies
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and volunteer groups in this country. They are:
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1. services based on the theory that blindness is uniquely different from
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other characteristics and that it carries with it permanent inferiority and severe
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limitations upon activity;
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2. services aimed at teaching the blind person a new and constructive set
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of attitudes about blindness--based on the premise that the prevailing social
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attitudes, assimilated involuntarily by the blind person, are mistaken in content
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and destructive in effect;
|
||
3. services aimed at teaching alternative techniques and skills related to
|
||
blindness; and
|
||
4. services not specifically related to blindness but to other characteristics
|
||
(such as old age and lack of education), which are nevertheless labeled as
|
||
"services to the blind" and included under the generous umbrella of the service
|
||
program.
|
||
For purposes of this discussion, categories three and four are not relevant
|
||
since they are not central to the philosophical point at issue. We are concerned
|
||
here with categories one and two. An illustration of the assumptions underlying
|
||
the first of these four types of services (category one) is the statement quoted
|
||
earlier which begins, "Loss of sight is a dying." At the Little Rock conference
|
||
already mentioned, Father Carroll (who was the one who made the statement)
|
||
elaborated on the tragic metaphor by pointing out that "the eye is a sexual
|
||
symbol" and that, accordingly, the man who has not eyes is not a "whole man."
|
||
He cited the play Oedipus Rex as proof of his contention that the eye is a sexual
|
||
symbol. I believe that this misses the whole point of the classic tragedy. Like
|
||
many moderns, the Greeks considered the severest possible punishment to be
|
||
the loss of sight. Oedipus committed a mortal sin. Unknowingly he had killed his
|
||
father and married his mother. Therefore, his punishment must be
|
||
correspondingly great. But that is just what his self-imposed blindness was--a
|
||
punishment, not a sexual symbol.
|
||
But Father Carroll's view not only misses the point of Oedipus Rex--it
|
||
misses the point of blindness. And in so doing it misses the point of services
|
||
intended to aid the blind. For according to this view what the blind person needs
|
||
most desperately is the help of a psychiatrist--of the kind so prominently in
|
||
evidence at several of the centers and agencies for the blind throughout the
|
||
country. According to this view what the blind person needs most is not travel
|
||
training but therapy. Blind persons will be taught to accept their limitations as
|
||
insurmountable and their difference from others as unbridgeable. They will be
|
||
encouraged to adjust to their painful station as second-class citizens and
|
||
discouraged from any thought of breaking and entering the first-class
|
||
compartment. Moreover, all of this will be done in the name of teaching them
|
||
"independence" and a "realistic" approach to their blindness.
|
||
The two competing types of services for the blind--categories one and two
|
||
on my list of four--with their underlying conflict of philosophy may perhaps be
|
||
clarified by a rather fanciful analogy. All of us recall the case of the Jews in Nazi
|
||
Germany. Suddenly, in the 1930's, the German Jews were told by their society
|
||
that they were "handicapped" persons--that they were inferior to other Germans
|
||
simply by virtue of being Jews. Given this social fact, what sort of adjustment
|
||
services might we have offered to the victim of Jewishness? I suggest that there
|
||
are two alternatives--matching categories one and two on my list of four.
|
||
First, since the Jews have been "normal" individuals until quite recently, it
|
||
will, of course, be quite a shock (or "trauma" as modern lingo has it) for them to
|
||
learn that they are permanently and constitutionally inferior to others and can
|
||
engage only in a limited range of activities. They will, therefore, require a
|
||
psychiatrist to give them counseling and therapy and to reconcile them to their
|
||
lot. They must "adjust" to their handicap and "learn to live" with the fact that they
|
||
are not "whole men and women." If they are, as the propaganda would have it,
|
||
"realistic" they may even manage to be happy. They can be taken to an
|
||
adjustment center, where they may engage in a variety of routine activities
|
||
suitable to Jews. Again, it should be noted that all of this will be done in the
|
||
name of teaching them how to accept reality as Jews. That is one form of
|
||
adjustment training.
|
||
In the case of Nazi Germany, of course, the so-called "adjustment training"
|
||
for the Jews passed the bounds of sanity and ended in the death camps of the
|
||
Holocaust. The custody and control with which we as blind persons deal do not
|
||
generally in present-day society express themselves in such barbarous forms,
|
||
but it should be remembered that blind babies were uniformly exposed on the
|
||
hillsides to die in earlier times. Today's custodial attitudes about the blind are
|
||
more often than not kindly meant--especially if the blind are submissive and
|
||
grateful and if they are willing to stay in their places. In fact, with respect to the
|
||
blind, the day of custodialism is hopefully passing.
|
||
We know what happened to the Jews and others in Nazi Germany who
|
||
rejected the premise that Jewishness equalled inferiority. The problem was not
|
||
in Jewishness but in the perceptions of others. Any real so-called "adjustment"
|
||
would have needed to involve equal treatment and human rights. The problem
|
||
was centered not in the individual but in society and society's perception of the
|
||
individual. In such circumstances (even if anybody had been inclined to use
|
||
one) the psychiatrist would not have been helpful. The so-called professionalism
|
||
of the Nazi psychiatrist would have made no difference since such professionals
|
||
likely had the same misconceptions about Jews as the rest of Nazi society. The
|
||
emphasis could not be on resignation; it had to be on rebellion. That is how it
|
||
might have worked if even the rudiments of civilization had continued, but
|
||
Hitler's madness put an end to dialogue, and to a great deal more.
|
||
Even though we live in a different country and a different time, there is
|
||
much we can learn by contemplating the interaction between Nazi society and
|
||
the Jews. False perceptions about minorities that begin as nothing more than
|
||
distaste or a feeling of superiority can magnify to a point of separation from
|
||
reality. What seemed unthinkable yesterday can become acceptable today,
|
||
commonplace tomorrow, and fanatical dogmatism the day after that. Both
|
||
minorities and majorities can be dehumanized in the process.
|
||
Be that as it may, we must deal with the problems of our own time and
|
||
society (and in our case, particularly with the problems of the blind). We must
|
||
do it with all of the understanding and freedom from preconception we can
|
||
muster. There are still vast differences in the services offered by various
|
||
agencies and volunteer groups doing work with the blind throughout the
|
||
country. At the Little Rock conference to which I have already referred, this was
|
||
even more apparent than it is today, and the differences of philosophy
|
||
repeatedly surfaced. For instance, when blind persons come to a training center,
|
||
what kind of tests do you give them, and why? In Iowa (at least this is how it
|
||
was in the 60's) and in some other centers, the contention is that the blind
|
||
person is a responsible individual and that the emphasis should be on his or her
|
||
knowing what he or she can do. Some of the centers represented at that Little
|
||
Rock conference in 1962 contended that blind trainees needed psychiatric help
|
||
and counseling (regardless of the circumstances and merely by virtue of their
|
||
blindness) and that the emphasis should be on the center personnel's knowing
|
||
what the student could do. I asked them whether they thought services in a
|
||
training center for the blind should be more like those given by a hospital or
|
||
those given by a law school. In a hospital the person is a "patient." This is, by
|
||
the way, a term coming to be used more and more in rehabilitation today. (That
|
||
is what I said in 1962, but I am glad to say that more than thirty years later we
|
||
have made a considerable amount of progress in this area.)
|
||
With respect to patients the doctors decide whether they need an
|
||
operation and what medication they should have. In reality "patients" make few
|
||
of their own decisions. Will the doctor "let" him or her do this or that?
|
||
In a law school, on the other hand, the "students" assume responsibility
|
||
for getting to their own classes and organizing their own work. They plan their
|
||
own careers, seeking advice to the extent that they feel the need for it. If
|
||
students plan unwisely, they pay the price for it, but it is their lives. This does
|
||
not mean that the student does not need the services of the law school. He or
|
||
she probably will become friends with the professors and will discuss legal
|
||
matters with them and socialize with them. From some the student will seek
|
||
counsel and advice concerning personal matters. More and more the student
|
||
will come to be treated as a colleague. Not so the "patient." What does he or she
|
||
know about drugs and medications? Some of the centers represented at the
|
||
Little Rock conference were shocked that we at the Iowa Commission for the
|
||
Blind "socialized" with our students and invited them to our homes. They
|
||
believed that this threatened what they took to be the "professional relationship."
|
||
Our society has so steeped itself in false notions concerning blindness
|
||
that it is most difficult for people to understand the concept of blindness as a
|
||
characteristic, as well as the type of services needed by the blind. As a matter of
|
||
fact, in one way or another, the whole point of all I have been saying is just this:
|
||
Blindness is neither a dying nor a psychological crippling. It need not cause a
|
||
disintegration of personality, and the stereotype which underlies this view is no
|
||
less destructive when it presents itself in the garb of modern science than it was
|
||
when it appeared in the ancient raiment of superstition and witchcraft.
|
||
Throughout the world, but especially in this country, we are today in the
|
||
midst of a vast transition with respect to our attitudes about blindness and the
|
||
whole concept of what handicaps are. We are reassessing and reshaping our
|
||
ideas. In this process the professionals in the field cannot play a lone hand. In
|
||
fact, the organized blind movement must lead the way and form the cutting
|
||
edge. Additionally it is a cardinal principle of our free society that the citizen
|
||
public will hold the balance of decision. In my opinion, it is fortunate that this is
|
||
so, for professionals can become limited in their thinking and committed to
|
||
outworn programs and ideas. The general public must be the balance staff, the
|
||
ultimate weigher of values and setter of standards. In order that the public may
|
||
perform this function with reason and wisdom, it is the duty of the organized
|
||
blind movement to provide information and leadership and to see that the new
|
||
ideas receive the broadest possible dissemination. But even more important, we
|
||
must as blind individuals--each of us--examine ourselves to see that our own
|
||
minds are free from prejudice and preconception.
|
||
|
||
|
||
MORE DEVELOPMENTS AT
|
||
THE ARKANSAS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND
|
||
by Barbara Pierce
|
||
|
||
In the November, 1994, issue of the Braille Monitor we reported on the
|
||
bizarre goings-on for the past twenty years at the Arkansas School for the Blind.
|
||
Leonard Ogburn, superintendent at the school until he was allowed to resign on
|
||
September 23, 1994, had, according to affidavits from a number of women
|
||
school employees and former students, fondled and spanked them. Other
|
||
allegations were made against him as well. Ogburn failed polygraph tests during
|
||
which he denied spanking one of the teachers in connection with her
|
||
performance evaluation, and the teacher had made a tape recording of a
|
||
telephone conversation in which she and her lawyer maintained that he had
|
||
admitted to spanking her. The entire episode was complicated, messy, and
|
||
disturbing. Finally the case seems to be winding down, though less satisfactorily
|
||
than many could have wished. Here is a summary report of what has happened
|
||
since mid-October, when the November issue of the Braille Monitor went to
|
||
press.
|
||
On October 26, 1994, Helena Ward, Vocational Principal at the Arkansas
|
||
School for the Blind, appeared in Pulaski County Municipal Court to answer a
|
||
charge of "obstruction of government operations." On July 7, 1994, state police
|
||
doing an investigation on Leonard Ogburn had requested a copy of a report
|
||
written by Tina Gill, a graduate student at the University of Arkansas at Little
|
||
Rock, which was titled "Communication Practices and the Impact on
|
||
Organization Solidarity and Control in Decision Making: Arkansas School for the
|
||
Blind." At first Ward had agreed to give a copy of the report to state police,
|
||
explaining that she would have to collect it from her home and would have it
|
||
available the following day. On July 8 the state police investigator returned to
|
||
the school to pick up the report, but Ward refused to surrender it, saying she
|
||
was following instructions from Leonard Ogburn (who at the time was
|
||
suspended with pay from his duties as superintendent) and from his attorney.
|
||
According to the state police investigator, he then asked Ward if she understood
|
||
what she was doing, and she replied yes. The state police investigator then went
|
||
to Pulaski County Municipal Court and obtained a bench warrant for Ward's
|
||
arrest on one misdemeanor count of "obstruction of government operations." He
|
||
returned to the school, arrested Ward, read her the Miranda Rights statement,
|
||
handcuffed her, and transported her to the Pulaski County Jail in the back of a
|
||
police car. While leaving the school, the state police investigator was handed a
|
||
copy of the Gill report by Jim Hill, Acting Superintendent. On the way to the jail
|
||
Ward told the arresting officer, according to his later affidavit, that release of the
|
||
report would certainly ruin many lives and careers at the school. She was
|
||
subsequently booked and arraigned on the charge and then released on bail.
|
||
At the Ward trial on October 26, only two witnesses presented testimony:
|
||
Danny Harkins, State Police Investigator, and Ward herself. The Municipal Judge
|
||
found her "guilty as charged" and sentenced her to thirty days in jail and a $100
|
||
fine plus court costs. Ward's jail sentence was suspended under an Arkansas
|
||
program for first-time offenders. When asked for comment by the media at the
|
||
conclusion of the trial, Ward's attorney violently swore at reporters, attempted to
|
||
cover a television camera lens with his hands, and refused to make any sensible
|
||
comment, according to observers at the scene.
|
||
The trial of Leonard Ogburn on one misdemeanor count of "harassment"
|
||
was originally scheduled for Thursday, December 1, 1994, and was postponed
|
||
until Thursday, January 19, 1995. The prosecuting attorney had hoped to bring
|
||
several other charges of harassment against Ogburn but was prevented by the
|
||
judge from doing so. On January 12, 1995, a pre-trial hearing was held to
|
||
determine what evidence could be introduced by the prosecution and the
|
||
defense at the trial on January 19. When the judge told both sides that no
|
||
character witnesses would be permitted to testify, the defense offered no
|
||
testimony other than Ogburn's. They had planned to bring several character
|
||
witnesses, but the judge said that both sides could undoubtedly produce any
|
||
number of people to support their views of Ogburn's character but that the case
|
||
would have to stand or fall on actual evidence and information. The prosecution
|
||
then brought as witnesses the state police investigator and the state police
|
||
officer who administered the polygraph test that Ogburn failed on July 14, 1994.
|
||
The prosecution also brought three women identified in the Braille Monitor
|
||
article as affiants "B," "C," and "D." They were examined by the prosecution and
|
||
cross-examined by the defense. They each re-affirmed the statements they had
|
||
made in their affidavits. The judge ruled that the testimony of the police officers
|
||
and the three affiants would be admitted along with that of the female teacher
|
||
known to Braille Monitor readers as affiant "A." In other words, no prosecution
|
||
evidence was rejected.
|
||
Everything seemed to be set for the trial of January 19. Then, on
|
||
Wednesday, January 18, Ogburn and his attorney, Jim Rhodes, appeared in
|
||
Pulaski County Municipal Court and asked that the Ogburn case be brought
|
||
forward so that he could change his plea from "not guilty" to "no contest." An
|
||
assistant prosecutor was present. Michelle McElroy, Pulaski County Deputy
|
||
Prosecutor, had previously told a Braille Monitor reporter in a telephone
|
||
conversation that she would not accept a plea of no contest. However, her
|
||
assistant in court on January 18 was apparently unaware of this decision and
|
||
indicated that the prosecution would accept a plea of no contest. The judge then
|
||
sentenced Ogburn to one year in jail and a fine of $250 plus court costs. The jail
|
||
sentence was suspended under the program for first-time offenders. Normally
|
||
the judge would have fined Ogburn only $100 but apparently decided that $250
|
||
was appropriate in this case.
|
||
Here is the article, written by staff writer Joe Stumpe, that appeared in the
|
||
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on January 19:
|
||
|
||
No Contest, Ogburn Says to Charge
|
||
Gets probation, Fine for Let-me-spank Call
|
||
|
||
The criminal case against Leonard Ogburn is over, but not the debate over
|
||
what really happened at the Arkansas School for the Blind.
|
||
Ogburn, former superintendent at the school, pleaded no contest
|
||
Wednesday to harassing a female employee by saying he wanted to spank her.
|
||
Little Rock Municipal Judge Lee Munson placed Ogburn on probation for
|
||
one year and fined him $250 plus court costs.
|
||
Ogburn had been scheduled for trial today. During a preliminary hearing
|
||
last week, two women testified that Ogburn spanked them and asked to be
|
||
spanked himself while they were students at the school, and a third woman said
|
||
he spanked her while she worked as a janitor there.
|
||
It was another female employee who brought the misdemeanor
|
||
harassment charge against Ogburn. The woman, who is blind, said he had
|
||
spanked her twice in conjunction with job evaluations. The harassment charge
|
||
relates to a telephone conversation in May 1994 in which Ogburn said he wanted
|
||
to spank her again.
|
||
The woman's attorney, Mark Riable, said his client has mixed feelings
|
||
about the case's outcome.
|
||
"She's relieved that she doesn't have to go through cross-examination, but
|
||
at the same time I think she was ready to tell what happened to her, have her
|
||
day in court, and confront him with this evidence, which I believe was
|
||
overwhelming."
|
||
"I think she would have liked to have seen a little stiffer sentence," Riable
|
||
said. "Certainly the court would have had the discretion to do that. But as far as I
|
||
know, he had no prior (criminal charges).
|
||
"I can't say that (Ogburn's sentence) was out of line on this type of case."
|
||
Ogburn could have been sentenced to up to one year in jail and fined
|
||
$1,000.
|
||
Neither Riable nor Michelle McElroy, the deputy prosecutor handling the
|
||
case, was notified beforehand that Ogburn was entering a no contest plea.
|
||
McElroy said it's her understanding that Munson usually sentences first-
|
||
time offenders in harassment cases to one year of probation and fines them
|
||
$100. McElroy also said she [also] understands that Ogburn doesn't plan to ask
|
||
for a new trial in circuit court, as would be his right in a case originating in
|
||
municipal court.
|
||
In a no contest plea, the defendant admits to the allegations against him
|
||
but does not plead guilty.
|
||
Ogburn couldn't be reached for comment. His attorney, James Rhodes,
|
||
said his client entered the plea Wednesday because "He's just worn down with
|
||
all of this."
|
||
Rhodes said the woman who lodged the criminal complaint against
|
||
Ogburn and one of the three others who testified against him all maintained
|
||
cordial relations with him long after the spankings occurred. That indicates the
|
||
spankings "were consensual in nature," Rhodes said.
|
||
"Whether you consider it kinky or whether he just considered it horseplay
|
||
or not, he's been ruined, but it was never illegal," Rhodes said.
|
||
But Riable said female employees and students were afraid to refuse
|
||
Ogburn's requests to spank them.
|
||
Ogburn was suspended June 24, 1994, and resigned September 23. If he
|
||
completes his year of probation successfully, the case will be expunged from
|
||
his record for civil purposes--such as applying for a job or bank loan--but not for
|
||
criminal purposes.
|
||
|
||
__________
|
||
|
||
Mark Riable, the attorney for the plaintiff in this case, has written a letter
|
||
to the Board of Trustees at the Arkansas School for the Blind demanding
|
||
compensation for his client because of the spanking and harassment which she
|
||
endured at the hands of Leonard Ogburn as part of her job evaluation. Under
|
||
Arkansas law the school and Board's exposure is $100,000 plus court costs and
|
||
attorney's fees. If this matter is not settled amicably, he says that he will
|
||
consider filing a lawsuit to obtain compensation. Here is the text of that letter:
|
||
|
||
Little Rock, Arkansas
|
||
February 7, 1995
|
||
|
||
Hon. LeAnne Yeargan
|
||
Attorney General's Office
|
||
Little Rock, Arkansas
|
||
|
||
RE: ______and the Arkansas School for the Blind
|
||
|
||
Dear Ms. Yeargan:
|
||
I write to you in your capacity as attorney for the Arkansas School for the
|
||
Blind and the Board of the Arkansas School for the Blind and Deaf. As you
|
||
know, I have represented ______, an employee at the school, and assisted her
|
||
through the long and difficult process of seeing justice done to former
|
||
superintendent Leonard Ogburn.
|
||
Mr. Ogburn has now been convicted of harassing ______, as if there was
|
||
ever any question.
|
||
During the investigation I learned, and I think the board discovered, that
|
||
Mr. Ogburn failed a polygraph examination and admitted in the presence of
|
||
officers of the Arkansas State Police that he had in fact harassed, assaulted, and
|
||
spanked (battered) ______ in conjunction with her employment at the school.
|
||
I believe ______ to be a person of unquestionable credibility and a truly
|
||
innocent yet brave person who has had the guts and the fortitude to stand up
|
||
for her rights against the odds and let it be known that she will not be treated
|
||
improperly.
|
||
______ filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities
|
||
Commission (EEOC), which I have been told resulted in notification to the Board
|
||
of her allegations of improper treatment in relation to her employment there.
|
||
EEOC has not yet rendered a decision, nor has a right-to-sue letter been issued
|
||
though I am sure ______ could obtain the right to sue upon request.
|
||
______ also has certain rights under the new Arkansas Civil Rights Act and
|
||
is clearly within the statute of limitations provided therein, based upon that
|
||
statute being extended because of the filing of a complaint with the EEOC.
|
||
If you have not had an opportunity to review the new Arkansas Civil Rights
|
||
Act, it provides for punitive damages of up to $100,000 for unconsensual
|
||
physical contact against a government subdivision, not to mention court costs,
|
||
attorneys fees, and compensatory damages.
|
||
______ has never been motivated by financial gain, but I have encouraged
|
||
her to seek some consideration for the wrongs done against her, for the
|
||
violation of her physical and emotional person, and for the personal stress she
|
||
has had to endure for over a year. Though she could make a substantial
|
||
monetary claim, she desires to be reasonable and not to subject the school to
|
||
further litigation or public embarrassment. Mr. Ogburn has done enough of that.
|
||
I therefore put you on notice and make demand, in an attempt to
|
||
compromise this matter, that the school compensate ______ in the sum of
|
||
$25,842.77 for her pain, suffering, and emotional distress. She will fully release
|
||
the school, the board, and any other parties from any liability in the future in
|
||
exchange for said compensation. Of course with this release she would expect
|
||
to be treated fairly in the future as a continuing employee of the school and to
|
||
be protected from any form of retaliation for standing up for her rights.
|
||
The sum demanded is equal to ______'s 1994 salary. What she has had to
|
||
undergo entitles her to at least double time for the past year.
|
||
I must respectfully request a prompt reply.
