Focus on the Education of Blind Children

Focus on the Education of Blind Children

Future Reflections Fall 1988, Vol. 7 No. 3
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FOCUS ON THE EDUCATION OF BLIND CHILDREN
By Kenneth Jernigan
[PICTURE] Kenneth Jernigan, Director of the National Center for the
Blind, is shown here as he speaks to the 1988 NFB national
convention. Mr. Jernigan began his career in work
with the blind as a teacher at the Tennessee School for
the Blind in 1949. He has been involved with the education
of blind children in one manner or another since
then.
Editor's Note: This was published in the May
June, 1988 issue of the Braille Monitor.
There was a time when the education of blind
children seemed rather straightforward and uncomplicated.
In almost every state there was a
residential school, where blind children were
educated. The child left home when he or she was
six years old, went to the residential school, came
home at Christmas (and maybe once or twice besides
during the school year), spent summers at
home, and graduated from the twelfth grade. In
general (and admittedly it is a generality) the
academic training was good; the vocational
prospects were bleak; and the social contacts
with members of the opposite sex were nonexistent
or clandestine.
Speaking again in generalities, the blind teenager
left high school with a pretty good knowledge of
history, geography, and how to use the language;
with not much chance for remunerative employment;
and with even less chance for a lifetime of
normal man-woman relationships. Of course,
the average sighted American hasn't done all that
well with the man-woman relationships either. In
any event it should not be necessary to have to
make a choice between a decent education and a
decent social life. With respect to career, the
schools (whether residential or otherwise) can
hardly be blamed for the fact that most of the
working-aged blind of a generation ago didn't
find a job. Although the vocational situation is
somewhat better for the blind today than it was
then, it still has a long way to go, and such
progress as has been made can hardly be credited
to the schools.
In the mid-forties and early fifties the simplicity
and straightforwardness were suddenly gone
from the education of blind children. As with
most things, the reasons were undoubtedly
numerous, but the principal factor can probably
be encompassed in a single term: retrolental
fibroplasia. In unprecedented numbers premature babies were suddenly becoming blind--if not
at birth, then shortly after; and nobody knew why.
By the time it was determined that it had to do
with oxygen in the incubators, there were
thousands of blind youngsters going through the
population in a wave, and the educational system
was simply not adequate to deal with them.
The residential schools had had a stable or slightly
declining population for decades, and with a
few notable exceptions the public schools were
not taking blind children at all. Now, all of a sudden,
the choices were stark and immediate:
Either the physical facilities and training resources
of the residential schools would have to be expanded
six- or seven-fold -- and at once; the
public schools would have to try to do the job; or
the children would have to go uneducated. Since
a high survival rate among premature babies was
not one of the characteristics of low-income
groups in the 1940's and 50's, the parents of the
retrolental fibroplasia babies had clout as a
group, and they were not about to permit their
children to go uneducated.
The question was not whether but how ~ and not
even would there be quality or effectiveness or a
workable approach: just that something be done,
and immediately. The parents were scared, and
at the gut level their expectations for their
children were low since they regarded blindness
as an unmitigated tragedy. Into this vacuum
stepped some of the larger agencies for the blind.
They worked with colleges and universities to establish
teacher training courses and sought to
make the parents a political instrument to build
their prestige, advance their causes, and enlarge
their budgets. The parents were vulnerable and
desperate, so it is not surprising that (by and
large) they ac cepted and believed what they were
told. It is not, for the most part, that the agencies
were cynical or deliberately manipulative but
only that they were administered and staffed by
humans, who rationalized their own self-interest
into a virtue which it often lacked. As was said of
the early missionaries who went to Hawaii, they
came to do good and remained to do well.
That was more than thirty years ago, and since
that time a whole system and an entire way of
thought concerning the education of blind
children has developed (some of it constructive
and some irrational) but the totality sanctified by
the word "professional." As the colleges and
universities pumped out graduates, a corps of so
called "professionals" was built. The teachers
and the teachers of the teachers had to publish in
order to survive and gain recognition, so a body
of "professional literature" was written. Again, it
must be emphasized that, with some exceptions,
most of this has not been done cynically or to
manipulate. Nevertheless, the end result has
often been (and is today) at variance with common
sense and reality and extremely destructive
to the blind children who are supposedly the
beneficiaries of the "professionalism" and its
trappings.
