_______________________________________________________________________________
Vol. 53, No. 9 October 2010
Gary Wunder, editor
Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by
The National Federation of the Blind
Marc Maurer, president
National Office
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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES
ISSN 0006-8829
Vol. 53, No. 9 October 2010
The Failure of the Educational System
In Meeting the Needs of the Blind
About Time, Huh?
by Natalie Bailey
SWEP and the Bars of Our Prison
by Scott C. LaBarre
NIB Doesn’t Give Up, and Neither Do We
by Marc Maurer
The Secret to Winning a National Federation of the Blind Scholarship
by Patti S. Gregory-Chang
Just in Case the Best Want to Do Better
by Samantha Flax
Technology Seminars begin in Iowa
by Peggy Chong
The Miracle on Sixth Street
by Bill Clapp
The 2010-2011 Braille Reading Contests Begin
We Are Able
by Robert Gardner
Updating Your Coping Skills
by Reji Mathew
Ray McGeorge, a Man to Remember, An Inspiration to Us All
Featured Book from the Jacobus tenBroek Library
Monitor MiniaturesCopyright 2010 by the National Federation of the Blind
Each quarter the large bulletin board in the Jernigan Institute’s Betsy Zaborowski Conference Room is changed to model another entirely accessible classroom display. The Education Department hopes to inspire teachers of blind students to turn their imaginations loose in their own classrooms so that their blind students can enjoy bulletin boards just like sighted kids. Here are a photo of the third-quarter bulletin board and a description of its display.
This bulletin board features a scene from the lives of Linda LEGO and her blind son Luke. In the bottom right corner a short story provides viewers the background of the LEGO Family and sets the scene.
“Linda LEGO loves her blind son Luke LEGO. Like all parents she wants to protect him from everything bad. She used to worry constantly about how her son would navigate the world. Then one day Captain Whozit paid her a visit. He told Linda LEGO that, “With the proper training and opportunities blindness can be reduced to the level of a nuisance.” He also told her about the skills Luke needs to be successful. Now, having taken Captain Whozit’s words to heart, Linda knows it’s ok to LEt GO!”
The title of this display—LEt GO, Empower—appears in the top left corner in print and Braille. In tactile print letters the words “LEt GO” are oriented vertically along the left border, and the word “Empower” branches to the right from the “e” in “let” and stretches horizontally beneath the top border, producing a crossword-puzzle effect. The Braille title appears twice: once at the top, superimposed on the word “empower,” and again in the bottom left corner, where those familiar with these bulletin boards know to search for their Braille titles. Large, three-dimensional figures of Linda (approximately three feet tall) and Luke (approximately two feet tall) pop off the deep green background. Luke is dressed in a white collared shirt, blue jeans, and red sneakers. An actual NFB child’s cane rests against his shoulder. Luke’s clothes express the characteristics of a successful blind child: problem-solving, socially appropriate, cane-using, determined, confident, independent, active, technology-literate, and Braille-reading. Linda wears a red dress expressing the characteristics a parent needs to raise a successful blind child: listening, creative, loving, strong, humorous, persevering, dedicated, assertive, and investigative.
Word bubbles show the conversation between mom and son. Luke says, “I want to be a fireman, but Jimmy says I can’t do it because I’m blind.”
Linda replies, “You need to LEt GO of those negative attitudes! You can do whatever you want. We’ll find out if any other blind people are firefighters and how they do their jobs.”
Continuing the theme to the edge of the bulletin board, the border is made of real LEGOS®. Visitors are invited to interact with the display by repositioning the LEGOS.
From the Editor: On Wednesday morning, July 8, 2010, Mark Riccobono, executive director of the NFB Jernigan Institute, moderated a panel presentation discussing the failure of the educational system to prepare blind students effectively. The item was one of the most energizing and thought-provoking of the entire national convention. Panel participants were Sheila Amato, EdD, university teacher trainer; Noreen Grice, founder and president of You Can Do Astronomy, LLC; Laura Webber, newly elected president of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children; and Dr. Eric Vasiliauskas, parent and advocate. This is what they said:
I am honored and challenged to be speaking before all of you today. This is a time of transition in our field of education and in my life. One week ago today I retired from my day teaching position after serving for thirty-eight years as a teacher of children who are deaf, deafblind, and blind. Let me tell you, it was an agonizing decision to make. It was not the decision that I had always dreamed of making. I anticipated wonderful thoughts of future trips and activities. However, it was a decision made with nightmares of abandoning my students and concerns for their future education.
I had the most wonderful students and parents in the world. Together we shared some amazing experiences. My students had their artwork selected for display in the Helen Keller International Art show. They participated in Braille Readers Are Leaders. My public school district hosted a regional Braille Challenge during each of the past three years, and each time we sent at least one finalist to compete in Los Angeles as one of the top twelve participants in his or her age group. I should have been able to retire with the laurels of success on my head and shoulders. Instead I retired with much concern, concern for the quality of the future education of my students. Whoever comes aboard as their teacher will walk into a position where, among other tasks, he or she will have to transcribe trigonometry, honors Italian, and chemistry into Braille for my blind student who is a high school junior. Challenges, we all face them every day.
When Mark Riccobono invited me to participate as a panel member for a topic related to education of blind students, I was intrigued. When he asked me to focus on innovations that are needed in the preparation of teachers of blind students and what we still need to learn about it, I was in! However, I need to admit to a level of discomfort sitting here before you on a panel for which the title is "The Failure of the Education System in Meeting the Needs of the Blind." As a teacher I would not want my career and my efforts to be thought of as a failure. But after some intense discussion with Mark and others, I have come to realize that this is not a personal reflection on any one teacher, but on a system. The words "failure" and “education" should not be uttered in the same sentence. Yet they often are. I'm here because I believe that the challenges we face together and the solutions that we can develop together have the potential to make the education system one which can and will prepare future teachers to meet the educational needs of our blind students.
In July 1989 more than twenty years ago, Dr. Susan Spungin spoke before a very similar audience at the national convention of the NFB in Denver, Colorado. In her speech she provided her perspectives on why we have increased numbers of illiterate blind people. She grouped these reasons into eight categories. With respect to the time allotted to me for my comments today as well as the request that I focus on the preparation of our future teachers, I will deal with only some of these—those that involve teacher competence and teacher training in Braille, my areas of passionate interest and involvement.
In 1989 Dr. Spungin said that "University teacher-training programs for teachers of visually handicapped students have given lip service to teaching Braille and have over the years graduated less-than-proficient Braille instructors as teachers." In the 1990s, most university programs had only one required Braille course, and 20 percent of them didn't even touch Nemeth code. Now programs have two or even three Braille courses. In addition to the literary code, programs now incorporate Nemeth code, music, foreign language, and computer codes as well as methods and strategies for teaching reading and writing by using Braille and Braille-related assistive technology. A research study has recently been completed that gathered data on how university instructors teach Braille to future teachers. The results of this study will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. I eagerly await these data. AER, the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind, has just formed a work group to discuss the establishment of national standards for university Braille courses. This work group will convene in two weeks at the biennial AER convention in Little Rock, Arkansas. One of the topics that will be discussed within this work group is the National Certification in Literary Braille competency test. I have been involved in the test-development process through all of its iterations over the past two decades. This NCLB test is a solid assessment tool to measure the Braille transcription skills of the minimally qualified candidate for entry-level teachers. I am hopeful that discussion will involve the potential for endorsement of this test at the university level and that creative solutions to work out administrative issues among all parties will be developed. We should not allow our university students to take their place as teachers in the classrooms of our children without meeting these standards.
Dr. Spungin also talked about the existing service-delivery models in schools serving blind children, and how, through the concept of least restrictive environment established in PL 94-142, they have favored itinerant and teaching-consult models of services. This model limits the time spent with students because of large caseloads and geographic regions served. While sighted students learn literacy skills throughout the day, our blind children learn Braille perhaps two or three (or five) hours a week while their teachers often spend more time in travel than in direct instruction.
When I was teaching a university Braille course in one of the Midwest states, I had a parent--a mother--in my course, which was designed for teachers. I asked her why she was taking this course, and this was her response. She told me that she had a six-year-old blind son. They lived on three generations of family farmland in a very rural area. She was not willing to send her six-year-old son several hundred miles away from his family to the state school for the blind. The itinerant teacher of the blind could only get to the school to work with her son twice a month and only if the Cessna plane that would bring this teacher to the school was not being used for crop spraying. Thus, if her son was going to learn Braille, it would be up to her to teach him. So here she was.
A crisis exists in the United States because of the shortage of competent teachers of students who are blind or visually impaired. There are approximately forty college- or university-level teacher-training programs in the USA today. Collectively these programs graduate approximately 250 new TVIs per year, this in a field in which we are presently 5,000 TVIs short to fill the existing need. Some states do not have a teacher-training program, while other states have two or three within close proximity.