|
||
|
||
Yours truly,
|
||
Mark Riable
|
||
Riable Law Firm
|
||
|
||
__________
|
||
|
||
Shortly after Ogburn's resignation an ad hoc search committee was
|
||
formed to assist the Board in selecting a new superintendent. In mid-February
|
||
this committee made recommendations to the Board about who should be
|
||
interviewed. Four candidates made the final list. Richard Umsted, former
|
||
Superintendent of the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired, who was fired
|
||
from his position because of scandal early last fall, was one of these. The other
|
||
three finalists were: Noel E. Stephens, supervisor of the Southeast Regional
|
||
Cooperative of the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind in Tucson; Ivan S.
|
||
Terzieff, director of educational services at the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving
|
||
School in Vinton, who taught at the Arkansas School for the Blind in 1972-73;
|
||
and J. Kirk Walter, executive director of Hoover Rehabilitation Services for Low
|
||
Vision and Blindness in Baltimore. Jim Hill, the Acting Superintendent of the
|
||
Arkansas School for the Blind, was not placed on the list of finalist. At press
|
||
time no appointment announcement had been made. We also know nothing yet
|
||
about whether the Board of Trustees will decide to compensate the ASB teacher
|
||
who first blew the whistle on Leonard Ogburn for the harassment she received
|
||
first at his hands and more recently from his supporters on the ASB faculty.
|
||
But this is the way important questions of right and wrong too often
|
||
resolve themselves--not with a resounding peal of victorious bells, but with a
|
||
clank and a hiccough. The results to date are not all that they might or perhaps
|
||
should have been, but neither are they negligible. Once more we are reminded
|
||
that justice is usually secured by slow degrees.
|
||
[PHOTO #2: Portrait CAPTION: Joe Cutter]
|
||
[PHOTO #3: Joe Cutter stoops to the floor encouraging Richie Cavallaro to explore his cane and
|
||
surroundings. Richie's father and sister watch and wait. CAPTION: Richie Cavallaro (age four) of
|
||
New York pauses to explore the cool, smooth surface of the floor before he picks up his cane.
|
||
Joe Cutter has explained to Richie's dad and sister that exploration during cane travel is both
|
||
natural and desirable for toddlers and preschoolers and should not be discouraged.]
|
||
PARENTS: BLIND CHILDREN'S FIRST MOBILITY TEACHERS
|
||
by Joe Cutter
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: The lead article in the February, 1995, issue of the Braille
|
||
Monitor was the text of a 1980 speech by Dr. Fred Schroeder, now
|
||
Commissioner of the United States Rehabilitation Services Administration. In the
|
||
headnote we said that progress had been made by some members of the
|
||
orientation and mobility profession in their approach to the training of blind
|
||
children in the use of the long white cane. The following article demonstrates
|
||
that progress. There are, alas, still too many O&M specialists refusing to
|
||
introduce the cane to young blind children, but professionals like Joe Cutter are
|
||
gradually making a difference in the field, and the youngsters whose lives they
|
||
touch will never be the same.
|
||
Mr. Cutter, who lives and works in New Jersey, is the 1994 winner of the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind's Distinguished Educator of Blind Children
|
||
Award, an honor which was truly deserved. He is a highly trained and deeply
|
||
committed teacher with vast experience and a tough-minded willingness to draw
|
||
|
||
conclusions from the data before him. Through the years, as he has worked with
|
||
Federation parents, read NFB literature on cane travel, and watched carefully
|
||
and learned from the children with whom he has worked, he has come to
|
||
recognize the importance of early and sensible introduction of the white cane.
|
||
On Friday, July 1, 1994, Joe Cutter addressed the Parents of Blind
|
||
Children National Seminar in Detroit, Michigan. His remarks were first printed in
|
||
the Fall, 1994, issue of Future Reflections, the quarterly magazine of the National
|
||
Organization of Parents of Blind Children, a division of the National Federation
|
||
of the Blind. This is what he had to say:
|
||
|
||
|
||
When Barbara asked me if I would be interested in speaking about
|
||
parents as the blind child's first mobility teachers, I responded with an
|
||
enthusiastic "Yes!" I was delighted because I believe this statement to be true,
|
||
and I welcomed the opportunity to relate to you my ideas on this subject.
|
||
I have come to respect and value the information and positive thinking
|
||
about blindness which I have gained from the National Federation of the Blind.
|
||
Blind people, including blind children and their parents, have taught me the
|
||
most about blindness. In a small way, then, your sharing with me through the
|
||
years comes full circle as I now share my thoughts with you.
|
||
My thoughts and words today are from a book I am writing about blind
|
||
children and independent mobility. Interwoven through this book is the theme
|
||
that parents truly are the blind child's first mobility teacher. It begins when the
|
||
expectant mother introduces her baby to movement in utero. Whenever the
|
||
mother sits, stands, turns, or walks, the child inside her experiences movement.
|
||
Once the baby is born, the mother and father become attached to their child
|
||
through touch--through holding, carrying, and playing with their baby. The
|
||
joyous world of movement has begun, and it is the parents who are the first, the
|
||
primary educators of their child. It is only natural, therefore, for parents of blind
|
||
children to be their child's first mobility instructors. After all, they are the ones
|
||
who set the stage for all movement.
|
||
If parents are the natural educators of their children, then the
|
||
professionals are the secondary educators. In the early life of a blind baby,
|
||
parents may be introduced to professionals, programs, and services established
|
||
to assist in caring for their baby's needs. Parents may have a blindness
|
||
professional visit their home, or they may take their baby to an early-intervention
|
||
program outside the home. Some of these services are given directly to the
|
||
baby. In others the professionals provide guidance to parents with suggested
|
||
activities, materials, and strategies that will facilitate the child's learning. The
|
||
intent of these programs is to inform parents and at times give hands-on
|
||
intervention with the child.
|
||
I have visited many of these early intervention programs over the years
|
||
and have learned much from observing the creative teaching of many talented,
|
||
dedicated, and hard-working professionals. I have also visited in the homes of
|
||
many families of blind babies; and I have learned as much through observing
|
||
the creative teaching of talented, dedicated, and hard-working parents. The
|
||
significant difference is that parents are not paid, and they do what they do for
|
||
twenty-four hours a day. I note this difference to underline my observations that
|
||
parents have a much longer, sustained, and intimate relationship with their child
|
||
than do the professionals.
|
||
Yet, when blind babies and children enter early intervention programs,
|
||
parents are often presented with an attitude which implies, "We know what is
|
||
best for your child." This attitude challenges the natural teaching role of parents.
|
||
When educators (whether intentionally or not) separate parents from the service
|
||
program, in whole or in part, the message is sent to the parents that someone
|
||
else (the blindness professional) did for their babies what they--the parents--
|
||
could not or did not do. This may seriously affect the relationship that parents
|
||
have with their children. Parents may develop feelings of inadequacy. They may
|
||
take less initiative or be hesitant about movement activities with their babies and
|
||
children if they have come to believe that the professional's role is more
|
||
important.
|
||
Speaking of professionals, I can't help saying something that has
|
||
disturbed me for a long time. Why do we call teachers who work with blind
|
||
children "vision teachers"? It sounds like a contradiction in terms to me. Can you
|
||
imagine getting a knock on your door and, when you open it, hearing the
|
||
information, "Hello, I'm the vision teacher. I'm here to work with your blind child."
|
||
So I use the term "blindness professional" because it seems more relevant to
|
||
me.
|
||
Programs of services to blind children do what they do best when they
|
||
nurture the relationship between children and their parents. The parent/child
|
||
relationship is indivisible, and that is how it should be treated and respected by
|
||
the professionals. Blindness professionals and other educators who appreciate
|
||
this parent/child relationship will rely upon the parents as a vital natural
|
||
resource. They will support parents in their efforts to establish mutually pleasing
|
||
and nurturing relationships with their babies, and they will help them with
|
||
accurate information about blindness.
|
||
For example, when I was studying about babies, I was fascinated by
|
||
something that some of the research calls a voice/space event. When even very
|
||
young babies hear the sound of their mommy's voice, they turn toward it in
|
||
expectation of seeing Mommy's face. I discovered the first time I worked with a
|
||
blind baby that, although he could not see, his head and eyes moved in the
|
||
direction of the sound of his mother's voice. This baby, too, was looking for the
|
||
voice/space event. The obvious alternative technique at this point would be to
|
||
assist the baby's arm and hand to the mother's face, linking sound with touch.
|
||
This common human trait of the voice/space event, which in the sighted baby
|
||
links sound to vision, has been adapted for the blind baby by linking sound to
|
||
touch. The usefulness of this adaptation depends largely upon the way in which
|
||
I, the professional, present it to the mother. First of all, I cannot be a substitute
|
||
for the mother (the primary caretaker) in this situation. The voice/space event
|
||
must take place with the mother, not me. Second, if I present this to the mother
|
||
correctly, she will come to understand that she, too, could have made this
|
||
discovery. She will then go on to use this knowledge and the confidence she
|
||
has gained from it to make her own observations, adaptations, and
|
||
compensations with her baby without my assistance. This is how it should be.
|
||
Professionals should not supplant the parents as the child's primary educator;
|
||
they should encourage and nurture it. This includes the role the parent should
|
||
play as the child's first mobility teacher; mobility for children begins with play
|
||
between parent and child.
|
||
In the early years parents engage in a variety of play activities with their
|
||
children. The importance of play cannot be overemphasized. Play is fundamental
|
||
to being human. Fun and play are the child's form of work, of getting the job
|
||
done, of acting on the world, and reaping rewards from it. The head of the
|
||
Department of Infant Studies at Rutgers University, Dr. Lorraine McCune, writes,
|
||
"When play is defined to include all of the baby's freely chosen encounters with
|
||
objects, a large portion of the child's waking time is playtime."
|
||
The implications of this statement for blind children are many. When blind
|
||
children are restricted in the kind and amount of play they may perform and
|
||
when adults limit their free intentional movement, the context of their
|
||
understanding of people, places, and things will also be limited. This will
|
||
necessarily cut short their ability to reason, experiment, and create. Blind
|
||
children are vulnerable to having play done to them, initiated for them, and
|
||
taught to them in formal activities. Adults would be serving the blind child's best
|
||
interest if they would instead focus their energy on structuring the environment
|
||
so that the blind child can initiate his or her own play more often. Such
|
||
spontaneity is fundamental to being human, but blind children are often in
|
||
jeopardy of having spontaneous experiences restricted by well-meaning adults.
|
||
These principles are crucial for parents and professionals to understand as they
|
||
consider their roles in promoting movement and mobility in the blind child.
|
||
When children are young, they are learning to identify and label the world.
|
||
Blind children are no different. They too need to become familiar with the world.
|
||
Familiarization develops orientation. For sighted children vision puts them in the
|
||
action. For blind children touch, sound, and movement put them in the action
|
||
too. You cannot label the world for a blind child by touching it for him. To be
|
||
meaningful, the experience must come from the child's own action. For example,
|
||
use of the cane facilitates self-initiated action and thus contributes to the
|
||
creation of an active learner.
|
||
The skilled use of tools is a fundamentally human activity. For children
|
||
toys are tools. (Remember, we said that play is a child's work. Toys, therefore,
|
||
are a child's tools.) They are skill-enhancing instruments. The hand-held tool (or
|
||
toy) is an extension of the body in space for all children. During play the child is
|
||
introduced to objects in the world. To the child all of these are potential toys.
|
||
Some will serve an everyday function, such as the hand-held spoon, for
|
||
example. A spoon is more than something you use when you eat. It is a tool of
|
||
action. When we think about the spoon in this way, we can begin to understand
|
||
its connection to the blind child's white cane. The cane, too, is a hand-held tool
|
||
of action to get a job done. The greater the child's skill in using these tools--
|
||
spoon or cane--the better the job will be done. Since we know that hand
|
||
manipulation of tools develops over time from "on body" to "off body" for all
|
||
children, we can infer that the spoon is a precursor to the cane. These tools
|
||
manage space near and far respectively, the spoon being used closer to the
|
||
body and the cane being used further away. Whether banging on a plate with a
|
||
spoon or banging on the ground with a cane, the blind child is using tools to
|
||
demonstrate movement in space.
|
||
As your child's first mobility teachers, you want to know what the cane
|
||
can do. The cane is a tool that performs many functions. It can inform, inspect,
|
||
explore, detect, and protect. Most of all it facilitates getting to know and moving
|
||
within the world. To illustrate, the cane is more than a windshield wiper on the
|
||
world. It is the steering wheel that can be manipulated to take you in the
|
||
direction you want to go. It's the headlight, which gives preview of what's ahead;
|
||
it's the bumper, which protects from unexpected encounters; and it is the
|
||
antenna, which is constantly receiving sounds and resonance information from
|
||
the surroundings. The cane is also the tires, which adjust to the terrain and
|
||
provide a smoother, more stable ride. Finally the cane is the sideview mirror,
|
||
which gives peripheral protection whenever the traveler needs to circumvent an
|
||
object. Like the car, the cane is only as effective as the driver using it. Both
|
||
driver and cane user require training and must obey the laws of the road. Mostly
|
||
the cane, like the car, gets you where you want to go.
|
||
This light-hearted analogy illustrates the varied uses of the cane. Thinking
|
||
of fun, what child is not fascinated by a stick? It connects the child to the
|
||
ground in a way that is fun. When walking, it seems natural to hold a stick and
|
||
"touch the world"; therefore, it is a natural act for the blind child to be using a
|
||
cane. Fun, play, toys, tools, self-initiated movement, canes: are you beginning to
|
||
see the connections?
|
||
As your child's first mobility teachers, you the parents must make the
|
||
decision to use a cane.
|
||
You may come to such a decision in conjunction with the orientation and
|
||
mobility specialist or without such a professional. The point is, it should be your
|
||
decision. Generally a cane will help facilitate a blind child's movement shortly
|
||
after he or she begins walking. I have known blind children, however, who took
|
||
their first steps across a large space with a cane. In these cases the child was
|
||
ready to walk but would not self-initiate many steps across large spaces.
|
||
Therefore, observe the blind child's movement around the event of walking. If
|
||
the cane seems to promote movement, go with it. Do posture, gait, and
|
||
self-assurance improve with the cane? If yes, then it's facilitating movement.
|
||
If the child is evaluated by an orientation and mobility (O&M) professional
|
||
and it is decided that he or she is not ready for a cane, ask yourself these
|
||
questions: What is my child ready for--someone's arm? A pre-cane device that
|
||
may be more complex to handle than the simple design of a cane? The less safe
|
||
and efficient movement promoted by the so-called pre-cane techniques? I
|
||
believe the answers to these questions will lead most parents to the decision to
|
||
take charge, purchase a cane, and get started. It may be a bit scary, and you
|
||
may be a bit doubtful in the beginning, but have faith in your own intuition and in
|
||
your child--you're a team.
|
||
If the orientation and mobility specialist is tuned to the same station as
|
||
you, all the better. If not, you and your child can dance to your own music.
|
||
When others see what's going on, they may decide to join the dance. It is not
|
||
only okay to take the lead in starting your child with cane mobility, but it may be
|
||
necessary if the alternative of inaction will negatively affect his or her
|
||
self-esteem and skill development. You cannot count on the professionals
|
||
always to have the right answers. Please believe me. I'm a professional; and,
|
||
when I think of some of the professional decisions I've made based on
|
||
erroneous assumptions, I want to bury my head in the sand.
|
||
I remember my personal journey in working with children. When I began
|
||
teaching, I used the same post-World War II techniques all mobility teachers are
|
||
taught, including sighted guide, pre-cane safety techniques, and certain
|
||
readiness skills. It wasn't until I happened to take some courses in infant studies
|
||
at Rutgers University and was introduced to NFB literature by parents such as
|
||
Carol Castellano [Carol is the President of the New Jersey Parents Division and
|
||
the Second Vice President of the National Organization of Parents of Blind
|
||
Children] that my assumptions and beliefs about children and cane travel were
|
||
challenged. That was really scary and threatening to me. But it was also
|
||
liberating. I will always remember Fred Schroeder's article, "A Step Toward
|
||
Equality: Cane Travel Training for the Young Blind Child." I shall never forget his
|
||
analogy about crayons and canes. He said that keeping a cane away from a
|
||
young blind child because the child wasn't ready to use it as an adult was like
|
||
taking crayons away from a sighted child because the child couldn't write like an
|
||
adult yet.
|
||
Like the sighted child using crayons, the blind child will initially use the
|
||
cane with more exaggerated movements. This is done for many reasons:
|
||
postural security, balance, the newness of the tool, and the human urge to
|
||
experiment. Through familiarity and maturation the cane will gradually be used
|
||
with more purposeful movements and, therefore, more efficiently. Please know
|
||
that the act of playing with the cane is a natural way for young children to
|
||
experiment. It is the way they learn about the cane and the way it works. This
|
||
playing is not a reason to discontinue use of the cane for fear of lack of
|
||
readiness. Remember, play is the child's work. Therefore, do not be
|
||
discouraged if the child's initial use of the cane appears to be just playing
|
||
around. Some of the best travelers started out having fun with their canes.
|
||
Accordingly, do not insist upon the blind child's demonstrating mature
|
||
cane skills very early. Such skills as proper adult grip, position, extension, arc,
|
||
touch technique, and so forth will come in time with maturation. You risk
|
||
frustrating the child, and a negative attitude may develop towards the cane if
|
||
you expect too much in the way of adult cane technique. Expect the child to use
|
||
the cane from the source of control most readily available--hand, wrist, arm, or
|
||
shoulder--given the strength and control he or she has from those sources. With
|
||
growth and maturation these components of movement will expand, and so will
|
||
the cane techniques that work from them.
|
||
The blind child will want to check out what is being contacted by the cane.
|
||
You might notice the hand sliding down the shaft to touch the contacted object
|
||
or the foot moving to check it out. This behavior is also displayed by adults who
|
||
use the cane for the first time. A basic principle operating with young children is
|
||
"connection before coordination." This should be accepted as a normal stage of
|
||
learning. Do not scold children or try to prevent the behavior. It will decrease as
|
||
they learn more about the world around them and as they become more
|
||
goal-oriented in their travel.
|
||
Activities that are fun and enjoyable to children also tend to facilitate
|
||
sensory integration and skill development. The cane is a natural tool for these
|
||
activities. For example, children enjoy banging the cane. They like hearing the
|
||
echoes they can make with it. They will hold the cane in different ways, even
|
||
upside down. They are exhausting all the possibilities of what they can do with a
|
||
cane. This is a fundamentally human characteristic, and we should not limit such
|
||
exploration as long as it does not hurt the child or another person.
|
||
Experiences in school set the stage for what will be expected of children
|
||
in their adult lives. This is true for blind children too. But, as stated earlier, blind
|
||
children are more vulnerable to having their independent movement restricted
|
||
by others. Most classroom teachers and aides do not know what to expect or
|
||
encourage regarding the movement of young blind children. Some educators
|
||
learn quickly and are very good at facilitating movement, and others are not as
|
||
helpful. This should be of no surprise to us. More upsetting is the fact that some
|
||
professionals in the blindness field have limiting views about blind children and
|
||
independent movement. In situations such as this, parents must inform not only
|
||
the teacher working with a blind child for the first time, but also the blindness
|
||
professional about the parents' expectations for their child in the use of the cane
|
||
and independent movement.
|
||
A parent cannot assume, just because an orientation and mobility
|
||
specialist is consulting with the school and working with their child, that the
|
||
child's movement needs will be promoted to the fullest extent possible. Even if
|
||
you and the orientation and mobility specialist are reading from the same page
|
||
of the same chapter of the same book, what is happening in school is not
|
||
necessarily what should be happening. I have often given a mobility lesson to a
|
||
child in school and then come back for the next lesson a week later to discover
|
||
the cane exactly where we had left it. I knew from the condition of the cane and
|
||
the tip that it had not been used since our last lesson. So it is in your child's
|
||
best interest for you to know what's going on every day.
|
||
If your child is not moving about at his or her own volition, then he or she
|
||
is moving about at someone else's. Parents will need to decide what they want
|
||
for the child and make it clear to school personnel. It is that important an issue.
|
||
The blind child is being prepared to believe one way or another about
|
||
movement in school and in the larger world. Blind children will either learn that
|
||
they can take responsibility for their own movements or that they cannot. It is
|
||
that simple.
|
||
Of course, I am primarily thinking about the sighted guide. This is
|
||
certainly a sufficient, and sometimes appropriate method of travel. I'm just
|
||
concerned about young children's using it as their standard operating procedure
|
||
for moving around. Also I think the term implies that the guide must be sighted.
|
||
One thing I have learned from this convention and other NFB conventions is that
|
||
the blind certainly do lead the blind, and most efficiently too. Some
|
||
professionals now prefer the term "human guide," but I am even uncomfortable
|
||
with this. It still implies that one person is leading and the other following. There
|
||
are times when we all prefer to walk with someone, and it is not a matter of
|
||
guiding or leading. Carol Castellano came up with the term I like best. She calls
|
||
it "paired walking." And isn't that what it really is?
|
||
To the questions of when to use the cane, how often, and where (school,
|
||
home, playground, etc.), first ask yourself if the cane promotes and facilitates
|
||
movement, confidence, curiosity, safety, and knowledge of the world. If it does,
|
||
then use it. I believe, by the way, that the cane should be used both at home
|
||
and at school. (By home I do not mean inside the house in which you live. I
|
||
mean all the places your family may normally go with the child--the mall,
|
||
restaurants, church or synagog, homes of friends, etc.) Using the cane in one
|
||
setting and not the other is a limitation and sends a mixed message to the child.
|
||
Now I would like to say a few words about vision impairment, visual
|
||
efficiency, and visual inefficiency. Many visually impaired children ambulate with
|
||
general safety and independence in their homes, schools, and familiar areas
|
||
outdoors. The need for the cane may not be as obvious for these children.
|
||
Therefore, here are some questions you might want to think about if your child
|
||
has vision:
|
||
|
||
1. Is your child relaxed while moving independently?
|
||
2. Is your child's stress level elevated in unfamiliar or congested areas?
|
||
3. Is your child's performance in street crossings and night travel
|
||
age-appropriate?