With a straight face many of the educators who
have come through the system, attended the conferences,
and read the literature now advocate
practices and techniques which not only defy
reason but contradict the experience of the
majority of successful blind adults. Consider
these examples: They resist teaching Braille to
children who have such limited eyesight that
reading print (even large print with a magnifier)
is virtually impossible. In one instance, when a
teacher who had resisted teaching Braille to a
blind child was ordered to do it, she attempted to
comply with the order in a way which would seem
laughable if it were not so painfully tragic. The
child had almost no sight. Yet, she tried to teach
him Braille by using flash cards with large print
representations of Braille dots.
In another case an educator argued that if a child
has some sight, it is destructive for that child to try to learn both Braille and print since only a certain
amount of learning can be done and teaching
both systems would cut the progress of each
in half. That educator went on to say that it is not
necessarily essential for a teacher of young blind
children (even a teacher who is responsible for
teaching reading to those children) to be proficient
in the use of Braille. When he was asked
how such an argument was different from saying
that a French teacher did not need to know
French or a math teacher math, he simply
responded with anger ~ perhaps understandably
since there would seem to be no logical answer
that could have been given.
It is not only Braille but also mobility which gets
peculiar treatment. Mobility instructors often try
to prevent blind children from learning to travel
with a cane. They do this in spite of the fact that
they themselves teach cane travel to blind adults,
that many blind children successfully learn cane
travel techniques, and that parents want their
children to be taught such techniques. The
reason given for not letting the child carry a cane
or learn to use it has frequently been that the
child will appear more "normal" if he or she is not
carrying a cane, especially if the child has even a
small amount of sight.
One has to be deeply concerned about the
damage which is being done to blind children
who are exposed to this pseudo- professionalism.
What sort of image are they being given about
blindness and about their own potential? How
will they cope when they become adolescents and
have to deal with the troubled years of the teens?
How comfortable will they be with their blindness
and how effectively will they manage their
lives when as adults they meet the competition of
the everyday world?
While it is true that the traditional training of the
residential schools of the 1940's and earlier left
much to be desired, it can convincingly be argued
that we have merely swapped one set of problems
for another and that the former system (with all
of its disadvantages) may well have had the edge
over what is being done now. There can be no
doubt that the vocational prospects for today's
blind youngster are better than they were forty
years ago and that the public attitudes and social
acceptance are also better, but these advances
should not be nullified by blighting the academic
competence of blind children and conditioning
them to believe that it is not respectable to be
blind.
All of this was brought into focus for me recently
by a letter from the mother of two blind
children. She has the right instincts, and she is
doing what she can to create a climate of
positivism and opportunity for her children; but
she faces formidable obstacles. And the sad part
of it is that those obstacles come not from the
blindness itself or from the misconceptions of the
uninformed public but from the very people (the
"professionals") who are supposed to be helping
her. Fortunately she has found the National
Federation of the Blind and its Parents Division.
She will meet successful blind adults and learn
from their experience. She will also meet other
parents and draw strength from them. Here in
part is what she says:
I am writing this letter to ask for your help. I
am the mother of ten children--three by adoption,
with special needs, and two of them blind. I
lose many hours of sleep over the discrimination
they face. I'm trying to gain support for my position
on their rights. I have been dismayed for
eight years over what goes on. I have run into a
brick wall every time. It is the only thing in
parenting that I may lose my sanity over. (I love
all other aspects of being a parent.) You seem
like an organization that can help. HELP!
These are just some of the things my blind kids
have encountered. The list is long.
Tim is eighteen adopted at age ten; Ronnie
(Renita) is fourteen and a half; adopted at age
nine.