One solution to the lack of access to teacher-training programs has been online education. While teaching online Braille courses, I experienced the freedom one gains when one realizes that the world is the true classroom and that learning is not bound by four walls and one instructor. As the world becomes their classroom, students begin to add valuable members of the field to their personal and professional networks. Guest speakers can be integral parts of online courses, and they help build community as they share their expertise and experiences via discussion boards. My students have the benefit of learning from and then being able to contact Dr. Abraham Nemeth, creator of the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics, to ask questions, and he is always delighted to speak with them about his life's work. Thank you, Dr. Nemeth.
Another benefit of the online model is that it allows educators to reach students in diverse geographic areas without the requirement of travel. Although the online model is designed to allow flexibility and eliminate the cost and time required to travel to a classroom, many students still juggle jobs, families, and other courses. Time-management skills, organization, and self-discipline are prerequisites of studying Braille online. I have on several occasions said to a student, "Perhaps this is not the best time in your life to be taking this challenging course."
Another question of time is the duration of the course. Is the fourteen- to fifteen-week time frame of a university semester too short to gain true competence in learning Braille? The majority of our regular education teachers are themselves educated in print-rich environments. Yet we expect our future teachers who are learning Braille to be highly qualified in less than four months of instruction. Instead of positive attitudes and love of Braille, some of my students leave with frustration and distaste due to the speed in which they have had to proceed through their lessons. Will these future teachers advocate that their students use Braille if they themselves have not had a personally rewarding experience while learning Braille? And some of my students simply do not pass the Braille course. Last year I had a 40 percent failure rate. While we are in desperate need of more teachers for our students, enabling less than qualified teachers to enter the field as teachers of our blind students is not the answer.
The online method of instruction poses challenges in demonstrating or observing mechanics such as the skill of proper hand position on a Perkins Brailler. In the same way that technology cannot replace Braille, online Braille-simulation software cannot replace the experience of pressing keys while learning to use a Braillewriter. Online Braille instructors need to be able to provide opportunities for students to learn and demonstrate their proficiency with Braille software and the Perkins Brailler without face-to-face interaction. This is yet another way in which we can collaborate to make such learning opportunities available.
And a last-but-not-least comment on the accessibility of online instruction—full and independent access for university students who are blind or visually impaired is not yet assured in the online Braille courses I teach, often due to limitations of computer hardware and software, and sometimes due to lack of owner/operator skills.
Two hundred years after the birth of Louis Braille, I am teaching a new generation of university students who have grown up to view technological gadgets as extensions of their bodies. They are captivated by multitasking: they talk, listen, and text in a synchronized and natural manner. They have instant access to communication and have come to expect that the world will join them in philosophy and practice. The educational model familiar to most instructors preparing teachers in the field of visual impairment has changed, and these shifting paradigms in education have led educators to continually identify new challenges in search of solutions.
In conclusion I would like to share with you a brief story that I wrote. It was written in honor of my grandfather, a carpenter, and my aunt, a retired TVI, who was my first Braille teacher.
When a carpenter goes out to build a house, he has many tools at his (or her) disposal. Although the hammer is a common tool, it comes in various shapes, sizes, and weights, and at varying prices. While it is a tool that is relatively easy to use, a carpenter cannot build a house with a hammer alone.
So the carpenter starts to assemble tools for his toolbox. He can purchase or borrow tools, and some are given to him as gifts. New tools are always coming out on the market, so the carpenter needs to be aware of all of this newfangled technology so that he doesn't get left behind and get a reputation for being the old or obsolete or incompetent or slow carpenter. He needs to learn how to use all of these tools, by either going to a trade school or program or being an apprentice, or working collaboratively with more experienced carpenters. He learns to measure twice, cut once because accuracy is critically important in his trade.
He may never need to use all of these tools in his toolbox, but the choice of which tool to use is up to him, only if he knows how to use them. Otherwise, valuable tools may go untouched at the bottom of his toolbox, and he will never achieve his potential as a carpenter. Not knowing how to use all of these tools could be okay as well. It depends on what he wants to build. If he wants to build a small bench, then a saw and a hammer might suffice. But, if he dreams of building a castle, he would have to be competent in using all the tools to build the castle of his dreams.
How do the tools and skills of a carpenter relate to teaching Braille? Teachers need to teach skills and strategies so that their students will have choices in their educational and vocational careers. In our world some students will learn uncontracted Braille, and they will label their CDs. Some will learn contracted Braille, and they will go to college and earn a degree that is challenging. Some students will surpass us in their knowledge of technology and become our teachers and mentors.
It's all about choice and about having the skills and knowledge to make the correct choice. We teachers and teacher trainers need to assure that the choice is theirs and not the result of the impact of our not teaching the skills they need to know. Thank you.
by Noreen Grice
Twenty-six years ago I was a college student majoring in astronomy. It was the summer of my senior year at Boston University. I had just started a new part-time job in the planetarium at the Boston Museum of Science.
Not long after I started working at the Museum, a group of blind students stood in line for one of my planetarium shows. I was nervous and asked the planetarium manager what I should do. "Just help them to their seats; that’s all you have to do," he said. So I helped these students to their seats and welcomed everyone to the planetarium and pressed the button to start the show. It was a prerecorded show, so I just sat in the console, and at the end of the show I got back on the microphone and thanked everyone for visiting the planetarium.
If you've heard my story before, you know what happened next. The audience walked past the console toward the exit. I wondered what these blind students thought of the planetarium, so I walked around the booth and asked them. They told me bluntly, "The show stunk," and then they walked away.
That moment changed my life. I vowed to make astronomy accessible. I didn't know how to do this, but I was determined to figure it out. Over the years I created tactile astronomy images to accompany all of the planetarium shows and wrote several accessible astronomy books:
I also designed the tactile graphics for The Solar System Radio Explorer exhibit at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Visitor Center, the tactile Carina Nebula poster for the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the tactile maps in the new NASA Touch the Earth book.
To help other educators learn how to make their programs and facilities more accessible, I established my own consulting company called You Can Do Astronomy. I am sighted, and I became a member of the National Federation of the Blind in 2003, when Barbara Cheadle asked me to come and present a couple of accessible astronomy sessions for students at the national convention in Louisville. Since then I've been here at national conventions presenting astronomy programs and participating in a variety of workshops. You’ll find me with the folks from Connecticut.
Beyond the conventions I've been an astronomy instructor for two Circle of Life Academies, one Junior Science Academy, and two high school Youth Slams. I’ve worked with students who are blind or have low vision. Whether they explored tactile star patterns, modeled the seasons and moon phases, measured craters, imaged telescopic views of the night sky by touch, or any of the other many astronomy activities, these students fully participated in each experience without barriers.
Last summer the Slammin’ in Space class at the Youth Slam went on a moon mission at the Maryland Challenger Center. If you are not familiar with Challenger Centers, these are teaching facilities sponsored by the spouses of the astronauts who died aboard the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986. Each Challenger Center has a very realistic mission control room with specific stations for crew that includes Navigation, Life Support, Science, Engineering, Communications, Data, and Medicine. A nearby room is a reproduction of the interior of a space laboratory station with work areas for the mission control counterparts. So the navigator in Mission Control communicates by radio with the navigator in the space station. The engineer in Mission Control communicates with the engineer on the space station, and so on. The students must rely on each other to accomplish the mission.
About a week before the students arrived for the Youth Slam, I traveled to the Maryland Challenger Center with Mary Jo Hartle and my co-instructor Ben Wentworth. I took photos and made careful note of the exact requirements for each crew station. For example, the navigation stations in Mission Control and on the space station required the crew to view images on a computer to decide which method was best to achieve orbit. The engineering crew in the space station needed to build a probe from a visual graphic display as the engineer in Mission Control described which components to connect first. The medical crew on the space station had to monitor the space station crew’s health by taking their vital signs while other crew members needed to complete a visual chemical test to check the cleanliness of the space station's water and classify the geology of lunar samples. No problem. I created tactile diagrams and 3-D models, attached Braille labels, and substituted talking medical and chemical instruments. There wasn't much that could not be made accessible. Steve Booth and the staff at NFB headquarters produced Braille versions of the crew manifest.
And what do you think happened on the day of our mission? The students went to their assigned stations, communicated with each other, conducted experiments, corrected an oxygen emergency leak, and successfully landed on the moon. It was great! As we left the Challenger Center and headed back to campus, we talked with the students, and they said the moon mission was one of the most exciting things they had ever done.
I never understand why people assume that students who have low vision or are blind cannot be just as successful as their sighted counterparts. That assumption is just not true. Is it possible for a blind person to become an astronomer or astronaut? Of course! And, when I think of the first blind astronauts, I know two great candidates who are NFB members, students Chelsea Cook (from Virginia) and Terry Garret (from Colorado).