|
||
4. Are your child's gait and posture negatively affected by pushing vision
|
||
to the point of inefficiency?
|
||
5. Are you holding your child's hand, not because you want to, but rather
|
||
to avoid uncomfortable or difficult-to-manage travel situations?
|
||
6. Do you think the cane could facilitate safe, effective, efficient, or
|
||
confident travel?
|
||
|
||
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you might want to give the
|
||
cane a go. If you've answered yes to any of these questions and are still
|
||
doubtful about trying the cane, you may have hidden negative attitudes about
|
||
blindness which are getting in the way of making a logical decision about the
|
||
cane. As your child's first mobility teacher, you owe it to him or her to keep an
|
||
open mind about the cane.
|
||
One opportunity you have here at this convention is to observe visually
|
||
impaired travelers using canes. You might think of this as your NFB Convention
|
||
school, and this is your 101 course in mobility. After all, you will remember that
|
||
you are your child's primary mobility teacher. Observe the confidence, poise,
|
||
relaxed posture, and grace with which good cane-users move. Observe their
|
||
safety and efficiency. One of the things, by the way, that I would like to do at
|
||
this year's NFB Convention school is to receive a mobility lesson under blindfold
|
||
from a blind mobility instructor. So that's an open invitation to any blind mobility
|
||
teachers here.
|
||
One insight I'd like to pass on to you is something I was told by a parent
|
||
who learned this by observing blind people with canes at her first NFB
|
||
convention. I think it sums up many of the thoughts I'm sharing with you about
|
||
vision and visual inefficiency. This parent told me she had concluded from her
|
||
experience that you have your vision for what you can see, and you have the
|
||
cane for what you can't. I can think of no other more truthful or basic statement
|
||
than this on the issue of using a cane.
|
||
I think it's important to say a word or two about blind children who have
|
||
developmental delays. All children observe the world through their sensorimotor
|
||
systems. Vision is not essential to observe the world. The brain is an equal
|
||
opportunity employer and does not discriminate against the various modes of
|
||
gathering information and observing the world. The five senses, like the fingers
|
||
of the hand, retrieve information and give meaning to the world and the child's
|
||
movement. Blindness is a physical characteristic, the absence (partial or total) of
|
||
sight. I do not think it fundamentally alters the way humans think or adapt and
|
||
compensate. We do not think with our eyes; we think with our brains. So,
|
||
whether we read Braille or print or communicate with sound or manual sign
|
||
language, it is the brain which takes in the sensory information, decodes it, and
|
||
processes it.
|
||
The developmental route for blind children who have added factors
|
||
affecting their development--cognitive, physical, emotional delays--is more
|
||
precarious. These children are especially vulnerable to having others do for
|
||
them what they can learn to do for themselves. But, like all other children, they
|
||
thrive on a can-do approach. If anything, these children need more of the
|
||
learning-by-doing method. Remember, the process of independence begins with
|
||
self-initiated action. It is through personal action that the child has the chance to
|
||
observe the consequences of that action, then refine it, and practice it as a new
|
||
skill. Children who are given the opportunity to initiate their own movements are
|
||
motivated to do more and learn more. When others do the movement for or to
|
||
them, children lose interest in their own activity and become passive.
|
||
For example, a blind child who uses a wheelchair would have greater
|
||
possibilities for independent (self-initiated) movement with a one-wheel drive or
|
||
motorized wheel chair. With one hand the child could operate the chair and with
|
||
the other use a white cane for preview of obstacles ahead. This set-up, which
|
||
promotes independence, would be superior to the alternative of the child's being
|
||
constantly dependent upon someone else both to push and to guide him. In
|
||
fact, I saw someone in a wheelchair this morning who was using a cane for
|
||
preview.
|
||
If you suspect that your child is delayed in development by factors other
|
||
than blindness, you will need to secure reliable information and services to
|
||
provide a sound menu of experiences and activities. To such a menu you can
|
||
add the alternative techniques of blindness. As your child's first mobility teacher
|
||
you can creatively adapt and compensate along with your child. You can
|
||
promote your child's self-initiated movement, and you can expect others to
|
||
respect the goals that you set for independent movement.
|
||
In Budapest, Hungary, there is an interesting program called conductive
|
||
education. It's a program for the physically impaired child with cerebral palsy
|
||
and other physical impairments that affect the child's development of
|
||
independent movement. Some of these children are also blind. The program's
|
||
philosophy is ortho-functional. The child learns by doing. Self-help skills are
|
||
essential and valued along with academics. It is more important, for example, for
|
||
a child to get to class independently and late than to get there on time because
|
||
of dependency upon someone else.
|
||
The conductive education approach holds that, if a child is perceived as
|
||
dysfunctional, the goals set for that child will reflect those perceptions. How we
|
||
perceive a child can make all the difference in the goals we set for him. It is the
|
||
difference between using a promotion model and a deficit model. The deficit
|
||
model stresses limitations; the promotion model emphasizes possibilities. The
|
||
independence these children are likely to achieve depends a good deal upon
|
||
our expectations of them. Do we see children with limitations or children with
|
||
possibilities?
|
||
Let me give you an example of what I mean. The following sentences are
|
||
from the book First Steps, published in 1993 by the Blind Children's Center.
|
||
These sentences demonstrate the disturbing sighted bias and erroneous
|
||
assumptions about blindness still to be found in the professional literature. This
|
||
is the first sentence of the introduction: "The world of children with visual
|
||
impairments is a very different one from ours."
|
||
My response is,"How so?" Are the authors implying that blind children are
|
||
fundamentally different from sighted children? I don't believe it, and the
|
||
evidence doesn't support it. We all live in the same world.
|
||
Here is the second sentence of the introduction: "Although these children
|
||
are faced with a puzzling array of sensation and information, our loving guidance
|
||
can create a safe and nurturing path for them to follow."
|
||
My response is that the current research about how children learn,
|
||
specifically infants, suggests that the world is not perceived as a puzzle. Rather,
|
||
infants organize their sensory information to make sense out of the world. They
|
||
improve upon their perceptions, adapting and compensating as they get more
|
||
information. It would appear that the authors altered these data to fit their
|
||
pre-conceived notions about blind children. The sentence implies that what is
|
||
needed for learning is for blind children to follow the adults' lead instead of the
|
||
adults' following the child's lead. Again, this is inconsistent with my experience
|
||
and with the research.
|
||
The third sentence of the introduction reads: "Parents, family members,
|
||
educators, and health care professionals find themselves drawn together by the
|
||
formidable challenges of these children's infant and preschool years."
|
||
I ask you to consider these definitions of the word formidable from
|
||
Webster's dictionary :
|
||
|
||
1. causing dread, fear, or awe. 2. hard to handle or overcome; as a
|
||
formidable job. Roget's College Thesaurus lists the following synonyms for
|
||
formidable: appalling, tremendous, arduous, or Herculean.
|
||
I would not choose any of these words to describe my role or the parents'
|
||
role with the blind child. I suggest that this is not the message I would choose to
|
||
communicate to parents and other educators about what it is like to raise or
|
||
educate blind children. All parents are presented with challenges in raising
|
||
children. The challenges in raising blind children will sometimes necessitate
|
||
different solutions. From my experience, probably the most formidable aspect of
|
||
raising a blind child for parents is trying to get the professionals to provide
|
||
appropriate education and training. This is a problem with attitudes and
|
||
bureaucracies, not with the child or the physical fact of blindness.
|
||
Finally, here is a sentence from the book regarding the sighted-guide
|
||
technique: "The intent of using a human guide is not to relieve the child who is
|
||
visually impaired of his travel responsibility, but to provide the child with the skill
|
||
of taking an active role when traveling with a sighted person within both familiar
|
||
and unfamiliar areas."
|
||
My first response is, how can you observe your own movement from the
|
||
arm of another person? This is a logical impossibility. Who has the responsibility
|
||
for negotiating the environment? Why is it assumed that, when a blind child is
|
||
walking with a sighted person, he or she will naturally be guided? What is active
|
||
about following another's lead? And why does the guide need to be sighted?
|
||
There are times when sighted-guide travel is appropriate, but to suggest that it
|
||
requires some skill which a child needs to learn for independence is ludicrous
|
||
and false.
|
||
The subtleties of the written word hit home hard when you are the subject
|
||
matter. Blind people and parents of blind children hear the bias in these words
|
||
clearly. First Steps is written by a professional, credentialed group of authors.
|
||
The Blind Children's Center provides a real service for blind children, and in
|
||
many respects this book is rich in useful information. But at its core are
|
||
assumptions that communicate erroneous beliefs about blindness to those
|
||
thirsty for knowledge. I believe these assumptions damage blind children.
|
||
History has given us enough of these harmful, false images. We do not need
|
||
them dressed up in the respectability of professional jargon, then pawned off on
|
||
us as modern, scientific concepts. It is time to stress a promotion, not a deficit,
|
||
model of blindness.
|
||
Research would better serve the needs of blind children and our energies
|
||
would be put to better use if we spent more time raising questions and
|
||
debunking erroneous assumptions about blindness. Here are some questions I
|
||
have:
|
||
|
||
1. What do we truly believe about the capabilities of blind travelers when
|
||
professional organizations will not certify blind orientation and mobility
|
||
specialists?
|
||
2. What are the vulnerable areas in the blind child's opportunities to
|
||
express the innate need to know and drive to move?
|
||
3. What is really essential to function with a cane?
|
||
4. How can the sighted guide, pre-cane techniques, or pre-cane devices
|
||
be considered precursors or predictors of independent travel? Where is the
|
||
research to substantiate these common assertions?
|
||
5. What do orientation and mobility specialists believe about the
|
||
parent-child relationship?
|
||
6. How can the use of resonance and the broader perception of sound
|
||
and space be facilitated in blind babies and older children? How do we enhance
|
||
or distort its use in the type of canes we recommend and choose for them?
|
||
7. Has our sighted bias ignored the contribution to movement that the use
|
||
of auditory object-perception (echo location) facilitates?
|
||
8. What subtle, or not so subtle, messages do we send to blind children
|
||
which discourage them from moving actively in the world?
|
||
9. How do we interrupt or inhibit the self-initiating and sustaining
|
||
movement of blind babies and children?
|
||
10. How do our touch and physical handling of blind babies and children
|
||
affect the development of the use of their own touch? How do the touch and
|
||
oral cues which we impose upon children in a travel situation affect their abilities
|
||
to figure out and solve their own travel problems?
|
||
11. What do we do to a blind child's interest in and ability to use the cane
|
||
when we either try to teach adult skills for which he or she is developmentally
|
||
unready or delay giving a cane in favor of a pre-cane device?
|
||
12. How are blind children's self-image and desire for independence
|
||
affected when we teach them that someone else will take responsibility for their
|
||
movement when that someone else is always sighted?
|
||
|
||
I believe that the consequences of the orientation and mobility
|
||
profession's not addressing these questions and many others will result in
|
||
increased vulnerability for a profession already in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the
|
||
blindness movement has been developing its own growing body of literature
|
||
based upon a different perspective--a perspective which has evolved from over
|
||
fifty years of the collective experience of thousands of blind people. Here are
|
||
some of my observations of the philosophy which fuels the passion and reason
|
||
found in NFB literature:
|
||
|
||
(1) It's positive, (2) it assumes that blindness need not be fixed, (3) it
|
||
promotes the concept that differences are not deficits, (4) the alternative
|
||
techniques of blindness promote a can-do approach to life, and (5) it deals with
|
||
issues and concerns that are fundamentally human.
|
||
|
||
What I have described to you today is what I call a pediatric perspective
|
||
on independent mobility. I hope it fuels your beliefs and actions--as your child's
|
||
first mobility teachers--in promoting his or her independent movement in the
|
||
early years.
|
||
In summary, the need to know and the drive to move are fundamental to
|
||
being human. Therefore, orientation and independent mobility are more than a
|
||
way of moving from one place to another; they are a way of life, a way of
|
||
knowing, a process of reciprocal interaction, a method of being with the world
|
||
instead of separate from it. During the early years of life this process enables
|
||
the blind child to engage in the world in an increasingly independent manner.
|
||
During these early years a common thread sews together a whole variety of
|
||
experiences. This thread is the fundamental fact that, like all other children, blind
|
||
children have an innate sense of order, an inherent ability to organize their
|
||
experiences; and they can learn from and improve upon those experiences.
|
||
From the earliest sensorimotor schemes to the formation of intentional thought
|
||
and complex problem-solving, the drive to want more and to make more out of
|
||
what reality at any given moment appears to offer is as much the foundation of
|
||
purposeful thought and movement for blind babies and children as it is for those
|
||
who are sighted.
|
||
It is particularly important that parents be provided with accurate
|
||
information about both blindness and this natural process so that they can
|
||
better teach and assist their children to interact independently with and within
|
||
the world. Together as a team--parents, child, and professionals--we must work
|
||
toward common goals that will stimulate the child's natural need to know and
|
||
the drive to move.
|
||
The history of formalized orientation and mobility has entrenched an
|
||
adult-to-adult approach, with sighted-guide and pre-cane techniques being
|
||
taught prior to cane instruction. This tradition can be thought of as a top-down
|
||
model. In this model adults first learn the concepts, then learn the motor
|
||
schemes to match the concepts. With a pediatric perspective, however, the
|
||
approach must be bottom-up. (I want to acknowledge the influence of Dr.
|
||
Lorraine McCune on my thinking. Her knowledge and clear thinking about what
|
||
babies do and how they learn contributed much to the development of this
|
||
model.) First, the child learns purposeful movement; then with a solid foundation
|
||
of motor-schemes upon which he has learned to trust and rely, the child learns
|
||
the concepts. Out of the experience come the concepts, the ways of thinking
|
||
about the world. With this bottom-up model, parents and other educators can
|
||
explore strategies, activities, and tools--such as the cane--that facilitate
|
||
purposeful thought and purposeful movement.
|
||
This approach rejects the notion that children must have a certain maturity
|
||
level before they can use a cane for movement. Maturity unfolds as movement
|
||
and motor-schemes become more sophisticated. Canes can assist in this
|
||
process from the moment a child begins to walk.
|
||
In this bottom-up model cane travel is not considered an isolated set of
|
||
skills. Instead, the spoon becomes the precursor to the cane. Hand-held tools
|
||
that manage space and get a task done (spoons, scoops, shovels, etc.) are
|
||
respected in this bottom-up approach. From this perspective motor skills for
|
||
cane use are not a mysterious set of unique skills requiring extraordinary
|
||
knowledge and specialized training; they are extensions of ordinary
|
||
motor-schemes and tool-use that all children can learn and parents can teach.
|
||
There is also no need for so-called pre-cane techniques and pre-cane devices in
|
||
this approach. In truth, pre-cane techniques are actually alternative travel
|
||
techniques (which are, incidentally, inferior to cane travel techniques), and not at
|
||
all necessary in any way for cane use. The same is true for pre-cane devices.
|
||
They are actually alternatives to the cane and in no way add to a child's
|
||
preparedness for the cane.
|
||
Also, with this approach parents and other educators are careful not to
|
||
insist prematurely upon cane techniques that may be appropriate for the adult
|
||
but may not be at the appropriate developmental level of the blind child. Blind
|
||
children need to explore, figure it out, and develop self-taught solutions which
|
||
are respected by the adults in their lives. The pediatric orientation and mobility
|
||
from the bottom-up perspective respects the developmental needs of all
|
||
children: security, movement, interpretation of sensory information,
|
||
communication, and autonomy. These needs are met in the child's day-to-day
|
||
life: in feeding, bathing, playing, socializing, and exploring the world. From this
|
||
perspective the blind child's use of the cane is simply a natural part of growing
|
||
up, as normal as learning to use a spoon.
|
||
Above all I want to stress that our beliefs as parents and educators will
|
||
affect what we give and how we give it, what we teach and how we teach it, and
|
||
what our expectations will be for our blind children's development towards
|
||
independence. These beliefs will affect not only our relationships with each
|
||
other but what our children will ultimately come to believe and expect of
|
||
themselves as blind persons.
|
||
I hope that these thoughts assist you in your role as your children's first
|
||
mobility teachers.
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #4: Portrait CAPTION: Charles Allen]
|
||
FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT TO WORK
|
||
by Charles Allen
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: The following article first appeared in the January, 1995,
|
||
issue of the Merchants Messenger, a publication of the Merchants Division of
|
||
the National Federation of the Blind. Charlie Allen is President of the Merchants
|
||
Division. The story he tells here is unfortunately familiar. It is still all too
|
||
common for large organizations to assume that they can take advantage of blind
|
||
vendors. But Federationists like vendor Jerry Grimes are also becoming more
|
||
and more familiar--blind people who refuse to lie down meekly and allow
|
||
themselves to be walked over, people who are prepared to stand and be
|
||
counted, strong in the confidence that they do not stand alone. Here is Jerry
|
||
Grimes's story as told by Charles Allen:
|
||
|
||
Federationist Jerry Grimes has managed the vending facility at Kentucky
|
||
State University at Frankfort since it opened in 1983. He was required to pay the
|
||
university a commission equal to 5 percent of his net profit, an amount he also
|
||
pays to the Department for the Blind as set aside.
|
||
In 1989 the university decided to end its contract with the department and
|
||
hire a private vending company. The department negotiated with the university
|
||
and agreed to pay a higher commission in order to keep the facility. The money
|
||
they agreed to pay belonged to Jerry Grimes, not to the department. Since the
|
||
department did not have the authority to give away Grimes' money, he sued the
|
||
department and the university in August, 1989. On April 22, 1992, Grimes
|
||
prevailed. The university wanted a private contractor, but the court said the
|
||
Kentucky Business Enterprize Program (KBEP) was entitled to operate the
|
||
facility. The university wanted the right to have Grimes replaced as manager.
|
||
The court upheld Grimes's right to stay, consistent with KBEP rules. The court
|
||
ordered that Grimes would pay the university only the 5 percent required in the
|
||
original contract. The university wanted the right to set prices. The court said
|
||
that Grimes could not be forced to charge less than prevailing prices in the local
|
||
area. The court ordered a contract which reflected these decisions.
|
||
Though the court had spoken, the university seemed slow to learn.
|
||
Unfortunately, the university still wants control, not only of prices, but of product
|
||
as well; and it wants a voice in determining Grimes's tenure. Grimes returned to
|
||
court this time with the department as an ally, not an adversary.
|
||
The university had entered into a monetary agreement with the Coca-Cola
|
||
Company and therefore demanded that Grimes sell only Coca-Cola products in
|
||
his canned drink machines. The university also opened a food cart service
|
||
outside a building in which he had machines, thereby entering into direct
|
||
competition with him. On November 18, 1994, Grimes prevailed again. The court
|
||
said that needed food-service contracts must be negotiated with KBEP in
|
||
accordance with state and federal law. Under federal and state law the
|
||
department has the sole right to determine the facility manager, and the
|
||
university may not restrict the operation of a facility through its own exclusive
|
||
brand agreements.
|
||
With some financial assistance from the National Federation of the Blind
|
||
of Kentucky, Grimes has himself paid the cost of his legal action. Grimes
|
||
supports the university not only with the commission he is required to pay, but
|
||
in other ways too. For example, he underwrites the cost of the university's
|
||
Easter egg hunt and supports other university programs as well. Even so, the
|
||
university wants to get rid of him. It appears they don't like assertive blind
|
||
people. They have moved his storage room to a place far harder for him to
|
||
manage physically. The university has appealed the November, 1994, decision
|
||
and continues to drag its feet.
|
||
In a National Federation of the Blind banquet address Jerry Grimes once
|
||
heard the words, "We know who we are, and we'll never go back." These ringing
|
||
words remain at the core of his being. He cites them as his inspiration to keep
|
||
fighting. His personal struggle for the right to work has strengthened the entire
|
||
Kentucky Vending Program.
|
||
|
||
|
||
AND EVERYBODY LOSES: A HARD LESSON ABOUT DISCRIMINATION
|
||
by Corally Littrell
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: The following article is sobering and highly instructive. It
|
||
does not have a happy ending, though one can hope that, as the social climate
|
||
for disabled people in this country changes, such experiences will eventually
|
||
become less common. We in the National Federation of the Blind will certainly
|
||
do what we can to help, but where human prejudice and narrowness of vision
|
||
are in control, there are limits to what can be accomplished.
|
||
Corally Littrell is a dedicated and experienced teacher of blind and visually
|
||
impaired children in Massachusetts. As a blind person herself, she is also a
|
||
long-time reader of the Braille Monitor. She is quick to say that her ideas about
|
||
the importance of high expectations, the necessity for good public education
|
||
about blindness, and the difficulty of our struggle for first-class status have been
|
||
shaped by her contact with the Federation. But for years she was busy and
|
||
happy, telling herself that she could make her contribution by providing good
|
||
teaching and an effective role model for her students. She never bothered to
|
||
seek out the nearest NFB chapter.
|
||
Then suddenly, before she realized what was happening, she found
|
||
herself in the middle of a nightmare. One of her students was transferred to a
|
||
new school, and she was to go along. The building principal was a committed
|
||
believer in full inclusion for all disabled children and, as became painfully clear,
|
||
a skeptic about the abilities of disabled adults. In four short weeks this
|
||
combination proved disastrous for the blind student, the itinerant teacher, and
|
||
the faculty's understanding of what blind people can accomplish. It remains to
|
||
be seen how much can be salvaged from the wreckage. The story of how it
|
||
happened begins with Ms. Littrell's cover letter to the Braille Monitor and a letter
|
||
of commendation prepared by the faculty of the student's first school when they
|
||
heard about what was happening to Ms. Littrell at the new school. Here is her
|
||
cover letter:
|
||
|
||
Monson, Massachusetts
|
||
January 22, 1995
|
||
|
||
Ms. Barbara Pierce
|
||
The Braille Monitor
|
||
Baltimore, Maryland
|
||
|
||
Dear Ms. Pierce:
|
||
I am an itinerant teacher of blind children and youth. I am also blind
|
||
myself. I believe I have been the victim of discrimination at one particular school
|
||
due to an unenlightened principal. Her negative attitudes and actions have
|
||
resulted in a significant reduction in my teaching hours; a corresponding cut in
|
||
salary; a serious threat to my professional reputation; and, worst of all, the loss
|
||
of vision services for a very special little girl who needs them desperately. I think
|
||
it is imperative that this principal be made aware of her own prejudices and be
|
||
educated as to the competencies of the blind. I can think of no source as well-
|
||
equipped to give me guidance in this task as the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind.