Ronnie (immediately upon arriving at her
new school) was stripped of cane and any Braille
skills already achieved. As her teacher put it, she
needed to be taught the "right way." She was put
into a developmentally disabled class (sneakily)
and with no knowledge of parents. I found out
when I went in to volunteer to help kids read. A
sign was on the door, which read: "Miss Tanner's
developmental class."
The kids I tried to help were trying to read
regular print by turning their magnifiers every
which way but inside out to be able to "see" the
words. Iasked the teacher on the way out why they
did not use large print books. She replied that
they were "too expensive." There were two
Braille students, Ronnie being one. Along with
others who should have been Braille students,
they were trying unsuccessfully to read print.
Goals on the IEP (Individualized Education
Program) have been repeated three years in a
row -- even after being successfully completed.
They are put on as the same goals for next year,
and I am presumably to "thank" them for being
concerned. Many times I am condescended to
with phrases such as "Now, Mrs. --, don't you
remember? We went over this last year." Apparently
not only blind children but also their
parents aren't too smart!
In frustration I contacted the state department
of education. I was told that I should ask for
more specifics on the IEP. I was told that I should
and could ask them to list completion of books as
a goal on the IEP. It's no fun to get jumped on to
by a principal, a director of special education for
two school districts, and a teacher who says, "We
will not list books! Furthermore, we don't have
to." I called the state department of special
education back. It almost sounded as if they had
made a deal. The whole story was changed. The
state sided with the school.
"No, we can't make them list books on an IEP,"
they said. "Did you think I told you that?"
Most recently Ronnie is to have phys ed. Last
year it was on the IEP, but since they did not think
she could do any of the activities she didn't get it.
She did some "exercises'" with a teacher instead
on an irregular basis. This year she still has been
excluded from at least one gym class to go to
study hall.
A teacher of social studies told me Ronnie
"runs" out the door and out in the hall after class.
He doesn't want her to do this. "She might get
hurt," he said.
I said, "Oh, Ronnie runs?"
"Well, no," he said, "but she walks too fast for
her safety."
God forbid! So my child walks too
fast! She is disobedient, isn't she?
She is, as they put it, "mainstreamed" in this
class, and all other children in this class have a
book. She has a tape. She is to review her lesson,
and then she gets ten minutes by herself with the
instructor. Why bother mainstreaming her?
My son Tim is also facing the same kinds of
problems. One year he was not allowed to go
down the steps alone. Safety reasons. He changed
schools this year and was not allowed to go to the
bus by himself. The teacher, as she put it, did not
know he could do it on his own.
Ronnie belongs to drama club. They were
having a talent show some time before
Christmas. She practiced and was very excited
about playing her guitar and singing. When I
picked her up after the meeting when the talent
show was to occur, I asked how it went. She said,
"I didn't play."
I said, "Oh, why not?"
First she said, "I guess they didn't have enough
time." And then she said, "We had to sign up to
be in the show, and no one signed me up."
This is occurring again. They are doing a play.
A note was sent home with names of characters
and parts to be played. She could choose. She
later decided that since she did not know what
the play was about, she didn't want to be in it. She had such a change of heart it seemed as if she was
being influenced.
I am so tired of trying to defend her. I just quit
trying. She has lost heart, and so have I. She is in
the developmentally handicapped classes, and
time after time teachers want to make sure that
we both know our places.
The kids have one of the few trained orientation
and mobility instructors in the state, so I
presume we should be pleased. However, she has
been very skilled at keeping us uninformed.
These are some of the wonderful things she has
said: "Signing an IEP does not mean approving
an IEP. It just means you were present." "There
is no one in this area who can teach you (parents)
Braille."
This is what she says, but I am learning that
many of the blind are willing to teach us. This instructor
was overheard at church saying: "Can
you imagine? They are considering hiring blind
instructors."
This is what one mother of two blind children
says, and much can be read between the lines. If
her story were an isolated instance, it would be
bad enough; but since it is the rule rather than the
exception, it demands attention. The National
Federation of the Blind faces no single problem
of more crucial importance than the mess which
is being made of the education of blind children.
We absolutely must find a solution, and we must
do it with minimal delay. Morally and ethically
(even if not biologically) these are our children,
and we must not fail them.
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