Going back to the story about my experience at the Museum of Science, while I developed astronomy tactile images, I started to think about other ways to make the planetarium more accessible. With grant funding we were able to install an assistive listening system with volume amplification for people who are hard of hearing and also a modular captioning system for deaf visitors. The captioning system, it turns out, was often requested by visitors who spoke English as a second language. They had no problem hearing but told me that it was easier to understand English by reading rather than listening. I was also able to relocate wheelchair-accessible seating from one area to several locations within the planetarium. This allowed people to sit with their friends rather than requiring everyone in a wheelchair to be herded together like cattle.
I live in New Britain, Connecticut, and am an active member of the NFB Central Connecticut Chapter. We meet once a month at the Plainville Library. Recently I borrowed a library book called Accessible Connecticut, which details accessibility resources at many Connecticut museums. I found that most children’s and many science museums offered hands-on activities, but accessibility was extremely limited at art and history museums. I found that out of thirty-seven museums in Connecticut, twenty were described in this book as not being very accessible to a person who is blind,while the other seventeen museums had some accessible, hands-on components. However, these seventeen museums often required advance notice of a week or more that a blind person would be visiting, with the idea that the staff could gather some hands-on materials. Any deaf visitor who required an interpreter needed to give two weeks notice. And I have to wonder, why?
Why can’t a person with a visual or hearing impairment have the same access to a museum at any time as a person with full vision or hearing? Not only does this not seem fair to me, I find it personally outrageous. Making a museum accessible is good for all visitors. For example, many sighted people have different learning styles and do best with tactile materials. Accessibility also helps the museum's bottom line with higher attendance.
I think it takes more effort to make excuses why museums and classes can't be made accessible than it is to simply make them accessible.
I no longer work at the Boston Museum of Science, but I have to tell you about the very last planetarium show I gave. It was Christmas Eve Day 2009, and as usual I was taking tickets for the planetarium show. Visitors handed me their tickets, and I ripped off a portion and handed them back a ticket stub. A mother with her husband and children approached the planetarium entrance and handed me their tickets. When I handed her back the ticket stubs, she said "thank you" in a way that sounded to me as if she was deaf. Without thinking, I said, "we have captioning for this program," and she replied, "You have captioning? We need captioning!" A few minutes later I had the captioning system set up at their seats.
I stepped into the console, welcomed everyone to the planetarium, and pressed the button to start the prerecorded holiday program. During the show I noticed the dim flicker of the captioning display and the silhouette of the family reading the illuminated text. After the show the audience walked past the console toward the exit. As this family approached, I came around the booth to ask them how they liked the planetarium show. They smiled, and the mother joyfully said "What a wonderful thing--captions in the planetarium! We’ll be back.”
As they walked away, I could not help thinking how a planetarium or any museum could transform from an inaccessible place to a destination that could be enjoyed by all visitors--anytime--without advance notice, and regardless of visual, hearing, or physical abilities.
I still wonder why every classroom and museum can’t be an accessible and welcoming place for all because I know it is possible.
by Laura Weber
When Mark asked me to speak to you today about the failure of the educational system in meeting the needs of the blind, my first question was, “How long will I have?” I could stand here all day enumerating the flaws in the current system, but I’d be preaching to the choir. This crowd, more than any other I could address, understands the problems our children face. Some of you have blind children. Some of you were blind children. Some of you teach blind children. Many of you have experienced the failure of the educational system in meeting the needs of the blind, and those who haven’t experienced it certainly have heard about it.
I too have experienced this failure. People may look at me and the other parents on the boards of Texas Parents of Blind Children and the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children and think, “Wow. These parents really have it together. They’re part of the NFB. They know what it takes for a blind person to be successful. I’ll bet their kids are getting the best services available.” Wrong. Knowing what your child needs and getting what your child needs are two very different things. We’ve had and continue to have our challenges. Let me give you just a few examples:
One national board member has a daughter in elementary school. Kendra was in the first grade last year. She’s incredibly bright and reads at a fourth-grade level. She reads Braille faster than 86 percent of sighted first-grade students nationwide read print. Yet Kendra’s parents were told that she didn’t qualify for the gifted program, in spite of having standardized test scores ranging from the 96th to the 99th percentile for first graders. After two months of trying to use logic and the law with the school system, Kendra’s parents requested a mediator. At that point the district decided that maybe Kendra did qualify for the gifted program after all, but should it have been that hard?
This is an example of blatant discrimination in general education. Would a sighted child with the same reading level, reading speed, and standardized test scores be denied acceptance into the school’s gifted program? No. Kendra’s parents knew that. But knowing wasn’t enough to prevent the problem.
Another national board member has a son in junior high. David began missing school during fourth and fifth grades for headaches that his parents were told were due to sinus infections. A couple days at home each time seemed to solve the problem. In the sixth grade the problem worsened. A few days off now and then no longer helped, and the headaches were constant. David lost about three months of school that year.
The diagnosis didn’t come quickly. David’s parents consulted numerous specialists, and he underwent MRIs, CAT scans, a lumbar puncture, and drug treatments. Finally a doctor correctly diagnosed the problem. David had occipital neuralgia. This is what the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke says about this condition:
Occipital neuralgia is a distinct type of headache characterized by piercing, throbbing, or electric-shock-like chronic pain in the upper neck, back of the head, and behind the ears, usually on one side of the head.… The pain is caused by irritation or injury to the [occipital] nerves, which can be the result of trauma to the back of the head, pinching of the nerves by overly tight neck muscles, compression of the nerve as it leaves the spine due to osteoarthritis, or tumors or other types of lesions in the neck.
So what does this have to do with the education of blind children? Well therein lies the cause of David’s problem. Because he was blind, his teachers saw no reason why he shouldn’t be seated facing a wall instead of facing forward like the rest of the class. Their reasoning was that it prevented the cords from his equipment from going across the floor and creating a hazard for the other students. He didn’t need to be seated by the corded equipment, but they thought it would be more convenient. David had to turn his head constantly to face the front of the class. After several years of this he developed occipital neuralgia, which caused him constant pain and months out of school.
This is another example of discrimination and ignorance in general education. Would a sighted child be expected to sit in a desk facing the wall? No. David’s parents knew that. But knowing wasn’t enough to prevent the problem.
A Texas board member has a daughter who just graduated from high school and is currently receiving training at the Louisiana Center for the Blind before she starts college in January to pursue a degree in teaching. Kayleigh did well in high school. She was an honors student active in choir and drama. She’s the secretary of the Texas Association of Blind Students. She’s also an NFB scholarship winner. She must have received the very best services, right? Wrong.
When Kayleigh graduated, her visual reading rate was around 160 wpm. Most seniors in high school read between 250 and 350 wpm. Her Braille reading rate was 40 wpm. This may sound slow until you realize that she didn’t receive any Braille instruction in school until she was a senior in high school. For years Kayleigh and her parents knew she needed Braille. She even began teaching herself Braille through a Hadley course. But her teachers wouldn’t listen. To borrow from the theme of Carol Castellano’s wonderful speech at last year’s convention, the teachers said, “This child doesn’t need Braille. This child is not blind.”
This is another example of ignorance–this time in special education. Would a sighted child who read more than a hundred words a minute less than her peers be denied services that would help her increase her reading speed? No. Kayleigh’s parents knew that, but knowing wasn’t enough to solve the problem.
What’s really scary about these examples of ignorance and discrimination in the education system is that they’re true stories about the children of parents active in the NFB. These parents have the attitude, the information, the support, and the mentors that their kids need, and they still have to fight tooth and nail, year after year, to ensure that their kids get a quality education. What about the other parents out there who’ve never even heard of the NFB? What about the parents who don’t know what their kids need? What kind of services are their kids getting? I can’t tell you how many parents I meet who are thrilled to have found the NFB but who are filled with regret over the years that have gone by that their child didn’t have a cane. Or wasn’t learning Braille. Or didn’t believe that it was okay to be blind.
The current educational system is failing to educate too many of our blind students. My fellow panelists and I have given many examples of this, and I’m sure there are dozens more examples that the people in this room could give. We know there’s a problem. But knowing that isn’t enough. We need action.
To solve the problem, we need to understand the root cause, and here’s where it gets a little tricky. Humans love to assign blame. We say, “If blind kids aren’t learning, the teachers are to blame.” But there are some excellent teachers out there, and we all know that those who are not are usually teaching only what they’ve been taught. Okay, then we say, “Teacher preparation programs are to blame.” But again, there are good programs out there, and you really can’t blame a program. Someone developed the program. Someone decreed that it was sufficient. So are they to blame? How about the people who established the curriculum? Or set the standards? Or prepared the materials? Are they to blame? I’d like to propose that we not blame anyone, but instead that we step up to the plate and do something about it.
When I started researching for this speech, I found a wonderful article in an old Future Reflections magazine that really stood out to me in its simplicity in listing nine specific things that constitute a good education for blind children. I’d like to read that list, slightly abbreviated, to you now:
1. Given the proper training and opportunity, blind people can compete on a basis of equality with their sighted peers. This should be the basic philosophy for any programs, standards for programs, or evaluation of programs for the blind.