|
||
Although the principal's discriminatory actions occurred during a period
|
||
lasting only about four weeks, to comprehend the situation fully you'll need to
|
||
have some basic information dating from the very beginning. Therefore, I have
|
||
enclosed a summary of the events from my perspective to help you understand
|
||
my point of view. I hope you will give me the benefit of your long experience
|
||
dealing with people whose prejudice results in lowered expectations, limited
|
||
opportunities, and unjust treatment. Thank you very much for your time and
|
||
consideration.
|
||
|
||
Sincerely yours,
|
||
Corally Littrell, M.Ed.
|
||
|
||
__________
|
||
|
||
Center School
|
||
|
||
Dear _______________:
|
||
We were most fortunate to work with Corally Littrell for two years at
|
||
Center School. Although many of us did not work closely with her in the
|
||
classroom, we had the opportunity to see her as she worked with _____ and
|
||
talked with the staff. Many of us asked her to be a guest speaker in our
|
||
classrooms during Disability Awareness Week at the school and saw a
|
||
presentation of a talented and gifted teacher. We regret that this committed,
|
||
caring, understanding, dedicated teacher will no longer be coming to our
|
||
school. She was an inspiration to all of us. We want to thank you for giving us
|
||
the opportunity to learn from her.
|
||
|
||
Sincerely,
|
||
|
||
That was the letter written by the faculty at Center School, and it is difficult
|
||
to imagine how the staff could have written a more supportive or favorable letter.
|
||
The colleague about whom they wrote was not incompetent, irresponsible, or
|
||
inept; she was clearly a respected colleague who would be missed
|
||
professionally and personally. Here, in her own words, is what happened to this
|
||
fine teacher. It is an unsettling, even frightening story because it is a reminder of
|
||
what can happen to any of us when one person in authority decides, for
|
||
whatever reason, to destroy us. Here is Ms. Littrell's statement:
|
||
|
||
In the fall of 1992 a multiply-impaired little girl was entering the first grade
|
||
in a nearby town. Because she was blind, her IEP specified thirteen hours of
|
||
service delivered by a certified teacher of the visually impaired. As of September
|
||
1, however, no teacher of the visually impaired (TVI) had been found. As a TVI
|
||
working for the collaborative to which this town belonged, I was available.
|
||
Although initially the parents did not want a blind teacher, there seemed to be
|
||
no other option. I was hired, and thus began one of the most rewarding teaching
|
||
experiences of my career.
|
||
Thereafter the parents and I had a good relationship, sharing the view
|
||
that, given strategies and materials tailored to meet her individual needs, their
|
||
little girl could learn. We also held in common the belief that open and frequent
|
||
communication was essential, and although we did not always agree, we were
|
||
willing to listen to each other. In addition, I considered their input invaluable and
|
||
was awed by their devotion, concern, and tenacity when it came to fighting for
|
||
their daughter's rights. Moreover, they often thanked me for the good job they
|
||
felt I was doing and showed their appreciation in a variety of ways.
|
||
In addition, it was my pleasure to work among the greatest of school
|
||
staffs. Although I was an itinerant teacher who spent only two hours each
|
||
morning in this school, everyone from the principal to the custodian treated me
|
||
as if I truly belonged. My own blindness was never an issue, for I was
|
||
considered a fellow professional who had valuable information and ideas to
|
||
contribute. This warm, friendly environment fostered mutual respect, acceptance
|
||
of individual differences, and a spirit of cooperation. (When the details of my
|
||
subsequent dismissal from this little girl's team emerged, the staff wrote a
|
||
wonderfully supportive letter, which is enclosed.)
|
||
At the beginning of her third year of elementary school (and her third year
|
||
with me) it seemed evident that this student was tiring far more easily than in
|
||
the past. Apparently her seizure medication had recently been changed, and one
|
||
side effect was increased fatigue. Exacerbating this situation was the physical
|
||
plant in which her third-grade class was located. Not only did she have to
|
||
contend with numerous stairs, but she also had to travel from one building to
|
||
another on a daily basis. Therefore, a decision was made to transfer her to
|
||
another public school in town, one with all classes in the same building.
|
||
With this in mind, my student's individual aide and I met twice with the
|
||
new principal, first with her alone and then again with the classroom teacher and
|
||
the inclusion specialist. We were both looking forward to meeting the principal,
|
||
for we had heard glowing reports from the parents, who coincidentally had been
|
||
friends of hers for many years. And, indeed, she appeared to be a warm, friendly
|
||
woman, very much dedicated to providing the best education for all students.
|
||
She also spoke of the importance of fostering a team spirit among staff
|
||
members and lending support whenever necessary. Despite these positive
|
||
signs, there were a few disquieting moments.
|
||
Prior to this meeting my student's parents had mentioned that the entire
|
||
staff at this school were highly supportive of full inclusion, and it became
|
||
obvious almost at once that this principal was no exception. Her thoughts on the
|
||
subject were delivered with great enthusiasm and conviction. For example, she
|
||
spoke at length of the special needs children for whom there was "no hope" who
|
||
had made remarkable gains since being fully included in regular classes.
|
||
Although my two years' experience with this highly distractable child had taught
|
||
me that she would benefit from some instruction in a separate setting, I felt this
|
||
was not the time to discuss it. (The decision to move her was not yet final.)
|
||
The principal made another disturbing comment when it became evident
|
||
that the class schedule for art, physical education, and music coincided with the
|
||
time I spent with my student. She understandably refused to change the entire
|
||
school's schedule on behalf of one student, but rather than suggesting that I do
|
||
so, she asked if I could just accompany the student to these classes. It seems
|
||
highly unlikely that this same suggestion would have been made to an
|
||
occupational therapist, speech and language pathologist, or any other teacher
|
||
whose services were valued. Needless to say, I replied that I could certainly do
|
||
so, but it would not be an efficient use of my time.
|
||
In the end, however, I had to follow the student and her aide to art and
|
||
music. This was not only humiliating but a waste of valuable teaching time. I
|
||
vowed that at the first opportunity I would meet with the teacher in order to
|
||
rearrange my schedule.
|
||
In addition, a number of recommendations I made based on my
|
||
knowledge, training, and experience as this student's TVI were dismissed by the
|
||
principal as inconsequential. For instance, I emphasized the importance of
|
||
scheduling weekly meetings in order for the classroom teacher and me to plan
|
||
any necessary adaptive strategies and materials. Despite the fact that
|
||
appropriate planning time is considered essential in any inclusion program, the
|
||
principal said this was not possible.
|
||
Similarly, I mentioned that in the past I had often taught my student along
|
||
with a small group of her classmates. The principal replied that this would only
|
||
be possible if the parents of the other children signed permission slips. It
|
||
seemed to me that this was unlikely to be a school policy applied to all certified
|
||
teachers.
|
||
I also attempted to dissuade the principal from "preparing the way," as she
|
||
put it, for my student to join her new classmates. Upon hearing of her intention, I
|
||
mentioned that, although this may seem like a good idea, taking a more
|
||
forthright approach would be preferable. In fact, I specifically stated that
|
||
members of the National Federation of the Blind recommend that the arrival of a
|
||
new blind student be handled just as it would if the student were sighted. I
|
||
further explained that discussing my student's disabilities beforehand would
|
||
send a subtle, negative message that these disabilities are so profound and
|
||
shameful that they need to be discussed in a secretive manner. However, the
|
||
principal decided to ignore this advice and proceed as planned.
|
||
Finally, I agreed with the principal that, if my student were to be
|
||
transferred, the transfer should take place as soon as possible. At the same
|
||
time, however, I cautioned against making the move without appropriate
|
||
preparation, for we all wanted that very first day to be a successful one. She
|
||
seemed to concur with this view, yet I was told on a Friday morning that my
|
||
student's first day in the new location would be the following Monday.
|
||
During my first visit to the new school the principal had given me a brief
|
||
tour of the building, pointing out those locations that would be important for me
|
||
to note should the move come to pass. In showing me one room she had told
|
||
me that it was designated as the area in which I would work with my student and
|
||
store my instructional materials. The room was small and divided into front and
|
||
back sections, the latter being mine. She had pointed out a few empty
|
||
bookcases, and in answer to my inquiry, she had assured me that there was
|
||
enough room to set up my student's computer equipment. Having been
|
||
completely capable of teaching in the many corners and closets I have been
|
||
assigned over the years, I was thrilled with these accommodations.
|
||
When I learned on that Friday morning that we would be moving, I had
|
||
just two hours to pack my extensive collection of materials before the custodian
|
||
sent by the principal arrived. However, he could fit only two boxes in his car and
|
||
had to leave the majority behind. Although the principal promised that he would
|
||
return later that day, these things were not actually moved until three days later.
|
||
This upset me. If I had been told in the beginning that this task would be
|
||
difficult, I would have arranged to move the materials on my own. After all, I
|
||
wanted my student to have all the familiar, specialized materials she used on her
|
||
first day.
|
||
Incredibly, the arrival of my materials did not resolve this problem. The
|
||
principal next told me that for some unknown reason the room I had intended to
|
||
use for storage was now unavailable. So my boxes remained in the hall, packed
|
||
and piled high. I arrived each morning two hours early in order to have time to
|
||
dig through these boxes in search of what I needed. Due to the absence of
|
||
group planning time, however, I did not know what materials would be needed
|
||
until the lesson was in progress. Obviously I could not locate the items I needed
|
||
on such short notice.
|
||
To make matters worse, my boxes were moved nearly every day. In fact,
|
||
each morning my husband and I would roam about the school in search of the
|
||
new, undisclosed location of my things. Invariably, we found them out in the
|
||
open in a remote place, far from my student's classroom. Not surprisingly, I
|
||
worried about the security of these items, for many were toys, tempting to the
|
||
children passing in the halls. This concern turned out to be reasonable, for I
|
||
later discovered that at least one teacher had taken a few of the more expensive
|
||
items, believing they were to be thrown away.
|
||
I did recognize that this move had been made in haste and that there were
|
||
bound to be a few glitches. But to say the least, this deplorable situation did not
|
||
constitute a very warm welcome and was so far removed from reasonable
|
||
accommodations as to be laughable. The unavailability of appropriate materials
|
||
made it impossible for me to teach this youngster effectively. So in the end it
|
||
was she who suffered from the consequences of administrative indifference.
|
||
I twice met with the principal to check on the progress being made on
|
||
locating a storage place for my materials. She explained in an offhand manner
|
||
that this school simply did not have any available space. Her attitude seemed
|
||
callous and unsympathetic to me, but I tried very hard to give her the benefit of
|
||
the doubt. Yet I could not believe that other teachers' personal things would be
|
||
mishandled in this way. It seemed obvious that the storage problem had very
|
||
low priority for her, and once again I was made to feel that my contribution to
|
||
this little girl's education was considered insignificant.
|
||
By this time I was very upset, so I turned to my supervisor from the
|
||
collaborative and arranged to meet with her the next day to discuss this issue as
|
||
well as others. After hearing the numerous stories I have recounted here, she
|
||
insisted that we inform the town's special education director of the situation. It is
|
||
my understanding that he was somehow already aware of these problems. He
|
||
visited the principal early on the Friday morning of that first week, and later that
|
||
afternoon I was given a few empty bookcases in a small closet off the cafeteria,
|
||
a fully satisfactory solution in my view. It also proved to be good timing, for I am
|
||
ashamed to admit now that by this time I had given up hope and, rather than
|
||
make any more waves, had made arrangements to purchase my own bookcases
|
||
that day after school.
|
||
As this storage situation was being played out, other events were
|
||
occurring which were even more blatantly discriminatory. On my second day at
|
||
this school, the principal unexpectedly announced that I would not be allowed to
|
||
teach my student alone, without the individual aide being present. I must have
|
||
visibly bristled at this, for she asked me, "You don't agree?"
|
||
To which I replied, "No, I do not."
|
||
Having read about this kind of negative attitude many times in the Braille
|
||
Monitor, I was well prepared to answer. I first stated that I had been successfully
|
||
teaching this little girl for two years now without constant supervision by her
|
||
aide. I further explained that I could do what sighted teachers do by using
|
||
alternative (not inferior) techniques and offered to demonstrate them should she
|
||
be interested. Thinking that an undue concern for my student's safety was at the
|
||
root of this directive, by way of example I described how I had handled my
|
||
student's seizures, sometimes recognizing them before the sighted adults
|
||
present at the time.
|
||
The principal's reply was, "I don't want any more burn incidents." Thinking
|
||
there had been some horrible accident in this school in the past, I asked to what
|
||
she was referring. I was totally unprepared for her answer. It turned out that she
|
||
was referring to a burn of unknown origin discovered on my student's arm the
|
||
year before, and it seemed apparent that she was also insinuating that I had
|
||
been responsible. A bit of explanation is necessary here.
|
||
Late one afternoon last year the aide noticed a small broken blister on my
|
||
student's arm, apparently the result of a burn. Her immediate reaction was to
|
||
wonder aloud if this had somehow been caused by the floor lamp I used when
|
||
working on visual skills with this student. This was understandable since, every
|
||
time I switched it on, I warned my student about the heat radiating from its bulb.
|
||
But this theory was short-lived, for the evidence indicated it was impossible. She
|
||
could neither reach the lamp nor, given her cerebral palsy, twist her arm into the
|
||
awkward position necessary to touch the bulb or shade.
|
||
In a conversation I had with the parents just a few weeks ago, they
|
||
assured me that the great significance that the principal attached to this incident
|
||
did not come from them. The mother told me that, even if the lamp had been the
|
||
cause, they would have considered it just an accident. She explained that at the
|
||
time she had briefly mentioned the incident to the principal as part of a
|
||
conversation with a friend. "Unfortunately," (the mother's word) the principal
|
||
remembered the incident and used it as the rationale for requiring that I not be
|
||
left alone with my student.
|
||
After hearing the principal bring up this long-ago event as the excuse for
|
||
her decision, I could barely speak. This mandate clearly did not reflect the
|
||
parents' point of view, for they had never objected to their daughter's working
|
||
with me in a separate setting in the past. It is also interesting to note that the
|
||
principal has since allowed the student to be unsupervised in a crowded, tiled
|
||
bathroom with the door shut. Apparently the principal believes the student is far
|
||
safer alone there than she would be sitting in a chair, fully engaged in activities
|
||
under my supervision. However, it seemed wisest to me to consider the best
|
||
way to respond before doing so, and I resolved to speak with her the next day.
|
||
The next morning I made what I now consider to be a grave tactical error.
|
||
I met with the principal and told her that I would abide by this rule. I went on to
|
||
say that I understood that she felt it necessary because she had no prior
|
||
experience with blind people. I truly believed at the time that for my own sake,
|
||
as well as for my student's, we would have to learn to work together in harmony,
|
||
and I was willing to make the first move toward that end. I hoped that given time
|
||
she would come to realize that I was truly competent and worthy of the same
|
||
respect given to the other professional educators with whom she worked.
|
||
However, for the moment I lost sight of the fact that I should not have had
|
||
to prove myself to this woman, for her lowered expectations were based on
|
||
nothing more than a personal bias against the blind. Thus, in saying this, I
|
||
recognized that I was compromising my own integrity and letting down my blind
|
||
brothers and sisters.
|
||
Although the principal never mentioned the information at the time, I soon
|
||
discovered that all but one of the adults working with this student had been told
|
||
that the aide must always be present when they were working with the child.
|
||
Needless to say, I was somewhat relieved to hear this news because it appeared
|
||
that I was not being singled out after all. I had never expected special treatment
|
||
or even reasonable accommodations; all I wanted was to be treated like the
|
||
other teachers. However, a week later I realized that the word "alone" in the
|
||
principal's directive held a special meaning when applied to me.
|
||
The day I made this discovery the classroom teacher did not have her
|
||
plans ready until the class began to file in. This meant that I would have to go
|
||
with the flow and would not have the opportunity to gather the necessary
|
||
materials beforehand. Thus, when I determined that an alternative lesson would
|
||
be needed, I asked the aide to collect a few items from my storage area. She
|
||
then asked the teacher if she could leave to do so, but the request was denied.
|
||
Rather embarrassed and apologetic, the teacher explained that the
|
||
principal had made it very, very clear that the aide could not leave the student's
|
||
side when I was teaching "because you are blind." The teacher was also told
|
||
that, if anything ever happened while I was with the student in the classroom,
|
||
the teacher would be responsible. She was, therefore, fearful of taking on this
|
||
responsibility while teaching an entire class.
|
||
How demeaning and discriminatory! I could not even be trusted in a room
|
||
full of children and a classroom teacher. So instead I left my student with the
|
||
aide while I made the trip, dismayed once again at the loss of valuable teaching
|
||
time. It was now abundantly clear that the principal's prejudice was affecting not
|
||
only the education of this student but also the attitudes of the adults and
|
||
children attending this school.
|
||
After one week it became obvious that a planning meeting was indeed
|
||
necessary, and one was scheduled. However, no planning was accomplished,
|
||
and the main topic became full inclusion. As mentioned previously, I was well
|
||
aware of the school's commitment to this philosophy, but I naively thought that
|
||
all decisions would nevertheless be child-centered, not based merely on a
|
||
currently popular trend. I also foolishly believed that my input would be
|
||
seriously considered since I alone among the educators there had expertise and
|
||
experience working with this child.
|
||
I began by stating that I, too, believed in the value of full inclusion, but not
|
||
necessarily for all children. In fact, much of my work as a TVI is aimed at
|
||
enabling blind students to be educated alongside their peers. However, in this
|
||
developmentally delayed child's case, successfully adapting the second-grade
|
||
curriculum to meet her needs was not always possible or desirable. She
|
||
frequently needed an alternative learning environment, creative strategies, and
|
||
adaptive materials not always available in the regular classroom.
|
||
For example, I felt it was inappropriate for this student to listen to a lesson
|
||
on Roman numerals when she really needed practice counting to ten. Similarly,
|
||
listening to a cursive-writing video or writing her weekly spelling words with
|
||
hand-over-hand guidance seemed meaningless since she could not read print or
|
||
Braille at this time. Learning to use a tape recorder as a communication device
|
||
seemed a more appropriate alternative. Finally, I reminded them that, to be
|
||
included in society, she really needed to learn life skills such as putting on a
|
||
coat, feeding herself, and organizing her personal belongings. Nevertheless,
|
||
their attitude was that she was probably gaining more from these second-grade
|
||
activities than I realized.
|
||
As proponents of full inclusion the classroom teacher, inclusion specialist,
|
||
and especially the principal also insisted that any alternative instruction take
|
||
place within the regular classroom. I then described the implications of this
|
||
student's cortical visual impairment and, anticipating this difference of opinion,
|
||
distributed numerous journal articles pertaining to CVI. I further explained that
|
||
CVI studies and experience (mine as well as that of other educators who have
|
||
worked with this student) have indicated that she cannot filter out extraneous
|
||
visual and auditory stimuli. Her performance suffers greatly if competing sensory
|
||
information is present, so some pull-out time is necessary.
|
||
Although all of the teachers in attendance voiced opposition to pull-outs,
|
||
the principal's comments appeared to be more like a personal attack. She
|
||
insinuated that I was old-fashioned and out of step with current educational
|
||
practice and that I supported teaching this student in a separate setting for
|
||
some self-serving reason. The others listened to my point of view, asked
|
||
thoughtful questions, and offered possible compromises; but the principal
|
||
seemed to do nothing but repeat that pull-out time would not be allowed. She
|
||
supported this by saying that she had been to numerous workshops and
|
||
conferences on inclusion, and not one had condoned pull-outs--hardly a good
|
||
enough reason to reject a strategy that had proven to be successful with this
|
||
particular child. Moreover, this discussion also indicated that the principal had
|
||
been less than honest when, during our initial tour, she had pointed out a room
|
||
in which I could work with this student. (I later discovered that I was not the only
|
||
one at this meeting to sense the principal's hostility toward me. One of the
|
||
teachers admitted that she was so appalled that she had nearly reported the way
|
||
I had been treated to the superintendent.)
|
||
I assumed at the time that the principal's refusal even to consider my
|
||
point of view on this issue was due to an almost fanatical support of full
|
||
inclusion. It seemed that no amount of evidence to the contrary could change
|
||
her belief that this philosophy was right for every child. However, I soon
|
||
discovered that I was the only teacher who was not allowed to remove the
|
||
student from the classroom for instructional purposes. The occupational
|
||
therapist, orientation and mobility instructor, speech and language pathologist,
|
||
physical therapist, and even the inclusion specialist work with this student
|
||
outside the classroom. In contrast, while working with me, this student had to
|
||
struggle to concentrate within the context of a very busy classroom, and
|
||
meeting with little success.
|
||
During this inclusion discussion I also mentioned that much of my work
|
||
with this student had included pre-teaching which would enable her to benefit
|
||
from the regular classroom activities. When asked for an example, I explained
|
||
that she could not always comprehend the stories used in second grade
|
||
because she sometimes lacked knowledge of the necessary concepts. For
|
||
instance, in her previous school, before her class was to listen to The Mud
|
||
Puddle, I discovered she did not know what mud was or where dirt could be
|
||
found. Thus, I had her dig up some dirt, make mud, and dramatize the story with
|
||
a classmate. For other stories I had brought in bread dough, carrot seeds,
|
||
lamb's wool, apples, and many other objects to provide the necessary concrete
|
||
experiences beforehand.
|
||
Upon hearing of this, the classroom teacher offered to do the same on
|
||
this student's behalf. I thought this was highly appropriate and said, "If you are
|
||
willing to take the time and obtain the materials, I'm sure many of your other
|
||
students could benefit from this approach as well."
|
||
The principal immediately interrupted, saying to me, "Why should she get
|
||
the materials? You should do it."
|
||
Tired of her emotional abuse and admittedly losing control myself, I
|
||
sarcastically replied, "Perhaps I should spend my evenings locating and
|
||
purchasing these things with my own money. Then I could just drop them off
|
||
each morning because obviously I am not good enough to teach this child."
|
||
A mere two weeks after making the move to this school, I was sitting in
|
||
my office when the collaborative's special education director, my boss,
|
||
approached me to get an update on the situation there. I was visibly upset as I
|
||
related the details of the way I was being treated and the way it was affecting my
|
||
student's education. His response was immediate; I was not to enter that school
|
||
again until something was done about the "hostile environment." I was relieved
|
||
and very grateful for the vote of confidence and told him so. He simply replied,
|
||
"The collaborative will support you, not only because we like you but because
|
||
you are right."
|
||
Three days later a meeting took place between the collaborative's special
|
||
education director and the involved personnel from this school to discuss
|
||
possible solutions to the problems that had arisen. Afterwards he told me that,
|
||
regrettably, the principal took no responsibility whatsoever for these problems,
|
||
apparently preferring to place the blame on "Ms. Littrell's overly sensitive
|
||
nature." He also said that although he made it very clear from the outset that it
|
||
had been his decision, not mine, to remove me from the school, he had
|
||
repeatedly to correct the principal's comments to the contrary. She also put
|
||
more emphasis on problems such as the initial lack of storage space. In the end
|
||
it was the town's special education director who explained that all I really wanted
|
||
was respect.
|
||
Consulting his notes, my boss also reported that the principal was
|
||
extremely upset over two particular incidents that she said she had witnessed.
|
||
First, she did not approve of the aide's walking me out to the car every day,
|
||
leaving my student alone, without supervision. Second, she accused me of
|
||
having the aide take supplies from the closet on my behalf, which is against
|
||
school policy. Both of these incidents were related as facts not only to my boss
|
||
but also to the town's special education director, the aide's boss.
|
||
The aide and I were outraged to hear of these complaints because they
|
||
were absolutely untrue. Thus, we wrote individual letters in our own defense,
|
||
detailing evidence and requesting that the principal rectify the situation with
|
||
those who initially heard these false charges. She never granted this request but
|
||
subsequently explained to the aide that my boss had lied to me, for she had
|
||
never said those things to him. Later she changed her story again and told the
|
||
aide that what she had really said was that either the aide or I had been caught
|
||
by the classroom teacher going through her personal belongings. Not
|
||
surprisingly, the teacher denied ever having said this and did not appreciate in
|
||
the least being used in yet another of this principal's false accusations.
|
||
After his meeting with the school staff, my boss then asked me if I would
|
||
be willing to return to this school to give it another try. He warned me that he
|
||
did not hold out much hope, given the principal's attitude. I absolutely did not
|
||
want to return. All my life I have loved teaching, enjoyed working with children,
|
||
and teaming with fellow professionals; but I dreaded entering that school every
|
||
day and often left nearly in tears. Moreover, I feared the principal's retaliation
|
||
after what she would consider all the trouble I had caused. But I agreed to try
|
||
my very best to work things out, first because he had asked me to and second
|
||
because I cared a great deal about my student.
|
||
Thus, the classroom teacher, inclusion specialist, individual aide, and I
|
||
met to discuss our various roles and make specific plans for the following week.
|
||
The principal was conspicuous by her absence, which made me feel far more at
|
||
ease. We worked very well as a team, agreeing on almost everything and even
|
||
laughing together. I believe that we all felt very optimistic about the future and
|
||
decided that one more meeting was necessary before I could return as the TVI
|
||
on this student's team. I also made it clear, however, that certain discriminatory
|
||
measures would have to be changed before I would return. They rightly pointed
|
||
out that the principal would have to address these issues.
|
||
However, this was not to be. A few days later the town's special education
|
||
director informed my boss that the parents no longer wanted me to teach their
|
||
daughter. This did not entirely surprise me since I was well aware of the close
|
||
friendship they had with the principal. So I sent a small gift and a goodbye tape
|
||
to their daughter, as well as a letter to the parents thanking them for giving me
|
||
the wonderful opportunity of working with their terrific little girl.
|
||
A few weeks later the parents called me to apologize for insisting that I no
|
||
longer teach their daughter. They explained that they were not aware of the facts
|
||
until they later did some investigation on their own. All they knew at the time
|
||
was that I was not showing up every day and their daughter was not receiving
|
||
any TVI services. It seemed to them that I was not demonstrating appropriate
|
||
concern for their daughter's education. But they now realize that it was not my
|
||
decision to leave and why it was done.
|
||
Although I had felt I owed the parents an explanation at the time I stopped
|
||
going to the school, my boss told me not to communicate with those involved.
|
||
Apparently the two special education directors wanted to work out a solution
|
||
without further complications. However, I was kept informed every step of the
|
||
way by my boss, and I assumed everyone else was similarly notified. Yet the
|
||
parents called the school every day to see if I had arrived, and the principal
|
||
(both a close friend and the administrator of their daughter's school) never
|
||
explained the situation to them. It would seem that the principal believed it was
|
||
to her advantage to keep the parents in the dark, making me out as the villain.
|
||
At long last I have reached the end of my story. Reviewing the details
|
||
here, I am astounded that it took me so long to recognize that prejudice was at
|
||
the heart of the problems I experienced at this school. It was the aide who first
|
||
brought out in the open the idea of prejudice when she told the town's special
|
||
education director, "The principal can't tell someone who has done a job
|
||
successfully for two years that she cannot do it because she is blind. That's
|
||
against the law." My boss also interpreted the situation correctly almost
|
||
immediately and labeled the principal a "bigot." Even my husband admitted later
|
||
that he had suspected this explanation from the beginning but opted not to
|
||
mention it until I came to this conclusion myself. Perhaps I just did not want to
|
||
admit that a so-called educated woman, one who fervently believes in full
|
||
inclusion for disabled children, was not capable of including a blind teacher on
|
||
her staff.
|
||
Once I fully accepted that I was being treated differently and unfairly
|
||
simply because I was blind, I went through numerous stages emotionally. My
|
||
initial reaction was hurt. I know that I am a creative, dedicated, and talented
|
||
teacher and that I did not deserve to be belittled in this way. I next felt anger and
|
||
somehow wanted to punish this person who had made me so miserable and
|
||
caused such havoc. And, as time passed, I even began to consider the advice
|
||
given in the currently popular Eagles hit song, "Get Over It." This latter option
|
||
was particularly enticing since I really wanted to close this chapter of my life and
|
||
move on.
|
||
But I cannot do it. This is not the first time this principal has revealed her
|
||
prejudice within the school setting, nor is it likely to be the last unless
|
||
something is done to educate her. And, as my experience demonstrates, the
|
||
consequences of her negative attitudes and actions can be profound and far-
|
||
reaching. In this case they included the following:
|
||
1. The student is not receiving the thirteen hours of vision services
|
||
specified on her IEP and, given the scarcity of TVI's in this area, may be without
|
||
them for a very, very long time.
|
||
2. Those currently teaching this student are not receiving the needed
|
||
consultative services of a TVI.
|
||
3. My teaching time has been cut by thirteen hours.
|
||
4. My salary has also been cut nearly in half.
|
||
5. My driver's hours and salary have similarly been cut.
|
||
6. The wonderful reputation I have enjoyed as a competent, caring teacher
|
||
is in serious jeopardy.
|
||
7. As a principal, this woman's discriminatory attitudes and actions toward
|
||
me as a blind person may well have negatively influenced the children and
|
||
adults working and learning within her school.
|
||
It seems that the principal has gotten exactly what she wanted, while
|
||
nearly every other team member has suffered the consequences of her
|
||
prejudice. With this in mind my focus has once again shifted. I now believe that
|
||
the most important task at hand is to educate this principal, if that is indeed
|
||
possible, so that she will no longer wield her power unjustly. She needs to
|
||
understand that her discriminatory actions are hurtful, immoral, and against the
|
||
law.
|
||
Yours sincerely,
|
||
Corally Littrell, TVI
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #5: Portrait CAPTION: Mary Ellen Gabias]
|
||
|
||
AGING AND BLINDNESS: THE DOUBLE WHAMMY
|
||
by Mary Ellen Gabias
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: As longtime Federationists know, Mary Ellen Gabias has
|
||
been an active and knowledgeable member of the organization for many years.
|
||
In fact, when I attended my first state convention, she offered to room with me
|
||
and help me understand what was going on during that whirlwind weekend. She
|
||
was a college student at the time and I a young mother, but despite the
|
||
difference in our ages and preoccupations, we became immediate and fast
|
||
friends.
|
||
After college graduation Mary Ellen took a job in Nebraska which kept her
|
||
traveling around the state and working with blind people, frequently senior
|
||
citizens. She then moved to Chicago, where she worked in politics for a while
|
||
before moving on to become Assistant Director of the Job Opportunities for the
|
||
Blind Program at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore.
|
||
During those years she met and eventually married Dr. Paul Gabias, who
|
||
was teaching psychology at a university in Nevada. They relocated to Canada
|
||
when he found other teaching jobs north of the border, and they now have two
|
||
small children, who keep Mary Ellen busy much of the time.
|
||
But she has always found time to advocate for improvements in the lives
|
||
of blind people, and together Mary Ellen and Paul have established the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind: Advocates for Equality (NFB:AE) in Canada to work
|
||
directly on such issues. Their organization is based on NFB philosophy and is
|
||
working to educate blind and sighted people alike about the abilities of blind
|
||
citizens.
|
||
The following article is taken from the winter, 1994/95, edition of The
|
||
Canadian Monitor, the publication of the NFB:AE. Here it is:
|
||
|
||
Many years ago a sighted retired teacher walked into an agency for the
|
||
blind to offer her services as a Braille transcriber. The agency thanked her for
|
||
volunteering but declined her offer. They explained that at least a year of study
|
||
was required to become a certified transcriber. At her age the investment in
|
||
training would not be worth the effort.
|
||
Undaunted, this teacher went to another agency for the blind in the large
|
||
city where she lived. They were seeking volunteer readers for blind students and
|
||
were only too happy to have her. Her volunteer reading career spanned twenty-
|
||
five years and enriched the lives of dozens of blind people. Incidentally, she
|
||
taught herself Braille though she never became a certified transcriber.
|
||
Just last month a government official was responding to requests by blind
|
||
consumers for better service. He assured everyone that he really understood
|
||
blindness from personal family experience; his grandfather had been blind. As a
|
||
young boy this official had been a sighted guide and personal assistant, so he
|
||
knew how difficult blindness must be.
|
||
Taken together, these two stories illustrate the double whammy of
|
||
blindness and aging when they occur together. One agency for the blind threw
|
||
away the talents of a vital, energetic, and intelligent woman simply because of
|
||
her age. Because she was sighted, their refusal to work with her had no
|
||
dramatic effect. If she had been blind and seeking help, however, one shudders
|
||
to think about the quality of the service she would have received from an agency
|
||
with such low expectations of seniors.
|
||
The government official's most important and emotionally significant
|
||
encounter with blindness happened at a time when very little was expected of
|
||
blind people, especially older blind people. Though the world has changed since
|
||
this gentleman was assisting his grandfather, his emotional attitudes about
|
||
blindness had already been formed. If he were ever to become blind, he would
|
||
need to do a great deal of rethinking about those attitudes.
|
||
Societal attitudes about aging have undergone a dramatic and needed
|
||
transformation over the past generation. People who used to think of themselves
|
||
as over the hill now demand their turn at the top of the heap. Though myths
|
||
about aging are still far too prevalent, most of us know at least one active
|
||
octogenarian. The word "senior" and "senile" are no longer synonymous in the
|
||
public mind.
|
||
Societal attitudes towards blindness are changing too, though not quite as
|
||
dramatically and rapidly. The public is beginning to accept or at least not to be
|
||
astonished when blind people pull their own weight in the life of the community.
|
||
Unfortunately, when blindness comes in later life, all the old stereotypes
|
||
about aging and blindness seem to return with a vengeance. The older blind
|
||
person, having been raised in an era when blindness was thought to be
|
||
synonymous with helplessness, often feels the only course of action is to adjust
|
||
to helplessness with as much grace and good humor as possible. The service
|
||
worker in an agency for the blind, who may not have thought through the
|
||
stereotypes about aging, often accepts as appropriate the resistance of a newly
|
||
blind older person to learning blindness skills. The same worker is likely to push
|
||
harder when facing the same resistance from a young newly blind individual. In
|
||
addition the community at large often accepts the notion that blindness
|
||
necessarily results in diminished abilities for older people--"You can't teach an
|
||
old dog new tricks" or "She has had a good life; it would be cruel to push her
|
||
now." Even with the combined force of age and blindness stereotypes weighing
|
||
them down, many newly blind older people still learn what they need to know in
|
||
order to continue full and active lives.
|
||
An eighty-year-old continues doing her sewing and handicrafts. A seventy-
|
||
year-old uses Braille for her extensive recipe collection. A retired gentleman
|
||
takes up woodworking and sells his work. All three use their long white canes to
|
||
travel independently on city streets and buses.
|
||
The difference between these active people (actual cases) and those who
|
||
settle into a rocking chair is not intelligence or native ability. It is motivation, the
|
||
availability of good training, and, above all, the right attitude.
|
||
Where can we, as a consumer movement, focus our energies in order to
|
||
make the largest possible difference for people who become blind when they
|
||
are older? First, we can continue to do public education at every opportunity.
|
||
Second, we should take every opportunity to speak at church groups, senior
|
||
centers, and other gatherings where older people and their families may be
|
||
present.
|
||
Another good way to reach older people is to develop a buddy system.
|
||
One NFB chapter in the United States assigned an older woman who was in
|
||
poor health, but very interested in the problems of seniors, the task of
|
||
telephoning older blind people in the community. She spent her day keeping in
|
||
touch with these individuals; they became her friends and in the process
|
||
improved the quality of their lives. In another case a group of seniors organized
|
||
a handicraft sale and donated the proceeds to their local NFB chapter.
|
||
Finally, let's not forget that nowadays seniors are actively involved in
|
||
many aspects of political and community life. Let's help transform this particular
|
||
double whammy into an historic oddity.
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #6: Peggy Elliott sits and listens at the 1994 NFB convention CAPTION: Peggy Elliott]
|
||
[PHOTO #7: Portrait CAPTION: Barbara Cheadle]
|
||
|
||
OF READERS, DRIVERS, AND RESPONSIBILITY
|
||
by Peggy Pinder Elliott and Barbara Cheadle
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: The following article is reprinted from the Fall, 1994,
|
||
issue of Future Reflections, the magazine of the National Organization of Parents
|
||
of Blind Children, a Division of the National Federation of the Blind. It begins
|
||
with Barbara Cheadle's editorial note. The discussion is constructive and timely
|
||
for parents of blind children as well as for blind people of all ages. Here it is:
|
||
|
||
One of the presentations given at the daylong seminar for parents of blind
|
||
children at the 1994 NFB National Convention was entitled "Readers and Drivers:
|
||
The Other Alternative Techniques of Blindness." For this presentation Peggy
|
||
Elliott and I teamed up for a lively discussion from two viewpoints: the blind
|
||
person who uses readers and drivers and the sighted person who provides the
|
||
service. (Peggy is a blind attorney, the Second Vice President of the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind, and the President of the NFB of Iowa. I am the editor of
|
||
Future Reflections, President of the National Organization of Parents of Blind
|
||
Children, and the sighted parent of a sixteen-year-old blind son.) However,
|
||
everyone quickly discovered these differences were only superficial. Since both
|
||
speakers operated using the same philosophy of blindness, we arrived quite
|
||
naturally at complementary conclusions about what parents and blind kids need
|
||
most to know about these other alternative techniques.
|
||
The following article is an expansion and refinement of the discussion
|
||
held at the parents' seminar. After looking at the transcript, both of us wanted to
|
||
flesh out several ideas we had only had time to mention in passing at the
|
||
seminar. We also agreed upon a slightly different title. Here, then, is what Peggy
|
||
Elliott and I have to say about readers, drivers, and responsibility:
|
||
|
||
Peggy Pinder Elliott
|
||
|
||
I get to talk today specifically about readers and drivers. But these are
|
||
really only subparts of a much more general topic, alternative techniques. I've
|
||
heard some of today's session already, and lots of people have used the term
|
||
"alternative techniques." Let me give you an example which I think will give more
|
||
body to this concept and will help you better understand my comments today
|
||
about how readers and drivers function (or should function) for blind people.
|
||
When I talk to school children about blindness, as I often do, I tell them
|
||
I'm going to talk about alternative techniques such as Braille. Of course, they
|
||
think this is interesting. I tell them that Braille's the same as print; they are
|
||
alternatives to each other. When you're talking with second-, third-, or even
|
||
fourth-graders, this concept is a bit of a reach; so I use an example. Here's what
|
||
I say. I ask the children if their moms have a place in the kitchen where they
|
||
keep cookies. The kids usually giggle and say, "Yeah."
|
||
"Do you know where that is?" I ask. Yes, they know where Mom keeps the
|
||
cookies. Then I ask them if Mom can reach the cookies easily just by standing
|
||
on the floor.
|
||
They say, "Oh, yeah, of course. She can reach them just standing on the
|
||
floor."
|
||
I ask, "Can you reach the cookies standing on the floor?""No!, uh uh.
|
||
We're not supposed to get into the cookies."
|
||
"Do you know a way, when Mom's not in the kitchen, that you can get to
|
||
those cookies?" They always giggle and give me various methods (usually
|
||
involving counters and stools) that they have figured out for getting to the
|
||
cookies. So I say, "Now, see, your mom's taller than you, so she can reach the
|
||
cookies by standing on the floor. But you can still reach the cookies by using an
|
||
`alternative technique.' The point is, you get the cookies, right?" Anyway, kids
|
||
always like this subject, so I have found it to be a good way of explaining about
|
||
alternative techniques. What I stress to the kids is that it isn't really important
|
||
how you do it (get the cookies); the important thing is to get it done.
|
||
As parents of blind children you need to be concerned with making sure
|
||
that your children learn techniques and approaches which they can use
|
||
throughout their lives so they can get it done--whatever "it" is. Today, I'm going
|
||
to help you with this job. I'm going to give you some pointers on what to teach
|
||
your child about using readers and drivers. First I'm going to talk about what
|
||
we--blind adults--do with readers and drivers.
|
||
We all know about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We all know
|
||
about the Braille literacy laws we have gotten passed in twenty-five states. We
|
||
know there are lots of sources of reading material in alternative media (such as
|
||
Braille and tapes) used by the blind. But, despite all this, I will tell you flat out
|
||
that it is not possible for all printed or written material ever to be simultaneously
|
||
available in an alternative medium accessible to the blind. It is just not going to
|
||
happen. For example, in my own practice (I'm a lawyer) I get a lot of stuff in
|
||
handwriting. This type of material will not be readily accessible in my lifetime or
|
||
even the lifetime of your children in any way other than through the use of a
|
||
reader.
|
||
A reader, by the way, is a sighted person who conveys to the blind
|
||
individual the print or pictorial information on a piece of paper. Every blind
|
||
person needs to be able to use readers as one way of getting information. This
|
||
is true for students in college, and it's true for blind people in most any job.
|
||
Therefore, it's important to keep in mind that readers are going to be a part of
|
||
any blind person's life. I remind college students of this all the time. I was
|
||
talking just the other day to someone who was complaining about not getting a
|
||
book in time for the beginning of a class. (It happened to be a college student,
|
||
but it could have been a high school student.) I said that in a job the employer is
|
||
not responsible for such details; the blind person is. One can't walk into the
|
||
employer's office and say, "You have to provide me with this or that." The blind
|
||
employee has to be able to walk into that office and say to the employer, "Tell
|
||
me what I can do for you and by when you need it done." The use of readers
|
||
gives blind people the flexibility needed to take on this responsibility. So
|
||
understanding readers and learning how to use them are important techniques
|
||
for parents to help their children learn to use.
|
||
Readers, in my view, are (as I once said to the consternation of some of
|
||
my readers) information-acquisition tools. Some readers find this description a
|
||
bit cold. I do not intend to be cold, but information acquisition is my goal when I
|
||
use a reader--not friendship or companionship or anything else. The fact that the
|
||
information is acquired through the use of another human being instead of
|
||
through Braille, a tape recorder, or some other tool or device in no way changes
|
||
the fact that I am using an alternative to get information others would get with
|
||
their eyes. I think it's important for everyone concerned to understand that the
|
||
sighted reader is first and foremost an information-acquisition tool for a blind
|
||
person.
|
||
Most blind adults pay for readers. You simply cannot get readers on a
|
||
regular basis in college, on the job, or even for personal affairs if you don't pay
|
||
them. This makes reading an employer/employee relationship. The reading is
|
||
then a service bought and paid for, not a favor to the blind person. The blind
|
||
person needs to understand this and teach it to the reader. Reading is a service
|
||
that's being provided. It's something I need. It's something for which I'm willing
|
||
to pay. It is not a favor.
|
||
The most important and fundamental responsibility of the blind person in
|
||
a reader relationship is to be in charge and to make all the decisions about what
|
||
is read. This is easy to say but sometimes hard to implement. Sighted people
|
||
who are new readers often want to tell the blind person what they think needs to
|
||
be read, not what the blind person really wants to know but what the sighted
|
||
person finds of interest. Therefore, when using an information-acquisition tool
|
||
that happens to be human, the blind person has to be very clear that he or she
|
||
is the one making the decisions and furthermore needs to convey this politely
|
||
and firmly to the reader.
|
||
I was a prosecutor when I first came out of law school. Most of the
|
||
material that came across my desk had been generated that day. There was no
|
||
way to get at that material without having a sighted reader under my direction to
|
||
read to me what I needed to know. On the other hand, I would never have gotten
|
||
anything else done if I had not known when to tell the reader to stop reading.
|
||
People hand you a lot of material these days that you don't need to read. Blind
|
||
people must know how to acquire and analyze material quickly, regardless of
|
||
whether the information is accessed through their own hands (Braille) or
|
||
through another person (a reader).