2. It is respectable to be blind. "Blind" should be restored to the vocabulary of educators and used frequently.
3. All blind children (including legally blind children who have some vision) should learn to read and write Braille.
4. All Braille users should learn to use the slate and stylus as early as possible and be required to use it regularly.
5. Teachers of blind children should be required to demonstrate proficiency in reading and writing Braille.
6. All blind children should be given a long white cane and instruction in its use upon enrollment in school [if not before]. The cane should be with the child throughout the day.
7. Sleepshades (eye covers) should be routinely used when alternative techniques, such as cane travel or Braille, are being taught to children with partial vision.
8. Educators should work with the organized blind to expose blind children of all ages to competent, knowledgeable blind adult role models.
9. Special education teachers of the blind should be required, as a part of their professional growth and continuing education, to attend conferences or conventions of blind consumers.
That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? We may all have one or two things we’d like to add to that list, but I think we can safely say that, if we want our blind children to succeed, that list of nine things is a pretty good start. So there you have it--problem solved. But before we pack it up and go home, here’s a sobering fact. That list was written by my friend, mentor, and long-time president of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children, Barbara Cheadle, in 1985. That list was written twenty-five years ago. We knew then what our kids needed. We knew what constituted a good education for blind children. Yet the educational system is still failing too many of them.
The news isn’t all bad. The NFB has made huge strides in the twenty-five years since that list was written, including:
These are only a few examples of what the NFB has done and is doing to improve the education of our blind students. And we’ve seen results. Many of our blind kids succeed due to excellent services or in spite of poor services. This year’s class of scholarship winners is living proof of that. But we want that success for all. We want the right to equal opportunity for each and every one of our blind children. My daughter Lindsay will turn eight in two days. I want a good education for her, and I know that it’s not guaranteed. That’s one of the reasons I recently changed careers. After working seventeen years as a biomedical engineer in the aerospace industry, I rethought my priorities, and I’m now in the last class of my master’s program in special education. I hope to follow that by being certified as a teacher of blind students.
I was honored to be part of an educational reform task force which met in Baltimore in June. I can assure you there was hope in that room. And not just hope, but conviction. Dr. Maurer committed the power of the NFB to solving this problem now. He made it very clear that knowing what our blind children need isn’t enough. We need action. No longer will we be content to chip away at the problem, solving one issue at a time or helping one family at a time. No longer will we stand by while the system continues to fail so many of our children. We are waging a battle here, and the National Federation of the Blind has decided that it’s time to go all out. The military has a name for the kind of attack we’re planning: shock and awe. It’s “shock-and-awe” time. We’re coming at this problem from all directions: teachers, training, standards, curriculum, policy, assessments, research, and leadership development. We’re developing a multi-level systemic approach to initiate wide-ranging and long-lasting change in our educational system.
We’re taking action. We will reach families of blind children and the professionals who serve them earlier. We will find more good teachers and more good programs--and if we can’t find them, we’ll make them. We will form relationships with professionals in the blindness field, and we’ll get them to our trainings and our conventions as part of their professional development. We will raise expectations and standards for all blind students. The road will be long, and there will be obstacles, but we didn’t choose this fight because it would be easy. We chose this fight because knowing what our blind children need isn’t enough. We won’t rest until they get what they need.
Thank you, Mark. Some of you may also know me as “Vejas’s Dad” or “Petras’s Dad.”
As a parent I can attest that many systemic challenges still exist in the current educational system of blind and visually impaired children. I will start with several illustrative anecdotes.
When we started our Braille journey thirteen years ago, Braille books for very young children were virtually nonexistent. Thus we bought some popular story books from the children’s section of our local bookstore, and my wife Rasa started adding Braille to them. When she had questions, she turned to our first TVI, but it quickly became clear that our teacher was not proficient enough to reliably answer even relatively simple questions about Braille contractions.
Later, as we started to ask VI professionals inquiring questions such as “how does a blind person do this or that,” too often there was a telling pause, before they came up with an answer. We were shocked to realize eventually that the reason many TVIs and O&M instructors weren’t sure was that they either didn’t know, or interact socially to any significant degree with, successful, independent blind adults.
A few years ago I attended an O&M lecture geared towards professionals on grade-level-appropriate O&M instruction. At one point an O&M instructor in the audience voiced her perspective: if her students didn’t learn concepts on her watch, it was OK with her because, as she put it, “there’s always rehab.” Based on the discussion that followed, it was clear that many of the other professionals held that same view rather than accepting responsibility for teaching from a paradigm of equal and age-appropriate expectations.
A few months ago a colleague in my field contacted me for advice. After extensive evaluation their ten-year-old was diagnosed with visual field defects. He can see the beginnings and ends of longer words but not the middle portion. He is bright and has been able to fill in the literal blanks based on context, but his desire to read books and his reading fluency and comprehension have dropped slowly the last few years. Having seen how well my boys are doing, the parents wondered about Braille as a possible solution. Their son was very excited about the proposal, and within four weeks, with minimal formal instruction, his fingers were reading at forty to fifty words per minute. Now I wish that were the punch line, but unfortunately it is not. Their school district then requested a formal assessment from one of the regional schools for the blind. The educator who performed the assessment stated essentially: “We use large print for all kids with visual impairments because kids who have vision don’t need Braille; Braille is not as fast.”
When our eldest son transitioned from the preschool to the elementary school system, our TVI at the time told us that we were too involved and informed us that we would have to back off and let the educational system take over. Statistics at the time showed that nationally only 45 percent of blind or severely visually impaired, but otherwise capable, students graduated from high school and that of those only 16% went on to earn a college degree. Ladies and gentleman, these statistics and the subsequent employment statistics were sobering, for they highlighted the huge discrepancy between the academic accomplishments of sighted and blind children and the undeniable shortcomings of the education process in this country.
Some may claim that more recent outcomes or local outcomes are much better. If so, where are the actual data? How accurate are they? And who collects them? I am under the impression that academic performance statistics of Braille readers and large-print readers are not well tracked, if at all--locally, statewide, or nationally. How many programs and states can proudly show data on subsequent employment statistics and career choices of their prior students? Without current and accurate statistics, how can parents justifiably be asked to back off and to put their full trust--their child’s future, their life--in the system?
Importantly, how can we effect change and measure impact if there is no mechanism for accurately recording the current conditions and progress, or lack thereof, over time? One possibility is to consider an approach being used to answer important questions in medicine, a national electronic outcomes registry, which could track local, regional, and national outcomes in real time across a wide range of academic areas and blindness skills for informational, comparative, and accountability purposes. Such a database could even include fields for yearly justification of why a given child is not being taught Braille. The performance and accountability data could be used to motivate state and local VI program administrators to shift their paradigms from one driven more by making sure that minimal legal requirements are met to one that emphasizes quality, true success, and what is in a given child’s best interest.
Federationists, the ultimate goal of the educational system should be simple and clear: By the time students graduate from high school, they should not only have met the general academic curriculum requirements, but should also have acquired the blindness skills needed to pursue their post-high-school dreams. You would think that the norm for a child who has been receiving quality O&M training and VI services for fourteen to eighteen years would be that he or she would have learned the skill set and have confidence to be able to travel and live independently. Yet unfortunately such an accomplishment is the exception rather than the rule. Too many kids turn eighteen without attaining the age-equivalent skills of their sighted peers, putting our youth at an immediate, avoidable disadvantage as they start college or join the workforce. Let me be blunt; in many cases the educational system is responsible for creating functional handicaps where they need not and should not exist.
The reality is that the scope of skills that blind children need to master is ballooning. Currently each blind child’s fate is to a large degree delegated to that child’s IEP Team. In reality the Team is not a static entity, but rather the Team consists of a series of transitional teams that pass the child and family on to the next level, from preschool to elementary school to middle school and then high school. Each team focuses on how to get through the few years that they are responsible for before they pass the baton. There is no long-term memory for prior struggles and successes nor a vision for the future beyond that particular year or two. Teams tend to focus only on the academic portion of the curriculum. Importantly, because there is no clear legal obligation, the education system is not taking responsibility for assuring that a child learns all the additional blindness skills needed to function independently.
Technology is undeniably leveling the playing field in the workplace. Education too is shifting more and more towards technology-based and Web-based learning. In fact, at a conference this spring, the manager of specialized media of the California Department of Education stated that within five years school textbooks for all children in California will be provided in electronic format. Early last school year I received a lot of grief when I requested supplemental e-text files of my son’s seventh grade embossed textbooks because I was told that the files, which the TVI could download from the Department of Education Website, were not student-ready, for they were not clean enough. Yet at the national and state level there does not appear to be a clear proactive plan to ensure that Braille-reading students will be provided across the board with clean transcriber-proofed e-text. Clean Braille and graphics aside, how prepared are school districts, TVIs, and young students for this transition? How are kids in elementary and middle school going to access and process their academic materials proficiently, given that many of them don’t currently have the right tools—the notetakers, the technology skills, the accessible software for both school and home use, and the Braille fluency skills?