|
||
The first thing--and this is very important--that blind children need to learn
|
||
is that using readers is okay. It is one of the many appropriate alternative
|
||
techniques they will be using throughout life. Using Braille is okay. Using tapes
|
||
is okay. Using readers is okay. A high school principal came to me once in
|
||
consternation. She said that, because she couldn't get a certain book in Braille
|
||
for a blind student on time, the student had been excused from doing a book
|
||
report. I landed on that principal with both feet! I said, "Why did the student get
|
||
out of doing the book report? Don't you provide readers as an alternative when
|
||
the book isn't available? Have you ever given the student experience in using a
|
||
reader?" The principal was surprised. She had never thought about that
|
||
student's need to learn how to use readers. She didn't think of readers as an
|
||
appropriate alternative technique. Well, they are. Obviously, the child first needs
|
||
to know how to read and write--to be literate. But once that stage is achieved
|
||
and the child has solid Braille skills, the next stage includes using tapes and
|
||
readers.
|
||
How can you teach your child to use readers? For one thing, you can
|
||
build it into the IEP (Individualized Education Program) when the child gets older
|
||
(junior high or middle school). Determine in advance that certain material in
|
||
certain classes will be read with readers. Research papers using reference
|
||
material and other books from the library are good projects for reader use. Get
|
||
the student involved in this procedure. He or she needs to play an active part in
|
||
all the decisions regarding reader use. Parents, the student's Braille teacher, or
|
||
blind adult role models can then conduct some reader training sessions with the
|
||
student. Use a book the student has used and with which he or she is familiar.
|
||
Ask the student to decide what should be read; then teach the youngster how to
|
||
give oral instruction to move a reader through the printed material. You may
|
||
even want to do a role reversal. Have the student be the reader with his or her
|
||
Braille text, and you do the directing.
|
||
The important thing to remember is not to help the student too much. In
|
||
fact, you may want to make a distinction between your teacher/reader role and
|
||
your reader-only role. As a teacher/reader you will interrupt and make
|
||
suggestions as your child practices directing you in reading. You may also
|
||
discuss the layout and content of the book and the illustrations, etc. But in your
|
||
role as a reader you will only read what you are directed to read, and you will
|
||
not make comments or judgments about what you are asked to read or not
|
||
read. Nor will you give information from the material which you have not been
|
||
asked to provide (descriptions of pictures or illustrations or information about
|
||
appendices, bibliographies, etc.)
|
||
It can be extremely difficult to do, but if the student does not ask you to
|
||
read something, keep your mouth shut. Do not read anything except what you
|
||
have been directed to read. Conversely, if the student asks you to read material
|
||
you think is unnecessary, don't make any comments or judgments; just read.
|
||
The student must learn to be in charge and to accept the consequences of
|
||
decisions, including mistakes. Besides, you will find even in the early stages that
|
||
your child is often right and you are wrong. Even if you are very familiar with the
|
||
subject matter, the student knows more about the class, the teacher, and the
|
||
teacher's expectations than you do. Remember, in this situation you are a
|
||
reader--not a tutor, not a parent, not a teacher, not a mentor, not a friend, but a
|
||
reader only. Be sure that others who read for your child understand this. As the
|
||
parent you may have to be aggressive in insisting that those who read for your
|
||
child follow these rules.
|
||
This is especially true since it is more common for blind children and
|
||
youth to have volunteer readers as opposed to paid ones. Also readers are
|
||
more likely at this stage to be selected by someone other than the student--
|
||
parents, teachers, etc. These circumstances combined with the youth and
|
||
inexperience of the student tend to blur the issue of who is in control, who is
|
||
making the decisions. The primary motivation of those who are paid for a
|
||
service is clear--money. The connection between keeping their job and following
|
||
the rules laid down by the student is also clear. The motivation for volunteers is
|
||
somewhat different. They want to help a blind person; maybe they are even
|
||
friends with the student. Such volunteers tend to think of themselves more as
|
||
partners than as employees receiving instructions. This situation requires more
|
||
delicacy and tact if the blind student is to remain in control but still keep a
|
||
reader happy and motivated to continue reading.
|
||
If, however, a reader is a paid employee of the school, such as a teacher's
|
||
aide, the student may still have a problem. Because the child is young and is a
|
||
student, both reader and student may assume that the reader is automatically in
|
||
charge by virtue of age and status as a school employee. If a reader under
|
||
these circumstances refuses to follow the directions of the student, the parent
|
||
or Braille teacher or both must insist that the reader be replaced with someone
|
||
who will cooperate.
|
||
Usually members of one's own family are a student's first readers. This
|
||
can work well as long as the principle is established and followed that the
|
||
student is in charge of the reading. However, if siblings are required to read,
|
||
there need to be trade-offs. Siblings need to feel that they get something out of
|
||
this arrangement too. Maybe they will be paid (if so, then the blind student
|
||
needs an equal opportunity to do work for which there is pay), or maybe an
|
||
exchange of services can be made between the blind student and sighted
|
||
sibling. For example, one student allowed his older sibling to read his taped
|
||
books from the Library for the Blind in exchange for reading services. Whatever
|
||
the circumstances, the objective is always the same: for the blind students to
|
||
get the printed information they want--not what someone else thinks they should
|
||
have.
|
||
With regard to drivers the framework of analysis is essentially the same. I
|
||
can repeat exactly what I said with this slight change: the objective is not to get
|
||
information, of course, but to get somewhere. Because blind children will not
|
||
become drivers when they grow up, they must integrate into their life pattern a
|
||
plan for other people to drive them. They will not have the option of picking up
|
||
the keys and jumping into the car whenever they need to go somewhere. This
|
||
will be irritating and a nuisance, but let me tell you something; it's okay. There
|
||
are appropriate alternatives, and they do work. It helps, though, if you
|
||
understand the options, if you train your kids to know how to handle the
|
||
alternatives, and if you let them know that these alternatives are okay.
|
||
Again, you must remember that, if you are using paid drivers, they are not
|
||
doing you a favor. Drivers are supposed to do what you tell them to do and be
|
||
where you say you want them when you want them. You have to learn to plan
|
||
ahead when you're dealing with drivers. If you have to get to the airport, you
|
||
should avoid calling someone at the last minute in the hope that they will do you
|
||
a favor and get you there on time. You've got to be sure that your drivers will
|
||
show up when you need them. Therefore, you must approach using a driver as a
|
||
service which you plan and direct and for which you are willing to pay.
|
||
The two major issues involved in planning the use of drivers are
|
||
scheduling and routing. Since scheduling is something parents work on with all
|
||
kids, the scheduling of driver service need not be approached any differently;
|
||
the same principles apply. But what about routing? A blind student has planned
|
||
ahead and arranged for driver service to an event. The driver arrives; the student
|
||
gets into the car; then what? Who sets the itinerary? Who decides the route to
|
||
and from the destination? Well, when I'm in the car and have hired the driver, I
|
||
set the itinerary, and I decide the route. How do I know the route? If I have never
|
||
been to the place before, I get directions in advance just as anyone else would
|
||
do. This surprises many people because the tendency is for the sighted person
|
||
to take responsibility for this task. Sighted people don't expect a blind person to
|
||
be aware of surroundings or capable of giving directions. And sadly many blind
|
||
people can't because they never learned to do so or even realized that it was
|
||
possible.
|
||
Parents can play an active role in preparing blind youth to learn driving
|
||
routes and how to give directions to drivers. One method I would recommend
|
||
very strongly is emulating a driver. Try, for example, a trip to the supermarket.
|
||
Get into the car with your youngster, get behind the wheel, then say "Okay,
|
||
where do we go?"
|
||
Now your kid might try to be smart and say "To the supermarket," but
|
||
don't buy it. Demand specific instructions for every turn. When you back out of
|
||
the driveway, do you turn right or left? (Which raises another interesting travel
|
||
problem for your child: what do right and left mean when you're going in reverse
|
||
as opposed to going forward in a vehicle?). How many blocks do you travel
|
||
before you turn? Which direction do you turn? Is there a light or a stop sign at
|
||
the turn? Are there any landmarks--buildings, signs, etc.--to which the driver
|
||
should be alert? It may take you a couple of hours the first time you try this, but
|
||
there's no better way for your kid to learn. So you might as well not plan to buy
|
||
milk that first time. You may not even get there the first time you try this, but
|
||
that's okay. The best thing parents can do for their children is give them time so
|
||
they will have opportunities such as this to learn by doing. They need time and
|
||
encouragement to do things on their own, to make mistakes and learn from
|
||
them. And they need to know from you that this is an okay way to learn. Drivers,
|
||
like readers, will tend unconsciously to take over. Your child needs to have the
|
||
training and confidence to resist this impulse and take charge of the situation.
|
||
After you've completed this exercise, sit down and talk to your child about
|
||
concepts he or she may have missed. What is a block? How do streets
|
||
intersect? What is the difference between parallel and perpendicular traffic? Can
|
||
he or she use the cardinal directions: east, west, north, and south? What about
|
||
describing various traffic patterns: one-way streets, multiple lanes, right turns on
|
||
red, left-turn-only lanes, four-way stop signs, speed limits, and so forth? These
|
||
concepts aren't necessarily hard to learn, nor should their mastery be restricted
|
||
to mobility class. Have your kid sit up front with you when you drive and talk
|
||
about these traffic patterns as you encounter them. Talk out loud about what
|
||
you see when you drive.
|
||
How about maps? Does your child know how to use them? Kids need to
|
||
have and use maps. They don't always have to be permanent works of art. You
|
||
can use table utensils and napkins to make simple maps which show how
|
||
streets intersect to make blocks.
|
||
After your kid has some success in directing you as a driver, branch out
|
||
to other family members, relatives, friends, and volunteers. Give your kids the
|
||
chance to learn how to direct a lot of different people as drivers. When they
|
||
become adults and are finally out on their own, they'll be able to get where they
|
||
want to go because you gave them many opportunities to learn and practice
|
||
these skills when they were young.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Barbara Cheadle
|
||
|
||
My experiences in driving and reading have been as a volunteer within the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind. Reading and driving have been a part of what I
|
||
have contributed to the organization. In fact, I have never been a paid driver or
|
||
reader for anyone. I first joined the NFB as a member of the local chapter in
|
||
Omaha, Nebraska. I was sighted, my husband was sighted, and we owned a
|
||
twelve-passenger van. At the time it made sense that driving could be one of our
|
||
contributions to the chapter. (Please note that I said "could" not "should" be
|
||
driving. The fact that people are sighted and drive does not mean that this is
|
||
automatically the contribution they should make as members of the NFB.
|
||
Although I still drive occasionally for local chapter functions, it is no longer one
|
||
of my primary contributions to the affiliate.)
|
||
One of my earliest experiences in driving under the direction of a blind
|
||
colleague was with a fellow named Jerry Eckery. I recall that the first time I
|
||
drove Jerry someplace I did not know where we were going, and he gave
|
||
directions. He was excellent. He did everything Peggy was telling you that you
|
||
should teach your child to do when in charge of a driver. He was in control. He
|
||
knew where he was going and was able to give instructions and describe
|
||
landmarks that a sighted driver could follow. We would make a turn, and he
|
||
would say, "You should be passing an Exxon station to your left." Sure enough,
|
||
there it was. This was a route he had never walked. He had no reason to know
|
||
about that Exxon station except that he knew it would be helpful to the sighted
|
||
drivers he would be directing. I truly appreciated and learned a lot from Jerry.
|
||
As a driver, volunteer or paid, it certainly made my job a lot easier to be able to
|
||
sit back and follow directions. That's what I did when I was Jerry's driver.
|
||
Another member of our chapter whom my husband and I frequently drove
|
||
to meetings was an elderly woman who had grown up as a blind child in a very
|
||
protected and sheltered environment. She didn't have much money, and she
|
||
didn't get out much. She didn't have Jerry's extensive knowledge of the city, but
|
||
she did know her own street and could give others information about her area.
|
||
She did something else which I truly came to appreciate. She knew that I was a
|
||
member of the NFB chapter and that I considered driving my contribution.
|
||
Nevertheless, she did not take my driving for granted. She always thanked me
|
||
for the ride. From time to time she offered me money (which I always refused)
|
||
or a trinket or toy for my children (which I would accept). She did not have
|
||
Jerry's knowledge, independence, and resources, but she had dignity, she was
|
||
courteous, and she did not expect others to do for her what she could do--
|
||
however small it was--for herself. That attitude was evident in the way she
|
||
treated me as a driver.
|
||
Having said that, let me shift gears, so to speak, and talk to you about
|
||
some of my pet peeves as a driver. When I'm done, Peggy will get a shot at the
|
||
same topic. I think that one of my top pet peeves is driving for someone who is
|
||
consistently unable to give me directions or tell me about landmarks: who, in
|
||
short, is never able to tell me anything more than the address of our destination.
|
||
I am not annoyed at the individual, for I know that this is merely a matter of
|
||
ignorance and lack of skills. These people, as blind children or as newly blinded
|
||
adults, never had the opportunity to learn how to take responsibility for giving
|
||
directions to others and furthermore never knew that this was possible. Rather I
|
||
am annoyed and angry at the real culprits: parents who overprotected their
|
||
children, rehabilitation systems which custodialize instead of promoting
|
||
independence, and the general cultural environment which continues to promote
|
||
an image of the blind as helpless and dependent. You can avoid this problem
|
||
with your children by teaching them these skills and especially conveying to
|
||
them that it is their responsibility to know how to get to where they want to go
|
||
and how to direct those who are driving them.
|
||
How do you do that? Here is one idea. We used to play an orientation
|
||
game when we were traveling in our vehicle with our three children (one of
|
||
whom is blind). My husband would say, "If I were to get in the car, pull out of the
|
||
driveway, turn left, go two blocks, cross the street at the light, proceed to the
|
||
next light and make a left, then stop about halfway down the block, where am I?"
|
||
The children would guess the answer. Then one of them would have a turn to
|
||
describe a route--putting in all turns, landmarks, etc. as appropriate--and the rest
|
||
of us in the car would guess the answer. This was a great game, not just for our
|
||
blind son, but for everyone in the family. You can think of other mobility or
|
||
orientation games to play too.
|
||
Also when I'm in a vehicle as a driver or as a passenger, I naturally talk a
|
||
lot about landmarks. I call everyone's attention to a new billboard, a new
|
||
four-way-stop sign, the architectural style of buildings we pass, and so forth.
|
||
This natural tendency on my part was helpful especially to our blind son. He
|
||
began to learn about the things in the surrounding environment that sighted
|
||
drivers use as important landmarks in getting about.
|
||
The ability to operate a car personally is, unquestionably, a great
|
||
convenience in our society. However, people pay a great deal for this
|
||
convenience. It is expensive to own and operate a vehicle--even a clunker or an
|
||
economy high-gas-mileage model. My other pet peeve is with people who
|
||
assume that, not only is driving your own car more convenient than alternative
|
||
modes of transportation, but it is also much cheaper. This just isn't so. Years
|
||
ago my husband (who was single at the time) compared his yearly
|
||
transportation expenses--personal and job-related--with those of a blind
|
||
colleague. Both of them worked for a state agency in supervisory positions,
|
||
doing pretty much the same type of job. They were both bachelors, lived in the
|
||
same city, and were in the same social circle, so their personal social activities
|
||
were equivalent. Out of curiosity they sat down (they spent hours doing this)
|
||
with all their tax information and compared personal and business transportation
|
||
expenses. My husband owned and operated a travel-all van; his friend used all
|
||
the available alternative transportation modes available to him: public
|
||
transportation, taxis, walking, and privately paid drivers for both business and
|
||
personal use (he was reimbursed for on-the-job travel expenses at the same rate
|
||
my husband and other sighted employees were reimbursed for their travel
|
||
expenses). The difference in expenses was no more than $2.00. (Don't ask me
|
||
which way it came down, Peggy. I don't remember.)
|
||
As parents you are in a position to teach your child about the real costs of
|
||
owning and operating a vehicle. We teach our sighted children these things.
|
||
Many sighted sixteen-year-olds are required to work or save money to help pay
|
||
for the cost of their automobile insurance, the gas they use in the family car, or
|
||
the cost of their own vehicle. How many parents think to teach this information
|
||
to their blind teenagers? Do your blind teenagers know how much their
|
||
automobile insurance would cost if they drove? How about the up-front
|
||
purchase cost of a car. Do your blind teens know that most people go into debt
|
||
and spend years making monthly payments on the cost of a vehicle? What
|
||
about maintenance and repair costs? Have your blind teenagers gone with you
|
||
to the auto shop to buy tires or to pay a $200 repair bill and pick up a car, which
|
||
has been in the shop for a week?
|
||
This information helps your teens in many ways. It gives them a better
|
||
perspective on and understanding of their own transportation costs now and
|
||
when they become independent adults. They will feel different about the monthly
|
||
cost of bus fare, taxi fare, and private driver's fees if they know what it costs the
|
||
average sighted guy to drive a car. This knowledge will also help them as adults
|
||
to negotiate fees for private drivers successfully and fairly. Many blind teens will
|
||
grow up and eventually own cars, which will be operated by sighted spouses,
|
||
other family members (such as sighted teenagers), or even hired drivers. But for
|
||
some reason (perhaps our stereotyped notions about blindness) we parents
|
||
seldom think about the necessity of teaching our blind children about the costs
|
||
and problems of owning and operating a vehicle.
|
||
This knowledge will also help your children grow up to be effective and
|
||
courteous users of volunteer drivers. Even when they become financially
|
||
independent adults, there will always be occasions when the most convenient,
|
||
or only available, transportation is with a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, or
|
||
other people willing to volunteer a ride. Should the driver be offered money for
|
||
gas? How much out of the way is it reasonable to ask the driver to go? Should
|
||
you arrange to do a favor in exchange for the ride or just remember to do
|
||
something special for the person sometime? Or, under the circumstances, is
|
||
there a need to do anything at all other than say "Thanks?" Every situation is
|
||
different, so there is no one right answer to these questions. However, the more
|
||
knowledge blind people have about the transportation time and costs to sighted
|
||
drivers, the better able they will be to make decisions which keep everyone--
|
||
rider and driver--happy and feeling good about the situation.
|
||
As a volunteer driver I have been in all the situations described. When my
|
||
children were small, I sometimes exchanged favors with a blind friend who also
|
||
had small children. She would baby-sit for my children, and I would drive or read
|
||
for her. It was a legitimate exchange of favors, and we considered it an equal
|
||
relationship. On other occasions, when driving to a Federation meeting, for
|
||
example, it might or might not be appropriate for riders to share the expense. If
|
||
the meeting was hours away, clear across the state, sharing the costs made
|
||
sense. If it was a local meeting for which I incurred no significant extra expense
|
||
either in time or mileage, it never seemed right to accept more than a "Thank
|
||
you" from riders.
|
||
To sum up, you can give your children a head start in avoiding these pet
|
||
peeves if you give them a good education now in how to be responsible for and
|
||
skilled in meeting their own transportation needs.
|
||
|
||
Peggy Elliott
|
||
|
||
When I started thinking about pet peeves I only came up with two, but
|
||
they're pretty all-encompassing. One involves the sighted, and one involves the
|
||
blind. Interestingly enough they are obverse sides of the same coin. My pet
|
||
peeve involving blind people is (and possibly I feel more strongly about this
|
||
because I am so aware that it doesn't need to be this way) blind people who
|
||
don't take responsibility. Responsibility for what? Well, for anything! It starts
|
||
when you're a kid. For example, in my family we had a whole passel of kids;
|
||
there were six of us. And at the dinner table, if you didn't push your chair in
|
||
when you got up from the table, three or four of your brothers and sisters were
|
||
likely to wind up with bruised shins, and they would come and pound on you
|
||
because they had tripped over the chair you forgot to push in. In my family
|
||
pushing in your chair wasn't a matter of courtesy; it was a matter of survival.
|
||
Now I ask you, how many blind kids do you suppose get up from the table
|
||
and push in their chairs? And how many don't push in their chairs? How many
|
||
parents consistently say, "Son, come back here and push in your chair," and
|
||
how many do you suppose never say a word, but just push it in themselves?
|
||
How many blind kids get up from the table and leave while everybody else in the
|
||
family carries the dirty dishes into the kitchen? How many of you require your
|
||
sighted kids to help clear the table but never ask your blind kid to do his or her
|
||
part?
|
||
Most blind adults who do not take responsibility were once blind children
|
||
who were never asked to carry the same weight as others. Furthermore, usually
|
||
no one even described to the child what others were doing. The blind child may
|
||
not know that other people push in their chairs. Eventually the kid will deduce
|
||
either that all chairs are on automatic rollers or that someone else is pushing
|
||
them in. But why not make it a point of instruction and responsibility for the
|
||
blind kid at the same age you would do it for the sighted kid? It is simply a
|
||
matter of courtesy for all of us to push in our chairs. Why not make it a point of
|
||
instruction that all family members--including the blind child--will help with this
|
||
or that task: making beds, vacuuming, collecting laundry, folding laundry, etc.?
|
||
Blind children who do not get this instruction are the ones who grow up to
|
||
become those blind adults who do not know how to tell others where they live,
|
||
who do not know how to give instructions to a driver, who are not responsible
|
||
enough to schedule transportation ahead of time, and who do not have the
|
||
courtesy to offer payment to a driver when appropriate. To me responsibility and
|
||
courtesy go hand in hand. I am afraid that all too many blind children--and some
|
||
blind adults too--have not been taught or have forgotten the lessons of
|
||
responsibility and courtesy.
|
||
These lessons must be taught by you, the parents of blind children. It may
|
||
sometimes take a little longer to teach your blind child. The first time you tell
|
||
your kid to push in a chair, you may need to walk around behind him and put his
|
||
hands on the chair and show him how to push. So what? Even if you have to do
|
||
this a number of times, eventually he will learn to push the chair in by himself.
|
||
He will have learned a lesson in courtesy and will have taken on a little bit more
|
||
responsibility. This, in the end, lets him hold his head higher because he is then
|
||
a part of what's going on around him, not a helpless bystander. And each such
|
||
experience makes the next task easier to learn.
|
||
The obverse of this pet peeve is, of course, the sighted person who
|
||
assumes that she knows what is good for a blind person and that it is her job to
|
||
take care of everything for the blind individual. You'd be surprised how many
|
||
things are simply done for us, to us, and around us that we may not ever know
|
||
about unless we are alert and know to anticipate the problem. Even then we may
|
||
only learn about what was done after it is too late to do anything about it. Let me
|
||
give you two examples of this pet peeve.
|
||
I was standing on a street corner one day. The light was red for travel in
|
||
my direction. A woman came up behind me, grabbed my arm--practically cutting
|
||
off the circulation, and said that she would take me across the street. I pointed
|
||
out to her that the light was red and that I was waiting for traffic to stop and the
|
||
light to change so that I could cross safely. She dropped my arm in anger, said,
|
||
"Well, you think you know so much," and walked away. I was quite capable of
|
||
judging whether or not it was safe to cross that street, and I wasn't about to go
|
||
just because she said it was okay. She was welcome to go if she wanted to, but
|
||
I wasn't going with her. In effect, she was trying to take responsibility for me and
|
||
then became irritable when I pointed out the basic facts about red and green
|
||
lights and furthermore insisted on taking responsibility for myself. That really
|
||
torched her. The attitude which prompts this kind of behavior among sighted
|
||
people toward the blind not only diminishes the dignity of blind persons but
|
||
diminishes the sighted as well.
|
||
Here's another very recent example. This happened when my husband
|
||
(who is quite tall and also blind), my secretaries, and I were in line to board the
|
||
airplane to come to this convention. My sighted colleagues and I had walked
|
||
through the airplane door when, as my husband was about to walk through, the
|
||
flight attendant cried out, "Watch his head!" Well, we all spun around and
|
||
looked--for whatever good that did! She had good intentions, she was trying to
|
||
give him information, but she didn't know how to do it. She thought someone
|
||
else had to be responsible for him; someone else had to "watch his head"--he
|
||
couldn't do it himself. My husband's been tall a long time, and he's gotten onto
|
||
a few planes in his life. He knows when and how to protect his rather tall head.
|
||
These incidents are a continuing irritation to blind people. It is abrasive to
|
||
our dignity to have sighted people around us assume that they are responsible
|
||
for us and then proceed to do things and take actions which we could--and
|
||
should--be doing for ourselves. But as blind adults we must simply deal with
|
||
these situations. How do we do it? Well, at the personal day-to-day level we
|
||
hopefully bring to these incidents the right balance of courtesy, tact, and
|
||
firmness. We do not wish to be rude, but neither must we let ourselves be
|
||
pushovers and let others take responsibility for us. On a broader level this is the
|
||
very reason for the existence of the National Federation of the Blind: public
|
||
education. The person who thinks he has to help me across the street is likely
|
||
to be the same person who will deny me a job. But I know that what we do in
|
||
the National Federation of the Blind has changed public attitudes and will
|
||
continue to change them. I know I am treated with greater respect on the street
|
||
and in the workplace than were our founders, like Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, fifty
|
||
years ago. Furthermore, I intend to do my part so that your children will be able
|
||
to say the same thing about my generation.
|
||
And what role do you, the parents, play? Again, on the day-to-day,
|
||
personal level you need to teach your children to take responsibility for
|
||
themselves. You need to instill in them the confidence and skill to be tactful yet
|
||
firm with those--kindly as they may be--who will try to take it away from them.
|
||
You are their first sighted model. Yes, in the NFB we talk a lot about blind
|
||
models, and your child does need us. But they need good sighted models too.
|
||
And you are their first, and can be their best, sighted model. What do you model
|
||
for your child? Do you insist, in small ways and large, that they take
|
||
responsibility for themselves? Do you graciously back down when your lesson
|
||
takes, and they tell you firmly, "Leave me alone. I will do this myself"? And at the
|
||
broader level are you doing your part as a member of the National Federation of
|
||
the Blind to educate the sighted public about the capabilities of the blind?
|
||
As I said, my pet peeves are pretty all-encompassing. But if you want your
|
||
blind child to grow up to be independent in all areas of life as an adult, including
|
||
the effective use of readers and drivers, I think you must honestly address the
|
||
issues we have raised here today.
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #8: Bonnie Peterson stands at microphone. CAPTION: Bonnie Peterson]
|
||
SKILLS FIRST: TEACHER SAYS ADA CAN'T CREATE JOBS
|
||
by Bill Guida
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: Occasionally even experienced Federation leaders are
|
||
pleasantly surprised by the quality of an article that results from an interview
|
||
with a reporter. Usually one can tell whether the reporter is bored or interested,
|
||
puzzled by the complexities of the issue or intrigued by them, filled with distress
|
||
and pity at the plight of blind people or fascinated by the prospect of their
|
||
fighting for the rights and responsibilities of first-class citizenship. Bonnie
|
||
Peterson, President of the National Federation of the Blind of Wisconsin, was
|
||
uneasy when the woman who does public relations for her university contacted
|
||
her to say that a reporter wanted an interview. The paper in question, the
|
||
Kenosha News, almost never does stories about people who are not themselves
|
||
residents of the community. And, though the University of Wisconsin-Parkside is
|
||
in Kenosha, the Peterson home is not, so Bonnie figured he would quickly lose
|
||
interest in the interview. In fact, he didn't even show up for it. But he eventually
|
||
rescheduled. He was running late, however, so he arrived while she was
|
||
teaching a class, and Bonnie had to juggle the interview and her teaching
|
||
responsibilities simultaneously. But she managed to give the reporter the time
|
||
he wanted even though he seemed distracted while they were talking. Bonnie is
|
||
nothing if not professional and dedicated to educating the public about
|
||
blindness and sensible attitudes toward blind people. Mostly they talked about
|
||
the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), but other topics crept in
|
||
as illustrations and asides.
|
||
She was totally unprepared when, on Sunday, January 22, 1995, the story
|
||
appeared on the front page of the Kenosha News. She was even more
|
||
astonished when she read the story, for the reporter had indeed been listening
|
||
and had managed to incorporate much of their conversation in the article. Here
|
||
it is:
|
||
|
||
The law cannot change negative attitudes toward people with disabilities.
|
||
Not even the Americans with Disabilities Act can do that.
|
||
Nor, says Bonnie Peterson, President of the Wisconsin chapter of the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind, is the ADA meant to do that.
|
||
"What do businesses need? They need skilled employees. Skills first, then
|
||
accommodations," argues Peterson. "You can't force things down people's
|
||
throats."
|
||
There's no reason an employer should tolerate someone who is blind who
|
||
doesn't first demonstrate skills for the job in question, she adds.
|
||
"Right now, what you just saw me do is the most important thing," says
|
||
Peterson.
|
||
Peterson gestures toward a television studio in the basement of the
|
||
Communication Arts Building at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. She's just
|
||
finished teaching a class there on public speaking.
|
||
"The ADA is a law; it's just a law. And most people are afraid of it,"
|
||
Peterson continues. "But it's just a part of something--education. Teaching
|
||
people the skills they need to compete for jobs: that's what's important."
|
||
Back in the studio Peterson focuses a video camera on a student who has
|
||
moved behind a table in the front of the room. She rolls the camera back on its
|
||
wheeled tripod a few inches as she listens intently to the speaker.
|
||
As the student speaks, Peterson uses a stylus to punch out rapid-fire
|
||
notes in Braille on the notepad in her lap.
|
||
When the speaker finishes, Peterson invites critiques of the presentation
|
||
from his classmates in the television audience. Then she offers some of her
|
||
own, mixing praise with constructive criticism.
|
||
Peterson's assertiveness training began as a child.
|
||
She learned early that sighted teachers expected less of her, apparently
|
||
reasoning that, because she was blind, she was impaired intellectually as well.
|
||
"When I was young, people sold me short because I was blind. But I knew
|
||
I needed those skills," said Peterson.
|
||
Peterson tells of purposely getting teachers angry at her to make them
|
||
give her challenging assignments--the same work assigned to sighted children.
|
||
These days she tilts at bigger dragons: the state Department of Public
|
||
Instruction, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, even federal agencies.
|
||
Substituting pseudo-aids for the teaching of real, marketable skills to the
|
||
blind really raises Peterson's hackles.
|
||
Take the half-sphere domes known as truncated domes some
|
||
municipalities are placing in sidewalk pavement and crosswalks, the theory
|
||
being that the rougher surface will help blind people navigate city streets more
|
||
safely.
|
||
"They're not safe at all. Your cane can get caught in them--your heels, if
|
||
you're wearing high heels, whether you're blind or not," says Peterson, her
|
||
exasperation obvious. "Nobody in our state organization or at the national level
|
||
supports truncated domes."
|
||
The ADA has been a boon to people suddenly and allegedly specializing
|
||
in products and services for the handicapped, she says.
|
||
Mixed with the legitimate providers are the unscrupulous, who prey on the
|
||
ignorant, exploiting the ever-present fear of lawsuits. They include contractors
|
||
who persuade business owners and managers that the ADA requires them to do
|
||
things they're not legally obligated to do.
|
||
Peterson recounts the story of a Madison hotel manager who insisted the
|
||
law required the hotel to provide special accommodations if her organization
|
||
was to book its annual convention at the site.
|
||
"Apparently some contractor had told him that we had to have strobe
|
||
lights above the beds. Now why in the world would blind people need strobe
|
||
lights?" Peterson asks with a laugh.
|
||
She doesn't discount the importance of the ADA in addressing problems
|
||
of inaccessibility for people with impaired mobility. Workplace accessibility was
|
||
at the heart of the act that went into effect in 1990. And it has proven especially
|
||
effective for people using wheelchairs, says Peterson.
|
||
By paying attention to the people with the handicaps, private firms and
|
||
public agencies can only benefit, she adds.
|
||
Take truncated domes. What might be a better solution?
|
||
Longer canes, perhaps, with metal disks on the tips, similar to the metal
|
||
disks used on the bottom of chair and desk legs in school rooms.
|
||
Again, it comes down to learning the necessary skills.
|
||
For Peterson these skills are fundamental, of course, but they aren't the
|
||
kind of marketable skills that should be the subject of job interviews.
|
||
"Is walking up stairs a marketable job skill? No. So why are you focusing
|
||
on it?" Peterson asks, rhetorically. "I have skills that are equal to yours."
|
||
She points out that without good listening, reading, and note-taking skills
|
||
she couldn't survive in her profession.
|
||
"The skills you have worked for are the same I have worked for. We just
|
||
do them in different ways," says Peterson.
|
||
|
||
There you have the article, and the reporter was clearly unwilling to let it
|
||
go at that. He and Bonnie had also talked about the problems surrounding the
|
||
question of Braille literacy and teacher competency in Wisconsin (see the
|
||
March, 1994, issue of the Braille Monitor for the details), and he wanted to tell
|
||
his readers something about the situation. In a box to the right of the article, the
|
||
following information appeared:
|
||
|
||
Declining Blind Literacy is Concern
|
||
One of Bonnie Peterson's more recent fights pitted her against the
|
||
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Wisconsin Education
|
||
Association Council (WEAC).
|
||
Peterson heads the state chapter of the National Federation of the Blind.
|
||
The fight centered on a DPI policy that WEAC supported and Peterson
|
||
links to a decline in literacy among blind Wisconsin schoolchildren.
|
||
That policy allows special education teachers who can't read Braille
|
||
themselves to teach blind children to read Braille, says Peterson.
|
||
To bolster her argument, she cites a drop in the blind literacy rate in the
|
||
state to 4 percent.
|
||
That compares to a national average of 48 percent in 1965, according to
|
||
the American Printing House for the Blind.
|
||
Without literacy skills blind school children will become blind adults
|
||
lacking the most fundamental job skill of all.
|
||
The compromise solution her organization worked out with DPI and WEAC
|
||
will require that after July 1, 1995, teachers hired to teach blind students how to
|
||
read Braille prove their proficiency in Braille by completing the National Literary
|
||
Braille Competency Test. They also must demonstrate that they have practiced
|
||
teaching Braille to school children.
|
||
But a DPI rule allows previously hired teachers with A-25 licenses to
|
||
demonstrate proficiency by successful completion of either the NLBCT "or two
|
||
semester credits in reading and writing of Braille, or thirty department approved
|
||
clock hours in reading and writing Braille."
|
||
"Only time will tell if it is the right thing to do," says Peterson. "But two
|
||
semester credits on a college level is not a very substantial course." The
|
||
compromise angers Peterson. For the first time in eight years of teaching, she
|
||
said she was ashamed to call herself a teacher.
|
||
"Never before have we allowed people to be certified who were not
|
||
qualified," she said.
|
||
DPI Superintendent John T. Benson disagrees with Peterson on the issue
|
||
of A-25 licensing and qualifications of teachers currently holding such licenses.
|
||
"I'm satisfied that the entire community that's affected by this had its
|
||
chance to be heard. All the legislators that reviewed this were satisfied," Benson
|
||
said.
|
||
|
||
|
||
FOCUS ON A LEADER: TOMMY CRAIG
|
||
by Elizabeth Campbell
|
||
|
||
The following brief sketch of Tommy Craig, President of the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind of Texas, first appeared in the Winter, 1995, edition of
|
||
the NFBT News, a publication of the NFB of Texas. The author, Liz Campbell, is
|
||
President of the Fort Worth Chapter and a reporter for the Fort Worth Star
|
||
Telegram. Here it is:
|
||
|
||
Tommy Craig doesn't shy away from helping people fight for dignity and
|
||
equal treatment in society. As the new president of the National Federation of
|
||
the Blind of Texas, Craig, thirty-nine, emphasizes the abilities and capabilities of
|
||
blind people. However, he knows that many blind people believe that they can't
|
||
compete on terms of equality with their sighted peers. He also knows firsthand
|
||
that often those who are supposed to help blind people hurt them with their own
|
||
negative attitudes about blindness.
|
||
Craig was born in Ashdown, Arkansas, in 1955, and he says that his
|
||
parents did not allow his blindness to be an obstacle or a hindrance.
|
||
"I was the only blind person in the town where we lived," he recalls. "When
|
||
I dropped something, they made me get down and pick it up. People thought
|
||
they were mean, but I am glad they treated me that way."
|
||
At age nine Craig left home to attend the Arkansas School for the Blind in
|
||
Little Rock. He found much that was negative at the school. However, he was
|
||
able to gain some positive skills such as a good working knowledge of Braille.
|
||
He says, "I wasn't happy about going to the school for the blind, but it enabled
|
||
me to learn Braille, which is one of the best things ever to happen to me."
|
||
Mr. Craig's parents died when he was young, and he moved to Texas. He
|
||
lived in Houston with an aunt and uncle and completed his secondary education
|
||
at MacArthur High School after spending some time at the Texas School for the
|
||
Blind in Austin. Then he completed two years of college at Stephen F. Austin
|
||
State University in Nacogdoches and the University of Texas at Austin.
|
||
Subsequently he took a job as a houseparent at the Texas School for the Blind.
|
||
While living in Austin, Craig discovered the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind. He recalls learning about the work of the Federation when he attended the
|
||
Austin Chapter's Christmas party in 1976. There he heard a taped presentation
|
||
describing the Federation's efforts to help blind people who worked at the
|
||
Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. He felt strongly that this effort was important,
|
||
and it served to cement his commitment to the Federation.
|
||
Soon after joining the NFB, Craig became President of the Austin Chapter
|
||
and a member of the NFB of Texas Board of Directors. In 1993 he became
|
||
Secretary of the NFB of Texas, and at the March, 1994, convention in Odessa he
|
||
was elected President.
|
||
For many years Craig served on the affiliate's Legislative Committee.
|
||
During the time he served on this important committee, the Federation worked
|
||
tirelessly to secure the passage of many significant pieces of legislation. He is
|
||
particularly proud of the fact that he was serving on the committee in 1991 when
|
||
the Federation spearheaded the passage of the Texas Braille Literacy Act. This
|
||
momentous legislation guarantees all blind students who live in Texas the right
|
||
to learn Braille, and it has become a model for the country.
|
||
Craig says that his new role as the elected leader of the NFB of Texas
|
||
offers many exciting challenges. He suggests that advocacy will be in the
|
||
forefront during his administration.
|
||
He says, "One thing I really enjoy is representing students, doing
|
||
advocacy work, and getting out there to work for blind people."
|
||
[PHOTO #9: The Museum of Science and Industry is an ornate, multi-columned, domed building.
|
||
CAPTION: The Museum of Science and Industry was opened in 1893 for the World's Columbian
|
||
Exposition.]
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #10: The Empress River Casino glides through the water along the banks of the Des
|
||
Plaines River. CAPTION: The Empress River Casino, a 222 foot casino on the Des Plaines River]
|
||
|
||
SHOWCASE CHICAGO
|
||
by Stephen O. Benson
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: Steve Benson is President of the National Federation of
|
||
the Blind of Illinois. As you can tell from the following article, the affiliate is
|
||
working hard to ensure that this summer's convention is the best ever. Be sure
|
||
to make your hotel reservations as soon as possible so you won't be
|
||
disappointed. Room rates are singles, $47; doubles and twins, $49; triples, $54;
|
||
and quads, $57 (no charge for children rooming with parents if no extra bed is
|
||
required). In addition to these charges, there will be a tax, which at present is
|
||
almost 15 percent. Write to Hilton and Towers Hotel, 720 S. Michigan Avenue,
|
||
Chicago, Illinois 60605, Attention: Reservations; or call (312) 922-4400. Hilton
|
||
has a national toll-free number, but do not (we emphasize NOT) use it.
|
||
Reservations made through this national number will not be valid. They must be
|
||
made directly with the Hilton and Towers in Chicago. Now here's a glimpse of
|
||
what the Illinois affiliate has in store for us during our free time at the
|
||
convention:
|
||
|
||
Chicago is a city of tremendous diversity. Within a mile and a half of the
|
||
Chicago Hilton and Towers Federationists will find restaurants serving the
|
||
cuisine of Italy, Greece, China, Thailand, Germany, Russia, Japan, Lebanon,
|
||
Mexico, and India, and of course the hardy fare of the United States. As we did
|
||
in 1988, conventioneers will prowl "Taste of Chicago," the annual summer food
|
||
fest in Grant Park. Federationists can also sample jazz, blues, and other musical
|
||
forms. Museums are close at hand. One of the best ways to become acquainted
|
||
with the Windy City is through our six Wednesday afternoon and three evening
|
||
tours. The Illinois affiliate has planned a variety of tours that will satisfy diverse
|
||
tastes and interests. Following are descriptions of nine tours and the tour
|
||
reservation form. Readers of the Braille, cassette, or disk editions of the Braille
|
||
Monitor may copy the information from the order form with a computer or
|
||
typewriter and indicate tour choices. Please send completed forms, along with
|
||
appropriate payment, to the address shown on the form no later than the
|
||
second week of June. (Reservations must be in the hands of Windy City Events
|
||
by June 19.) We've had fun working with this fine tour operator to craft tours
|
||
that we know you will enjoy.
|
||
|
||
Tour #1: The Museum of Science and Industry
|
||
Step into the Midwest's leading tourist attraction. More than four million
|
||
people visit the Museum each year. It houses more than 2,000 exhibit units in
|
||
seventy-five exhibition halls in a fifteen-acre complex. The Museum's exhibits
|
||
demonstrate scientific principles, technological advances, and industrial
|
||
applications; and besides all this, it's fun.
|
||
The Museum's Henry Crown Space Center is devoted to space
|
||
exploration. A mock shuttle takes visitors on a simulated flight, and you can walk
|
||
around in a re-creation of a space station.
|
||
An important part of the Henry Crown Space Center is the Omnimax
|
||
Theater. This unique facility boasts the largest projector in the world. It projects
|
||
its image on a domed screen that covers a 180-degree field of view. Omnimax
|
||
presentations are dramatically enhanced by a seventy-two-speaker system that
|
||
generates 20,000 watts of audio power.
|
||
In addition, the Museum houses a Boeing 727 airliner, a World War II
|
||
German submarine and a coal mine. This exciting tour takes place Wednesday
|
||
afternoon, July 5, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. The cost is $20 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #2: The Illinois Railway Museum
|
||
Railroads began service to Chicago almost a century and a half ago.
|
||
Through the intervening years more than twenty-five railroads have played a
|
||
critical role in developing Chicago's position in commerce and industry.
|
||
Railroads transported vast amounts of raw material and finished products in and
|
||
out of the Windy City. Enormous crowds of people poured through Chicago's six
|
||
principal rail terminals. Crack luxury trains originated in Chicago and rolled to
|
||
every corner of the United States.
|
||
In commemoration of the place of railroads in Illinois history, the Railway
|
||
Museum has assembled equipment ranging from a four-ton horse car to a 400-
|
||
ton steam engine that plied the mighty Rocky Mountains.
|
||
Come to the Railway Museum and ride antique trolley cars and Chicago's
|
||
"L" train or relax behind a steam engine or diesel streamliner power car. The
|
||
museum has a souvenir shop crammed with captivating railroad memorabilia, for
|
||
a fee.
|
||
This Wednesday afternoon tour departs from the hotel at 1:00 p.m. and
|
||
returns at 6:00 p.m. The cost is $17 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #3: Windy City Boat Cruise
|
||
The one-and-a-half-hour boat cruise on the Chicago River and Lake
|
||
Michigan is always a popular trip. In 1988 the demand was so great that we had
|
||
to order a second boat. This year there is a bonus: as part of this tour,
|
||
Federationists will be treated to a one-and-a-half-hour bus tour of Chicago's
|
||
Magnificent Mile and Gold Coast.
|
||
This tour will weigh anchor at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon and return
|
||
at 5:00 p.m. The cost is $15 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #4: Chicago's Media
|
||
In the Golden Days of Radio, many top-rated programs originated in
|
||
Chicago. Since 1987 the Museum of Broadcast Communication has entertained
|
||
thousands of visitors each year with unique hands-on exhibits. Return now to
|
||
those thrilling days of yesteryear and meet the real Charley McCarthy. Open
|
||
Fibber McGee's closet, and take a peek inside Jack Benny's vault. View
|
||
informative and entertaining video presentations on the history of television.
|
||
Relive television's greatest moments in sports at the Sportscaster's Cafe. Put on
|
||
your news anchor jacket. Check your script and get ready for your cue. You're
|
||
reporting the news and creating a souvenir that will last a lifetime.
|
||
The next stop in the tour is the Chicago Tribune's Freedom Center, one of
|
||
the largest and most technologically advanced newspaper printing facilities in
|
||
the world.