Before Vejas started preschool, I came to the realization that an alarming number of TVIs and O&M instructors were not particularly comfortable or proficient with basic blind technologies. Subsequent experience has only further confirmed that impression. In the twenty-first century it is no longer acceptable that students in TVI- and O&M-teacher preparation programs be superficially taught about screenreaders, Braille notetakers, and GPSs. This exposure-level instruction in these areas, and even something as simple as the slate and stylus, leaves teachers uncomfortable with these concepts, which they then incorrectly perceive as difficult and therefore difficult to teach. Such lack of true familiarity and comfort translates into a natural tendency to delay introduction of skills under the guise of saying the kids are too young or not ready. It seems self-evident that individuals who have chosen to make the education of our children their life-long profession should be expected to demonstrate true proficiency in all these areas.
But, as we know, proficiency problems are not just limited to technology, but to other basic skills, like the slate and stylus and to Braille itself. Too many TVIs are not proficient in Braille. Some don’t have any Braille readers on their caseloads, which means that, if they are sighted, their Braille skills get rusty over time, and that may very well make them less likely to suggest Braille because they will then have to relearn it to teach it. Unfortunately, those teachers and administrators who are the most proficient in blindness skills, the blind themselves, are underrepresented in both academic teaching programs and local VI programs.
In order for kids to reach their full potential, the bar of expectations for blind students—and their teachers—needs to be raised to one of performance equal to that of sighted peers. California has taken a step towards this by being the first state to adopt formal grade-level-equivalent Braille math standards and Braille reading standards, which even include instruction in slate and stylus. These standards have already served our family in very real and practical ways. This adoption is commendable, represents a significant leap forward, and should be modeled in all states and beyond. Having acknowledged this, the standards do not go far enough. Reading-fluency standards need to be added as well.
Sadly, with respect to Braille, very significant perceptual barriers still exist amongst both general education and VI education professionals. While quality data regarding Braille fluency is needed, one real concern is that studies of childhood reading fluency might in fact reflect and inappropriately validate current lower reading rates. We need published research that documents what can be achieved with early Braille immersion, appropriately high expectations, and quality training. One additional approach to consider is to create a You-Tube type menu of a variety of children and adults reading aloud. Skillfully edited video snippets with clear concise messages of individuals reading fluently and engaging in other activities would send a very persuasive, strong, and difficult-to-refute message to educators, parents, and the public, emphasizing what is possible.
In my professional life I am an academic clinical researcher. In my search to understand the basis for the philosophical beliefs in the VI/blindness field, I have been dismayed to come to the realization that there is a lack of high-quality prospective research in the area of childhood VI and O&M. Studies that have been done too often fail to differentiate the abilities of children who have been blind from birth, from those who became blind at a later age, low-vision children, those who are functionally blind, and children who have fallen behind due to delayed introduction of Braille and other blindness skills. Studies also don’t adequately address differences in age groups: teens, pre-teens, elementary school children, preschoolers, toddlers, and infants. Furthermore, most studies of blind kids are not well-designed; study groups are too heterogeneous or contain too few subjects and are thus not statistically sound, for they lack adequate power to draw firm conclusions. Yet conclusions are often inappropriately overstated, if not by the studies’ authors, then by those who quote the studies to defend their positions. The cumulative effect is that much of what is presented as fact is to a large degree drawn from personal experience, based on small non-generalizable studies, or extrapolated from adult experiences.
Along these lines another fundamental problem is that O&M training programs apply an adult rehab model to the setting of children. This is inherently flawed: kids are not just little adults. Few people would argue that there are significant differences in the approach to teaching the same set of skills to adults, compared to toddlers. Preschoolers and high schoolers--and even middle schoolers--are a breed of their own. This reality is not reflected in current O&M programs which lack a childhood developmental approach. Specialization in childhood O&M needs to be formally developed as a field, rather than the current post graduation learn-as-you-go, on-the-job training.
Mr. Chairman, Dr. Maurer, Federationists, and guests, the challenges, both philosophical and functional, that exist in the educational system in 2010 remain significant, but not insurmountable. My children’s accomplishments and successes are due to a team effort, a team that extends well beyond the bounds of our home and our local system--one that involves critical input from the NFB and others in the blind community. By attending a variety of conferences and by reading articles such as those in Future Reflections and the Braille Monitor, we began the process of learning about blindness-related issues. We began to meet, and continue to meet and interact with, other parents, educators outside our local sphere, and, importantly, with members of the blind community--in particular with our extended NFB family. From there it has been like a ripple effect. Our family has encountered many hurdles along the way, but we have developed an extensive support system, a resource network of acquaintances, teachers, role models, mentors, and friends, who provide us with critical perspective and insights and who are living examples of what is possible and what is in fact happening around the country and around the world. Through this intense learning process we came to realize that the boundary between what is possible for a blind individual and for a sighted individual is not all that much different. This has become our operational paradigm. While there are exceptions, this paradigm is unfortunately not held by far too many in the current academic blindness/low-vision field.
To educate and prepare a blind child optimally for life, a child’s team needs to involve a more direct interface with the blind community itself. There also needs to be more direct interaction between academic training programs and the blind community. I sense that the younger generation of student professionals and teaching-program graduates are curious about and are in fact dabbling in the alternative approaches and techniques of the NFB. It’s time to go mainstream and actively step out into the academic community and education forums, such as putting together more NFB-sponsored formal programs at regional, state, and national educators’ conferences. I urge O&M professionals to be more vocal on the O&M listservs and TVIs on the TVI-oriented listservs. Also consider the possibility of formally inviting some traditionally-trained student O&M and student TVI professionals-in-training to next year’s national convention, where they can participate in the activities and interact with blind people from all walks of life. The experience of immersion with the successful blind is sure to be a life- and perception-altering experience and will surely generate some thought-provoking classroom discussions when they return to their programs. The ripple effect may be surprising.
I’m going to wrap up with the following thoughts. Behind every truly successful blind child is an involved parent. In fact, show me a parent of a young Federationist, and you will be showing me someone who is supportive, invested, and informed. Along with many other parents, I would like to see educational professionals--TVIs and O&M instructors--actively collaborate more closely and interact more frequently and meaningfully with parents and the blind community. By working together, we can synergize our efforts for the most effective impact.
Federationists, I urge you to intensify efforts to reach families much earlier on, for early exposure to the NFB philosophy represents true, meaningful, and life-altering early intervention. The impact of such an investment of time and resources will pay off many-fold, for, as you well know, today’s young children are the NFB’s future--the membership and leadership of tomorrow.
I would like to conclude by sharing that, having had the privilege to meet and interact with the members of the NFB’s Educational Reform Taskforce, I am reassured that there is in fact inspired vision, conviction, and hope for positive reform.
Thank you.by Natalie Bailey
From the Editor: When I first started paying attention to resolutions, slowly coming to understand that all of those WHEREAS and BE IT RESOLVED statements were the organization’s way of setting policy, one resolution particularly caught my interest. It said that blind people, as responsible Americans with energy and talent, should be eligible to join the armed forces. As a young Federationist this communicated two important philosophical principles to me that are still central in the messages we deliver today. The first is that the National Federation of the Blind not only comes together to ask for things but demonstrates a firm conviction that blind citizens too have responsibilities. The second is that the National Federation of the Blind truly believes in the competence of blind people, and so confident are we in this principle that we have repeatedly offered to take our place alongside other brave men and women to defend this country we love and cherish.
As Sharon Maneki made clear in last month's issue, our desire to be of service to our country in its greatest time of need was expressed first in 1942. Consider how far we have come from the time when all branches of the military uniformly insisted that blind people had no constructive role to play in the defense of our country and would be a liability to those serving with us.
The following article was published in the Marine Corps Times of April 19, 2010. Here it is:
Three years ago: Corporal Matt Bradford lost both legs and his vision after a bomb blast in Iraq. Despite these devastating injuries, Bradford had no interest in retreating to civilian life. He wanted to continue his Marine career. Bradford got his wish April 7 when he became the first blind double-amputee to re-enlist in the Corps.
The twenty-three-year-old was on patrol near Hathida in January 2007 when a bomb exploded under him. “I thought, if I got hurt that bad in Iraq, I'd rather just die,” he said. “But I regret having thought that—I’ve been able to do some amazing things since then." He spent the next couple of years in various therapies, growing accustomed to walking with his new prosthetic legs. Learning how to do this without his vision was the hardest part for Bradford, whose wounds were so extensive doctors thought he wouldn’t survive. "At first I couldn't walk a straight line because of the blindness," he said.
“The loss of his sight took a few months to settle in,” said Bradford's mom, Debbie. Everything got easier when he arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Bradford said.
Less than two years after losing his legs, Bradford completed last year’s Marine Corps Marathon on a hand cycle. He also led the Tunnel to Towers race in New York City and received the George Van Cleave Military Leadership Award at the forty-eighth USO Armed Forces Gala. Now he's living a life he considers to be independent.
Bradford pursued Permanent Limited Duty status and re-enlisted for another four years in the April 7 ceremony in San Antonio. "From the day that he first came out of the coma from being hurt, I knew he wanted to stay in the Marines," his mom said. “I think it’s been a godsend for him to work toward this.”
Bradford will switch from infantry to public relations and be assigned to Wounded Warrior Battalion East at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he will encourage other wounded troops during their recovery. "I just want to show them that, no matter what injuries they've got, they’re still alive.”
As the first blind double-amputee to re-enlist, Bradford paves the way for others, his mom said. “He could have felt sorry for himself. He could have wanted to get out of the Marines and just do nothing,” she added. "Having someone with these types of injuries stay in the service shows the Marines are making changes."
Captain Leticia Reyes, a spokeswoman for the Wounded Warrior Regiment in Quantico, Virginia, first met Bradford in 2008 and has followed his accomplishments since. “His reenlistment … sets the stage for other Marines to follow,” she said. "He’ll help to really set their focus on their abilities and not their disabilities—for all Marines, not just those who are injured."by Scott C. LaBarre
From the Editor: The first afternoon of the 2010 convention was filled with excitement. It began with the presidential report, which always galvanizes the audience. One of the later highlights of the afternoon program was an address delivered by Scott LaBarre, president of the National Association of Blind Lawyers and president of the NFB of Colorado. Here are his remarks:
Thank you, Dr. Maurer and my Federation family. Under the hot summer sun a group of blind high school students enter the rehabilitation center every morning as part of their participation in SWEP, the Summer Work Experience Program. They are told that they are being evaluated for their vocational aptitude in an effort to help determine their future career. Among them is a student with excellent grades and great hopes who dreams of college and some great career afterward.
Day after day the students assemble at the rehab center and engage in tasks like putting screws, nuts, bolts, and steering knobs together. The activity is repetitive and mindless. Our student with the big dreams grows restless, wondering what in the world such activity has to do with college and a professional career. The student grows sick of the tedium and wasted purpose and complains to the supervisor, the rehab professional with a university degree. The complaints are ignored. The student persists. Finally the official screams at the student, “Hey kid, sit down and shut up! I don’t care how smart you are or about your big dreams. This is the type of work you’re going to do the rest of your life. Get used to it!”
Our young blind student is shocked into silence, and a terrible doubt now overwhelms this once hopeful youth. Maybe the rehab official is right. Maybe blind people are limited to only one kind of employment with low wages. Maybe it doesn’t matter how much education the student acquires or how big the dreams are. Blindness is the key factor. Expectations have been set, and they are low.
From these expectations our prison is built; the bars of the cell are erected. This young student is told that there is no escape and that one just better get used to it. Is this student condemned to live out this sentence, toiling mindlessly for little pay? Are the real barriers of blindness so substantial that hope no longer exists?
We in this room and throughout our great Federation know differently. The walls and bars of the student’s prison are false. They need not exist. Blindness need not artificially limit one’s dreams and hope for a better life. We know this, but many do not. Many of our own think they are confined and precluded from achieving true freedom. Many in our society share this view and believe that blindness means confinement, a life restricted by low expectations and poverty, a life limited to second-class citizenship and inferiority. The bars of our prison may not be of iron or steel, but they are just as real. If we allow it, we are just as much inmates as those sentenced to confinement by our legal system.
Other bars confine us, trap us in second class citizenship. I am speaking of the legal system and the associated bar organizations. We trust our legal system to uphold the law and administer justice. Inscribed above the entrance to our Supreme Court building is the legend, “Equal justice under law.”
So, out of all our social institutions, it is safe to assume that the legal system should be the least likely to adopt policies and practices that bar us from true freedom. In fact the legal system should be a leader in breaking down barriers and smashing the walls that hold us back. Well, you know what they say about assumptions.
The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) plays the largest role of any bar-related organization in determining whether a law student actually becomes a lawyer in our country. NCBE administers the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) and the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). In nearly every one of our jurisdictions across the nation you cannot practice law unless you pass these exams.
Many years ago I had the pleasure of suffering through these exams, and I passed them on two different occasions while getting my license in Maryland and later in Colorado. At that time I used a human reader because for me a reader was the best way to navigate the exam. Today the exam can be delivered electronically. A blind applicant can use JAWS or other screen readers to read the exam. If I were submitting myself to the torture known as the bar exam today, I would use JAWS because I can read much faster with JAWS than with a human reader. I can more easily manipulate my place in the text with JAWS. And JAWS does not fall asleep as my reader did when I took the Multistate Bar Exam in Colorado. Fortunately, I passed despite my reader’s slumber.
Stephanie Enyart, Tim Elder, Ann Blackfield, and Michael Witwer are all blind. They all possess juris doctor degrees. They all want to take the bar exam, and they want to use varying combinations of screen readers to take it. NCBE has said no. Yet their state bar examiners have all said yes, but, with respect to the MBE and MPRE, NCBE has the final word. NCBE tells them that they must use large print, a CCTV, an audio CD, or a human reader instead. None of these blind applicants has used such accommodations to get through law school and to pass all those exams. If forced to use NCBE’s accommodations, they will undoubtedly fail because they are not familiar with those methods and would spend their time attempting to manipulate the accommodation, rather than concentrating on the substance of the exam—a very difficult exam, I might add.
Imagine attempting to hang with the following multiple choice question from a past MBE while using an accommodation with which you had no familiarity. I took this directly from the NCBE Website.
In a writing signed by both parties, Paul Plannah, a renowned architect, agreed for a fee of $25,000 to design and supervise construction of a new house for Phoebe Threedee, a famous sculptor, the fee to be paid upon completion of the house. Plannah and Threedee got along poorly, and, when the design plans were about two-thirds complete, they had a heated argument over the proper location of a marble staircase. Hoping to avoid such encounters, Plannah, without Threedee's knowledge, assigned to Donna Drafty, a newly licensed architect practicing solo, "all of my rights and duties under my design and construction supervision contract with Threedee.” Drafty expressly promised Plannah to carry out the work to the best of Drafty's ability. Assume that Threedee allowed Drafty to proceed with the design work but that Drafty without legal excuse abandoned the project shortly after construction began. Which of the following legal conclusions are correct?
I. Plannah is liable to Threedee for legal damages, if any, caused by Drafty's default.
II. Drafty is liable to Threedee for legal damages, if any, caused by Drafty's default.
III. Threedee is indebted to Drafty, on a divisible contract theory, for a prorated portion of the agreed $25,000 architect's fee promised to Plannah.
(A) I and II only
(B) I and III only
(C) II and III only
(D) I, II, and III
Imagine, not one of those questions, but 200, spread out over an entire day. Now imagine trying to take the exam while using an accommodation with which you have no familiarity. Granted, doing so may not be impossible, but it sure would make it a whole lot more difficult. This is somewhat like forcing a sighted person who normally needs to use reading glasses to take the exam without those glasses. Again, it may not be impossible, but the person would be spending a substantial amount of effort trying to decipher the print rather than concentrating on the questions.
As many of you know, we have sued NCBE, not once but twice, first in California on behalf of Stephanie Enyart and now in Maryland on behalf of Tim Elder, Ann Blackfield, and Michael Witwer. We have invoked the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA’s implementing regulations as promulgated by the Department of Justice state essentially that an examination must be administered to a person with a disability in a manner to best insure that the examination results accurately reflect the individual’s aptitude or achievement level, not the effect of the person’s disability. With respect to our situation, the bar exam should measure the applicant’s knowledge of the law, not the ability to use a completely unfamiliar accommodation.
NCBE, on the other hand, has argued a different standard. They say that the ADA requires them only to provide a reasonable accommodation and not necessarily one the blind applicant prefers. They say also that providing the “preferred” accommodation is too expensive and can raise exam security concerns. They say this despite the fact that NCBE takes in over 50,000,000 dollars a year. As for security, how can delivering an encrypted electronic file to a state bar examiner be any more insecure than delivering thousands of paper exams through the mail?
NCBE’s arguments are deeply disturbing. We are not talking about an unsophisticated entity. These are bar examiners, after all, the very people guarding admission to the practice of law. You would assume that they know the law. Additionally, it’s not as if the ADA were a brand new law. In twenty days we will be celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the ADA’s adoption into law.