|
||
From the first circulation of four hundred, printed in 1847, to the 1.2
|
||
million newspapers currently circulated, the Chicago Tribune has established a
|
||
reputation as one of the nation's leading information sources. The Freedom
|
||
Center tour will include a brief video and a walk through the five-story
|
||
production facility. Note, tour participants must be at least ten years old.
|
||
The tour of Chicago's media leaves the Hilton Wednesday at 1:30 and
|
||
returns at 5:00. There is limited seating. The cost of this tour is $15 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #5: Chicago's Hottest Neighborhood
|
||
This unusual tour is aimed primarily at children and parents. Seating is
|
||
limited. The hot spot on this tour is the Chicago Fire Department's Survive Alive
|
||
House. In response to the alarming number of children under thirteen who died
|
||
or who were injured by fire in the late 80's, the Public Education section of
|
||
Chicago's Fire Prevention Bureau collaborated with the Chicago Public Schools,
|
||
the Archdiocese of Chicago, and hundreds of preschools to develop a fire
|
||
prevention program. Using hands-on training techniques, this unique facility
|
||
allows children and adults to learn about fire prevention and safety. One of
|
||
Chicago's fire chiefs will take you on a brief tour of Chicago's Fire Academy.
|
||
This tour departs on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. and returns at 5:00 p.m. The
|
||
cost is $15 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #6: Windy City Highlights
|
||
See what makes Chicago an exciting city on this special tour, which
|
||
singles out architectural masterpieces, past and present. Your tour guide will
|
||
point out our world famous sculpture by Chagall, Calder, Miro, and DuBuffet.
|
||
There are two stops on this tour; both will be of special interest to shutter
|
||
bugs. The first will remain a secret, but I'm certain it will take you to new
|
||
heights. The second will be at Planetarium Point for a truly spectacular view of
|
||
Chicago's skyline.
|
||
Chicago Highlights departs from the hotel on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. and
|
||
returns at 6:00 p.m. The cost is $15 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #7: Windy City Oktoberfest
|
||
Federationists on this tour will have a genuine treat--OktoberFest, Chicago
|
||
style. You will travel to Chicago's northside historic German community, Lincoln
|
||
Square, for browsing in some truly unique shops, including a turn-of-the-century
|
||
apothecary and an absolutely fabulous pastry shop, Cafe Selmarie, possibly the
|
||
best in the entire metropolitan area. The high point of this tour is dinner, music
|
||
by a traditional German band, dancing, and fun at the Chicago Brauhaus, a
|
||
delightful German restaurant.
|
||
The OktoberFest tour leaves the hotel on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. and
|
||
returns at 9:00 p.m. Seating is limited, so don't wait to make your reservation for
|
||
this one. The cost is $40 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #8: An Evening With the White Sox
|
||
Chicago sports fans are eternal optimists, so we planned this tour based
|
||
on the belief that the impasse between players and management will be
|
||
resolved. But whether it is or not, there will be baseball at White Sox Park, one
|
||
of the nation's newest baseball parks. National Federation of the Blind will
|
||
appear on the scoreboard, hot dogs, and all the accompanying culinary treats
|
||
will be present in abundance for purchase, and we'll have a good time.
|
||
Buses to White Sox Park will leave the Hilton Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. and
|
||
return around 10:00 p.m. The cost is $30 per person.
|
||
|
||
Tour #9: Feeling Lucky
|
||
Step aboard luxury motor coaches and Windy City Events will whisk you
|
||
away to one of Chicago's most exciting and elegant night spots, the Empress
|
||
River Casino in Joliet, Illinois. Come prepared for two and one half hours of
|
||
casino fun plus browsing in dockside shops.
|
||
The tour will depart Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. and return to the hotel at
|
||
midnight. The cost is $20 per person.
|
||
If you have questions, please call Windy City Events at (312) 341-0221, or
|
||
Steve Hastalis at (312) 508-5307.
|
||
|
||
|
||
RECIPES
|
||
|
||
This month's recipes come from members of the National Federation of
|
||
the Blind of New Mexico.
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #11: Portrait CAPTION: Vicky Trujillo]
|
||
|
||
BIZCOCHITOES
|
||
by Vicky Trujillo
|
||
|
||
Vicky Trujillo is the President of the Albuquerque Chapter and a member
|
||
of the Board of Directors of the NFB of New Mexico. She is a secretary with the
|
||
New Mexico Human Services Department. As a native-born New Mexican, she is
|
||
quite familiar with the fine dishes of the region. These cookies are especially
|
||
popular for holidays.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
6 cups flour
|
||
1<EFBFBD> cups sugar
|
||
2 cups shortening or lard
|
||
1/4 cup water or wine
|
||
1 teaspoon salt
|
||
3 teaspoons baking powder
|
||
2 teaspoons crushed anise seeds
|
||
1 teaspoon vanilla or rum (or both)
|
||
2 eggs
|
||
|
||
Method: In a large bowl cream shortening, sugar, anise seeds, eggs, and
|
||
all liquids. Add salt, baking powder, and flour and mix thoroughly. Roll out
|
||
dough and cut with cookie cutters. Sprinkle with a mixture of sugar and
|
||
cinnamon. Preheat oven and bake at 350 degrees for nine minutes. Sprinkle
|
||
again with topping before serving. Yields six dozen.
|
||
Note: You can crush anise seeds by measuring them onto a piece of wax
|
||
paper. Fold the paper into an envelope that will contain the seeds and then
|
||
crush them using the bottom of a glass, heavy rolling pin, meat mallet, or other
|
||
implement.
|
||
|
||
|
||
SALSA
|
||
by Vicky Trujillo
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
1 large can peeled whole tomatoes
|
||
1/2 medium onion, chopped
|
||
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
|
||
5 yellow hot peppers (jalapenos) finely chopped
|
||
1/2 pound chopped green chilies, or to taste
|
||
1 clove garlic, chopped
|
||
|
||
Method: Combine all ingredients and mix well. Use as a dip with your
|
||
favorite chips.
|
||
|
||
|
||
GREEN CHILI CHICKEN ENCHILADAS
|
||
by Carla Candelaria
|
||
|
||
Carla Candelaria is the daughter of state President Joe Cordova. This just
|
||
happens to be one of Joe's favorite dishes.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
3 dozen corn tortillas
|
||
1 cup vegetable oil
|
||
2 10-ounce cans cream of chicken soup
|
||
2 10-ounce cans nacho cheese soup
|
||
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken
|
||
1 medium onion, chopped
|
||
1 pound Monterey Jack cheese
|
||
1 pound longhorn cheese
|
||
1/2 cup green chilies, chopped (frozen or canned)
|
||
|
||
Method: Simmer chicken in water until thoroughly cooked. Prepare soups
|
||
according to instructions on cans. Add chopped green chilies. Grate and mix
|
||
cheese. Fry corn tortillas until lightly browned but still soft and drain on paper
|
||
towels. Soak fried tortillas in chili soup sauce and line a large rectangular
|
||
casserole dish with about six. Shred chicken and spread a sixth evenly over
|
||
soaked corn tortillas. Sprinkle surface with a sixth of the onions and spread a
|
||
sixth of cheese over all. Repeat these four layers five more times with remaining
|
||
ingredients. Top final layer with remaining chili sauce. Preheat oven to 350
|
||
degrees and bake for approximately thirty minutes. Serves six to eight people
|
||
generously.
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #12: Portrait CAPTION: Pauline Gomez]
|
||
|
||
BEAN CHEESE DIP
|
||
by Pauline Gomez
|
||
|
||
Pauline Gomez is a charter member of the National Federation of the Blind
|
||
of New Mexico. She was a successful kindergarten teacher of sighted children
|
||
and operated her own school for many years. She has received much
|
||
recognition within her community, where she participates in many civic projects.
|
||
However, the NFB receives and benefits from most of her energy.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
1 large can refried beans
|
||
2 tablespoons margarine
|
||
1/2 teaspoon salt
|
||
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
|
||
1 medium jar taco sauce
|
||
1 small can green chilies, chopped
|
||
1 bunch green onions, chopped
|
||
1 small can black olives, sliced
|
||
dash cumin
|
||
1 clove garlic, chopped
|
||
|
||
Method: Mix all ingredients except for one third cup each cheese and
|
||
olives. Fill oven-to-table casserole dish with the mixture. Preheat oven to 350
|
||
degrees and bake casserole for twenty-five to thirty minutes, or until bubbly.
|
||
Remove from oven and sprinkle reserved olives and cheese on top. Serve with
|
||
corn chips.
|
||
|
||
[PHOTO #13: Portrait CAPTION: Patti Harmon]
|
||
|
||
GREEN CHILI STEW
|
||
by Patti Harmon
|
||
|
||
Patti Harmon is the President of the White Sands Chapter of the NFB of
|
||
New Mexico. In 1991 the National Federation of the Blind surprised Patti by
|
||
naming her our Blind Educator of the Year. For twenty-three years she has
|
||
taught at the New Mexico School for the Visually Handicapped in Alamogordo.
|
||
She describes herself as a New Jersey girl who found green chilies in this land
|
||
of enchantment. The flavor was so unforgettable that she made the state her
|
||
home. According to Patti, if you add chilies to any food, you become a good
|
||
cook.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
2 pounds ground round
|
||
2 large onions, chopped
|
||
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
|
||
2 large tomatoes, chopped
|
||
cumin to taste
|
||
chili powder to taste
|
||
salt and pepper to taste
|
||
12 potatoes
|
||
10 green chilies, fresh and hot (canned chilies may be substituted for a milder
|
||
dish)
|
||
|
||
Method: Search your kitchen for the largest pot available. Place meat in
|
||
pot, covering it with water, and set the pan on low heat. As meat cooks, add
|
||
chopped onions and garlic. Start adding cumin and chili powder. Add chopped
|
||
tomatoes. Add salt and pepper. Taste. Peel and chop potatoes and cook them in
|
||
a separate pot until tender, then drain. When meat is fully cooked, add potatoes
|
||
to pot. Stir, taste. Add shredded green chilies to pot. Taste. Add more spices,
|
||
stir, taste. If desired, add flour to thicken. Taste, simmer. Fragrance permeates
|
||
your home. Taste. Serve or store. This stew improves with age. Serve with hot
|
||
flour tortillas and ice water.
|
||
|
||
|
||
** ** MONITOR MINIATURES ** **
|
||
|
||
** New Chapter:
|
||
On Tuesday, January 24, 1995, the Clarendon County Chapter of the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina was organized, thus
|
||
becoming the forty-fifth local chapter of the South Carolina affiliate. The new
|
||
officers are Dr. Wyman Morris, President; Theron Dennis, Vice President; David
|
||
Ridgill, Treasurer; Foye Shelton, Secretary; and Etha Thompson, Social Director.
|
||
Congratulations to all the new Federationists in Clarendon County and to the
|
||
entire NFB of South Carolina.
|
||
|
||
** Computer Tutorials Available:
|
||
Dean Martineau has asked us to carry the following announcement:
|
||
Affordable Computer Tutorials Available. Top Dot Enterprises offers the
|
||
following: Top DOS 5/6, a tutorial for beginning and intermediate users of DOS
|
||
through versions 6.22, three cassettes and a supplemental disk including
|
||
utilities, games, sample macros, and batch files: $19.50 plus $2 shipping. Top
|
||
Guide to ASAP, tutorial on the screen reader, two cassettes, $15 plus $2
|
||
shipping. Top Introduction to Computer Knowledge, a combination introduction
|
||
to computers for the blind and computer buyer's guide, containing sound bytes
|
||
of word processing, reading print, and other activities conducted with a
|
||
computer and voice output: $9 plus $1 shipping.
|
||
Complete Audio Guide to the Braille 'n Speak, covers both the BNS
|
||
classic and BNS 640 through the 1993 revisions: three cassettes, $16 plus $2
|
||
shipping.
|
||
For more information or to order, contact Top Dot Enterprises, 8930 11th
|
||
Pl. SE, Everett, WA 98205; (206) 335-4894; e-mail: deamar@eskimo.com.
|
||
Quantity discounts available; credit cards not accepted; purchase orders incur
|
||
an additional $5 handling charge.
|
||
|
||
** Elected:
|
||
Ken Silberman, President of the Southern Maryland Chapter of the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, reports that in December, 1994, the
|
||
chapter elected the following officers: Ken Silberman, President; Gerelene
|
||
Womack, Vice President; Polly Johnson, Secretary; Bernetha McLamore,
|
||
Treasurer; and Alfred Wilson and Jack Darosa, Board Members.
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
One Visualtek Voyager XL, excellent condition, original boxes, manual
|
||
included. Asking $750. If interested, contact Robert Campbell at 3126 College
|
||
Avenue, Apartment N, Berkeley, California 94705, or call (510) 658-4373.
|
||
|
||
** Elected:
|
||
The Central Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota
|
||
recently elected the following officers: Andy Virden, President; Elaine Curtis,
|
||
First Vice President; Bob Simmons, Second Vice President; Hazel Youngman,
|
||
Secretary; and Dennis Groshel, Treasurer.
|
||
|
||
** Magazine Available:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
VersaNews, a magazine for Braille display users, covers developments in Braille
|
||
equipment, both domestic and imported, and how people use Braille to access
|
||
the benefits of the computer age. Topics include product reviews, tips from
|
||
readers, how-to articles, and explanations of computer concepts from the Braille
|
||
user's perspective. VersaNews is published three times a year on MS-DOS disk,
|
||
on VersaBraille II disk, and in print. Non-print users must have a computer or
|
||
electronic Braille system to read the magazine since there is no paper Braille
|
||
edition. The new, reduced rates for subscriptions are $20 in the United States
|
||
and Canada and $25 elsewhere. All payments must be in U.S. dollars. Specify
|
||
format when sending orders and inquiries to VersaNews, David Goldstein, 87
|
||
Sanford Lane, Stamford, Connecticut 06905 or calling (203) 336-4330.
|
||
|
||
** Honored:
|
||
From the Editor Emeritus: Mr. Chong Chan-yau is a long-time leader of the
|
||
Hong Kong Association of the Blind, as well as a personal friend. I was pleased
|
||
to receive the following recent announcement
|
||
Hong Kong Association of the Blind
|
||
Kowloon, Hong Kong
|
||
January 27, 1995
|
||
|
||
Dear Sir/Madam:
|
||
Compliments of the season to all of you. We hope you had a good start to
|
||
1995.
|
||
I am pleased to share with you that, our President, Mr. Chong Chan-yau,
|
||
has been awarded an Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire
|
||
in the Queen's New Years Honours List. This signifies the recognition of his
|
||
work done in promoting the rights of the blind and the transformation of social
|
||
prejudice and misunderstanding relating to blindness.
|
||
We hope the award will demonstrate that with determination blind people
|
||
can achieve, and it will facilitate the message to get across. With best regards.
|
||
Yours sincerely,
|
||
Alex Chaing (Mr.)
|
||
Director
|
||
|
||
** Music Division Newsletter Planned:
|
||
The Music Division of the National Federation of the Blind would like to
|
||
produce a newsletter but needs material for the first issue. Record or concert
|
||
reviews, concert announcements, anecdotes about musical experiences, tips for
|
||
music students or professional musicians, and any other noteworthy
|
||
contributions would be welcome. Send information in Braille or on tape to
|
||
Stephanie Pieck, RD 3, Box 200, Altamont, New York 12009.
|
||
|
||
** In Memoriam:
|
||
Karen Mayry, President of the NFB of South Dakota, reports with regret
|
||
the death on December 17, 1994, of Richard Hansen. Richard joined the NFB of
|
||
South Dakota in the early 1980's and was quite active for several years. As his
|
||
health deteriorated due to complications of diabetes, he was less active but
|
||
continued to be very supportive. Richard was well-known in Rapid City, active in
|
||
his church, and a staunch believer in NFB philosophy. Many Federationists know
|
||
his sister Sandy Hansen, who is one of the leaders of the NFB of South Dakota
|
||
and attends National Conventions. Richard will be missed.
|
||
|
||
** Job Available:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
The Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services (DORS) is seeking
|
||
qualified candidates for the position of superintendent at the Illinois School for
|
||
the Visually Impaired (ISVI) in Jacksonville, Illinois. The job requires knowledge,
|
||
skill, and experience demonstrated by a master's degree in special education or
|
||
a closely related field. The preferable candidate would also possess a Ph.D. or
|
||
Ed.D. in the field of vision. The job also requires three years' progressively
|
||
responsible administrative experience in special education or a closely related
|
||
field.
|
||
The salary range for this entry level position is $40,704 through $90,180, to
|
||
be based on present salary and other factors. This position is exempt from the
|
||
Illinois Personnel Code but receives all health care, vision care, dental, and life
|
||
insurance benefits. Interested candidates should send a resume, including
|
||
salary information to Dee Showalter, Personnel Director, Illinois Department of
|
||
Rehabilitation Services, P.O. Box 19429, Springfield, Illinois 62794-9429, fax
|
||
(217)524-3385. Applications for this position will be accepted until April 15, 1995.
|
||
Those interested in reading the complete job description should call the
|
||
Job Opportunities for the Blind Program at (800) 638-7518. Job Opportunities for
|
||
the Blind is a job referral program jointly conducted by the National Federation
|
||
of the Blind and the U.S. Department of Labor.
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
The following items are for sale: Artic screen review program, $150; Tiny
|
||
Talk screen review, $100 (if bought together, $200); and a refurbished Kurzweil
|
||
personal reader table scanner with case, $1500. If interested, call Katie at (602)
|
||
577-6334.
|
||
|
||
** Elected:
|
||
Kerry Smith, Corresponding Secretary of the St. Louis Chapter of the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind of Missouri, reports the following election
|
||
results: Daryl White, President; Judy Burch, Vice President; Susan Ford,
|
||
Recording Secretary; Kerry Smith, Corresponding Secretary; Thelda Borisch,
|
||
Treasurer; and John Dower, at-large Board member.
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
I wish to sell a Kurzweil Personal Reader, model 7320 (original price
|
||
$9,950). It does not include hand scanner. I have used it very little. I am asking
|
||
$2,500 but will take less if buyer pays shipping. Contact Richard Scott at 2614
|
||
Oates Drive, Dallas, Texas 75228, or call (214) 320-9944.
|
||
|
||
** Agricultural and Equestrian Newsletter Coming:
|
||
At the 1994 NFB convention in Detroit, the agricultural and equestrian
|
||
concerns group met. Members decided to produce a cassette newsletter called
|
||
The Corn and the Cob. Efforts are being made to compile the first issue. Articles
|
||
about personal experiences or interests in agriculture are welcome. If you would
|
||
like to receive this publication or contribute information to it, please write in
|
||
Braille or on tape to Stephanie Pieck, RD 3, Box 200, Altamont, New York 12009.
|
||
|
||
** Guide Dog School Guide Available:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
The second edition of A Guide to Guide Dog Schools by Ed and Toni
|
||
Eames is now available in print. It describes two Canadian and fourteen United
|
||
States guide dog training programs. Topics covered include application
|
||
procedures and selection process, statistical data, average daily schedule
|
||
during team training, leisure time activities, ownership policies, and contact after
|
||
graduation. Information about acquisition of dogs, puppy-raising, specific
|
||
training dogs receive, criteria for matching dogs and students, residential
|
||
arrangements for students, dormitory rules, and evaluation of teams' readiness
|
||
to graduate is provided. Material for this section was obtained from the guide
|
||
dog schools.
|
||
Part one explores the costs and benefits of working with a guide dog,
|
||
myths about guide dogs, questions frequently asked about the human/guide
|
||
dog partnership, and the potential impact of guide dogs on the lives of their
|
||
partners. In this section the authors draw on their own experience as guide dog
|
||
users as well as the experience of hundreds of other people. Part two contains
|
||
individual descriptions of each school.
|
||
This second edition updates information and reflects the changes that
|
||
have taken place in the eight years since the publication of the first edition. The
|
||
book also contains material about two of the Canadian training programs.
|
||
The 145-page book is available in standard print or computer disk at a
|
||
cost of $10 including shipping and handling. Checks should be made payable to
|
||
Disabled on the Go (DOG) and sent to Ed and Toni Eames, 3376 North Wilshon,
|
||
Fresno, California 93704-4832. You may call (209) 224-0544. The cassette and
|
||
Braille versions are being produced by the National Library Service. Please
|
||
contact your NLS Regional Library about availability.
|
||
|
||
** Afghans Available:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
I can make afghans of any size to order. The cost includes yarn and
|
||
shipping and handling. Costs are as follows: crib, $25; twin, $40; double, $55;
|
||
queen, $70; and king, $85. If you wish, you may supply your own yarn. Call Rose
|
||
at (802) 223-1673.
|
||
|
||
** Volunteers Needed for Sleep Study:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
Earn up to $700 per month for three to twelve months. Men and women,
|
||
ages eighteen to eighty-five, without light perception and using no prescription
|
||
medications are invited to participate in a study on circadian rhythms and sleep
|
||
patterns in the blind. The study is being conducted at the Brigham and Women's
|
||
Hospital. The study involves wearing an ambulatory monitor while living at home
|
||
and spending four to five days in the laboratory each month. Participants will be
|
||
paid for their efforts and may also learn valuable information about their eyes
|
||
and their sleep-wake patterns. For more information call the Brigham and
|
||
Women's Hospital at (800) 722-5520, extension 1132, at any time. Specify your
|
||
interest in the "blind study."
|
||
|
||
** Canes with Nylon Tips:
|
||
As Monitor readers know regular NFB canes come equipped with metal
|
||
tips. However, some people throughout the country have requested nylon tips,
|
||
in addition to which there is a demand for nylon tips in the overseas market,
|
||
which we are now beginning to service. Therefore, the NFB now stocks canes
|
||
with nylon tips. We also continue to stock our regular canes with metal tips, of
|
||
course. The new nylon tip NFB canes have our logo on them. They are carbon
|
||
fiber, either telescopic or rigid, and come in lengths from 41 to 59 inches. Also
|
||
available is a four-section folding aluminum cane with a nylon tip and an elastic
|
||
cord in two adjustable lengths. For further information or to place orders,
|
||
contact the Materials Center at the National Center for the Blind at (410) 659-
|
||
9314 from 12:30 to 5:00 p.m. (eastern standard time) Monday through Friday. As
|
||
with other items, payment may be made by check, money order, or credit card.
|
||
|