Alone these blind bar applicants and many like them have tried to get the accommodations they need but have failed. With the National Federation of the Blind the results are vastly different. The reason individuals going it alone often fail is that large corporate entities like NCBE can throw lots of money and lots of lawyers at the defense. Against us, however, that wasn’t going to happen. We have assembled a terrific legal team consisting of up to eight lawyers and several paralegals, including people you know like yours truly; Dan Goldstein, a great friend, one of our nation’s best attorneys, and my mentor; Mehgan Sidhu, another great friend and wonderful young lawyer; and the lawyers from Disability Rights Advocates in California, one of whom, Karla Gilebride, is a former NFB national scholarship winner. Only the National Federation of the Blind is capable of amassing such a strong and quality legal team. We have dedicated our hundred years plus of legal experience to making sure that these students get a fair shake and also to making sure that those who come after will know that their blindness will not artificially limit them from getting that same fair shake. We will not be out-lawyered!
The work has paid off thus far. On January 29, 2010, we had a hearing before United States District Court Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco on our motion for a preliminary injunction. Essentially such a motion calls upon the Court to make a preliminary ruling on an expedited basis because there would not be enough time to let the case go through the normal multi-year process to get to trial. We asked Judge Breyer to rule that Stephanie Enyart, a 2009 UCLA law graduate and member of our Federation, be allowed to take the February MBE and MPRE with assistive technology, and he did. On February 4, 2010, he ordered NCBE to allow Ms. Enyart to take the exams using assistive technology. He stated that a blind applicant should not be forced to use accommodations with which he or she is unfamiliar. Because the bar exam is long and difficult, a blind student should be able to take the exam using the accommodations that make the experience as equivalent as possible to taking the exam without a disability.
One would have thought that with such a definitive ruling NCBE would have taken its lumps and provided the exam as ordered, but instead they filed an emergency appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking that court to stay Judge Breyer’s ruling so that they wouldn’t have to provide the accommodations at the end of February. Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit denied NCBE’s emergency motion. I am happy to report that Stephanie Enyart took the February 2010 bar exam with JAWS and ZoomText.
The battle is not over. We won the preliminary injunction, but NCBE has further appealed Judge Breyer’s ruling. Additionally, NCBE has denied Timothy Elder’s, Ann Blackfield’s, and Michael Witwer’s request to take the July 2010 Maryland MBE with assistive technology. Consequently we are fighting the exact same battle in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland before Judge Motz. On July 13 we will be involved in a hearing to determine whether our Maryland applicants will be able to take the exam with their requested accommodations.
We have often said that the discrimination we face results from misunderstanding and therefore an unintentional application of stereotypes and prejudice. Perhaps this is partially true. However, when you know the law and you know it is wrong to deny accommodations, can such actions be described as unintentional? NCBE chose to deny accommodations rather than giving blind applicants the opportunity to compete on the exam on a level playing field. They chose to deny these blind bar applicants the accommodations they used during school and will use on the job. These applicants are not asking for a special advantage, as NCBE has argued; rather they are asking for a level playing field.
Let’s talk about another one of their choices. NCBE has committed itself to fighting us tooth and nail at every turn. They would rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting us in the courts than spend a fraction of that to provide the requested accommodations. In my view NCBE’s conduct is not an unintentional act fueled by ignorance but a deliberate disregard of our civil rights.
Regardless, we will match every one of NCBE’s moves and push back with greater force. We won’t wear down; we won’t go away; and we won’t stop fighting until we have won! NCBE cannot bar us from equal justice under law. We will not allow NCBE to imprison us by telling us what accommodations we need. It is we who will be doing the telling.
As you have undoubtedly figured out, I was the young high school student described at the beginning of this speech. When that rehab official told me to sit down and shut up, I felt that I was being sentenced to prison, to a life of confinement and great restriction. The cell door was slammed shut, and the terms of my imprisonment had been dictated. That was 1984, and less than two years later I received a most wonderful gift. I won a National Federation of the Blind scholarship, and, ladies and gentlemen, that is when I busted out of jail!
For the first time I tasted real freedom, and I haven’t been sitting down or shutting up since. The Federation has taught me to stand up and speak out—stand up for what is right, and speak out against injustice. The law of our great land guarantees us equal opportunity, but the dictates of the law are meaningless unless someone sees that they are enforced. That is exactly what we are doing in these NCBE cases and with all our advocacy throughout the land.
Some, like NCBE, try to erect the walls of our prison by denying us the opportunity we have earned. By standing together in our Federation and speaking out with one voice, we deny anyone the right to lock us into a life without hope or possibility. We are smashing down the walls of our prison, and we will be free. Nothing shall stop us. My brothers and sisters, we will be free!
This speech was delivered at our national convention in early July. As announced, Judge Motz of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland did in fact hold a preliminary injunction hearing on July 13, 2010, to decide whether Tim Elder, Ann Blackfield, and Michael Witwer could take the MBE with the accommodations they have been using while students. It saddens me to report that Judge J. Frederick Motz denied our motion, and these blind applicants were forced to take the July 2010 exam with the accommodations of NCBE’s design, not the ones that gave them the fairest opportunity to pass the exam. They made the tough choice of taking the exam under far less than ideal circumstances, and we hope they pass despite the additional barriers thrown in their way.
Judge Motz denied the motion on two major grounds. First, he bought into NCBE’s argument that they do not actually administer the exam and therefore are not covered by the ADA. We regard this argument as ridiculous because NCBE controls every aspect of the way the exam is administered to bar applicants, and NCBE tells the state bar organizations exactly how to carry out the exam. If the state bar does not do exactly as NCBE instructs, NCBE threatens to invalidate the scores of all those who took the exam in that state. Nevertheless, Judge Motz chose to adopt NCBE’s argument and hide behind this technicality.
Second, Judge Motz stated that blind applicants had taken the exam with readers in years past. Readers are enumerated in the text of the ADA and have proven to be a suitable accommodation. Therefore NCBE was not forced, under law, to do something new. He made this pronouncement knowing full well that these applicants have not used readers and that assistive technology is the way they received accommodations throughout law school and the way they will be accommodated on the job.
There were other disturbing aspects of Judge Motz’s comments from the bench on Tuesday, July 13, 2010. Several times through the two-plus-hour oral arguments he said, “I do not mean to be cold, but… . ” He said this every time, immediately before he asked a tough, unfavorable question or made an unfavorable comment to the position that the blind applicants were arguing. Apparently he did not want to hurt our feelings before applying the law against us.
Also, and most astonishingly, at the end of the hearing and after he had pronounced his ruling against us, he urged NCBE to provide the accommodations anyway. He said that the law did not force NCBE to provide the needed accommodations but that nothing prohibited them from doing so as a voluntary matter. He said that it would be the good thing to do. It is amazing that this federal judge would think for a moment that NCBE would provide the requested accommodations after spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting exactly that. Of course he knows that NCBE will not do it unless ordered by a court to do so.
Moreover, what is Judge Motz really saying here? Our effort to obtain a level playing field when technology makes that possible is not protected by the law? Rather it is a matter of charity. A testing organization with vast resources cannot be forced to provide accommodations, but they should do it anyway because it seems like the proper thing to do.
Judge Motz’s ruling is a setback, but only that. At the convention I boldly claimed that we will win this fight, and Judge Motz’s decision changes nothing about my prediction. We will win this fight because we are resolved to do so. The ADA insures that we will have a level playing field. Unfortunately, it takes time and constant education of the judiciary, not to mention society, to knock down the prevailing social stereotypes and clear the way for proper interpretation of the law.
One of the largest barriers we face is that our society, and the judiciary as part of it, generally does not view our issues as those of civil rights. Instead we are viewed through the lenses of the medical and charity models. This was abundantly evident in Judge Motz’s comments at the end of the hearing when he discussed the provision of the requested accommodations as a good thing to do rather than the lawful obligation.
Judge Motz and others may attempt to construct new walls and additional bars to our prison. But we have tasted freedom and have begun to realize the true potential of a life without artificial barriers. There will be no turning back. The road ahead may be difficult; however, we will spare no expense nor shrink from any fight. We have the talent, resources, and commitment to make the difficult journey. Our destination is freedom, and nothing will stop us from getting there.by Marc Maurer
From the Editor: Many Monitor readers will remember when a major complaint of blind people throughout the country was that they were being placed in sheltered workshops in lieu of good jobs in competitive industry. Often placement was advertised as being short-term for the purpose of evaluation and training, but, when the evaluations lasted for months and the training lasted for decades, it was clear that the goal of these shops was embodied in the name of their parent organization, National Industries for the Blind.
In 2001 the blind helped to bring about a major change in the law when Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder, the commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, implemented a change in regulation that said that placement in a sheltered workshop would not count as a successful employment outcome and that this designation would be reserved for placements where blind people were hired in competitive, integrated settings. This change ignited a firestorm of controversy with sheltered shops and National Industries for the Blind claiming this would shut down their operations and leave many blind people on the streets without any means of self-support. The Clinton administration, the Rehabilitation Services Administration, and the National Federation of the Blind said the rule change would have no such effect, and indeed we are not aware of any sheltered workshops for the blind that have closed as a result of this regulatory change.
Although almost a decade has passed since the enactment of this progressive regulatory change, individual workshops and National Industries for the Blind have continued to pressure the executive and legislative branches once again to allow placement in a sheltered facility to carry the same weight as placement of a blind person in the aerospace industry. Below is a letter from President Maurer to Secretary Alexa Posny arguing clearly and forcefully for the retention of the regulation as it now exists. This is what he said:
May 27, 2010
The Honorable Alexa Posny
Assistant Secretary for Special Education
and Rehabilitative Services
United States Department of Education
Dear Assistant Secretary Posny:
I serve as president of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of blind Americans. The NFB has over 50,000 members comprising fifty-two affiliates (one in each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico), over seven hundred local chapters, and a number of special interest divisions. Since its founding in 1940, the NFB has advocated for better employment opportunities for the blind, and I am writing to you in support of that fundamental goal.
Because we are determined that blind Americans should be given full opportunity to enter the careers of their choice and because we are determined to assist blind people to find employment that is suited to their skills and aspirations, we are deeply concerned that National Industries for the Blind (NIB) has recently requested that you “issue new guidelines clarifying that the definition for ‘employment outcomes’ includes individuals who are blind and are working in the AbilityOne Program through National Industries for the Blind’s nationwide network of nonprofit agencies.” (I am attaching correspondence from NIB to this effect for your convenience.) The NFB strongly opposes the dramatic change in policy that is inherent in this request.
Although NIB currently supports a policy that blind people should be paid at least the minimum wage, several of the NIB workshops do not universally adhere to this policy. NIB officials have expressed the view that they cannot require the workshops to abide by the policy. In the past the placement policies of a number of state vocational rehabilitation agencies have emphasized placing blind individuals in NIB workshops because this placement was simpler and easier than finding employment for the blind in an integrated setting. The effect of such policies in the past has been to dump blind people into NIB agency workshops unless extraordinary pressure was brought to bear to prevent it. The result of dumping the blind into such workshops has been to doom blind clients to dead-end positions without opportunity for upward mobility or full opportunity for the employment of their talent. Although a few blind people have recently found their way into management positions in NIB workshops, the promotion of blind individuals into management in NIB is notable mostly for its failure rather than its success. NIB is hoping that you will use your power to assign blind people to the workshops. We believe that this is contrary to the policy of full employment opportunity contained in the Rehabilitation Act.
On January 22, 2001, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) issued final regulations to redefine the term “employment outcome” as it applies to the State Vocational Rehabilitation Services Program (VR program). Under these regulations “employment outcome” means an outcome in which an individual with a disability enters full- or part-time competitive employment in an integrated setting (66 Fed. Reg. 7250 et seq., codified at 34 CFR Part 361). The NFB endorsed these regulations during the rule-making process and continues to support them. We believe the revised and now current definition of “employment outcome” [34 CFR 361.5(b)(16)] properly reflects the Rehabilitation Act’s strong emphasis on the integration into society of persons with disabilities and on the ability of individuals with disabilities to achieve employment in integrated settings if necessary services and supports are provided.
One of the effects of the revised definition is that disabled persons in sheltered employment, extended employment, or other employment in non-integrated settings are no longer considered to have achieved an employment outcome in the VR program. This does not mean, however, that no individual participating in an AbilityOne job program can be considered to have achieved an employment outcome. In discussing these changes, OSERS noted that many jobs obtained by disabled persons under certain types of set-aside contracts authorized by the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act (JWOD) (41 USC 46–48) would satisfy the definition of “employment outcome” as long as those jobs were performed in “integrated settings” as defined elsewhere in the regulations [34 CFR 361.5(b)(33)(ii)]. OSERS also stated:
The determination as to whether any job, including those obtained under JWOD contracts, meets the regulatory definition of ‘integrated setting,’ and therefore qualifies as an ‘employment outcome’ (for purposes of the VR program), must be made by State [VR] units on a case-by-case basis. (66 Fed. Reg. 7251)
We urge you to retain this policy position. The determination of when an individual has achieved an employment outcome in the VR program is made jointly by the individual and a qualified rehabilitation counselor employed by the State VR agency after they agree that the individual is satisfied with and performing well in employment [34 CFR 361.56(c)]. OSERS should not issue any new policy that persons obtaining employment through JWOD contracts are automatically considered to have achieved an employment outcome in the VR program. To do so would interdict the joint decision-making between the disabled individual and rehabilitation counselor and would undermine the goal of competitive employment in integrated settings for people with disabilities.
Blind people must be able to decide for themselves when they have reached their employment goals; their cases should not automatically be closed by virtue of being employed in an NIB facility. NIB’s primary motivation in requesting this policy change is to give incentives to rehabilitation counselors to place consumers in its programs and facilities. We have nothing against NIB, and its record of employing blind individuals at or above minimum wage has certainly improved, but blind people must be allowed to determine for themselves whether an NIB placement is their desired employment outcome. The proper goal of rehabilitation is the successful employment of blind Americans in jobs that they find personally and professionally fulfilling, not the closing of rehabilitation cases or the support of NIB.
Thank you for your consideration of this critically important matter. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Marc Maurer, President
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
by Patti S. Gregory-Chang
From the Editor: Patti Chang is a past NFB scholarship winner, president of the NFB of Illinois and a member of the NFB board of directors. Beginning this year, she also chairs the National Federation of the Blind scholarship committee. Since the application will be on our Website (www.nfb.org) November 1, it’s time for the annual article about the process, so this is what Patti says:
Each July at our national convention the National Federation of the Blind gives a broad array of scholarships to recognize achievement by blind scholars. We offer thirty scholarships ranging in value from $3,000 to our $12,000 Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship. The NFB Scholarship Program is our investment in the future of blind people who demonstrate scholastic aptitude, leadership, and service.
I encourage every blind college student to apply. I am sometimes asked what the secret is to winning an NFB scholarship. I am going to tell you the secret.
First of all, applicants must meet the eligibility requirements to receive a scholarship. All applicants for these scholarships must be legally blind; must reside in one of our fifty states, the District of Columbia, or Puerto Rico; must be pursuing or planning to pursue a full-time postsecondary course of study in a degree program at an accredited United States institution in the fall of the 2011-2012 academic year, except that one scholarship may be given to a person employed full-time while attending school part-time; and, if chosen, must participate in the entire NFB national convention and in all scheduled scholarship activities.
Many think the key to becoming a winner is a high grade-point average. Others believe it is based on participation in extracurricular activities. Still others think it is one’s level of commitment to the NFB. While grade-point average is important because it demonstrates the ability to learn and be successful academically, it is not the only attribute that influences the scholarship committee. Participation in extracurricular activities is important in portraying oneself as a well-rounded person; it is not sufficient in itself to justify a scholarship award. Committed members of the organization recognize the attributes that are important to committee members when determining who wins a scholarship.
The scholarship program is a tremendous tool for us to develop future leaders of the National Federation of the Blind, but scholarship awards are not restricted to members of the organization. The National Federation of the Blind is an organization dedicated to creating opportunity for all blind people. To that end recipients of NFB scholarships need not be members of the National Federation of the Blind. Many of our past winners were not even aware of the NFB before they applied for our scholarships. When you check the records for past winners, you will see that students of all ages and in widely differing fields have won over the years. The class of 2010 included students entering their freshman year on up to older students who were nearly ready to write their PhD dissertations. The winners of 2010 are currently working toward credentials for employment as diverse as veterinarian and teacher.
There is truly only one way to win an NFB scholarship, and that is to apply. Each November the new, updated scholarship application forms are posted on the Web at <www.nfb.org/scholarships> along with important information about the contest, links to information on past winners, and a page of frequently asked questions. The online application form for 2011 will be available from November 1 to the contest deadline on March 31, 2011. The process can be initiated with an online application, which we prefer, or students can download a print application from the site. Any students who do not have access to the Website may contact the scholarship office to request a print copy of the form and other necessary materials.
A complete application consists of the official application form and a student essay, plus these support documents: student transcripts, two letters of recommendation, and proof of legal blindness. The student must also complete an interview with the president of the applicant’s state of residence or the state where he or she will be attending school. High school seniors must also include a copy of the results of their ACT, SAT, or other college entrance exams. Unfortunately, many applications are incomplete, so the committee is unable to consider them fairly.
Applicants should be sure to provide all the requested information along with support documentation. They should carefully consider who can do the best job of writing their letters of reference. Letters should support the application by being full of facts and observations that will help the members of the committee see the applicant as a smart, active student and citizen.
Students can write their essays using word-processing software. They should remember to use the spell checker (or a human proofreader) before printing or copying and pasting it into the online application form. In an effective essay the applicant will talk about his or her life in a way that gives the committee insight into him or her. The essay should cover the ways in which one lives successfully as a blind person and describe one’s personal goals for the future.
Committee members give the essay a great deal of attention. The NFB scholarship committee is comprised of dedicated, successful blind college graduates, who will review all applications and select the top thirty applicants as the scholarship class of 2011.
Note that students submit just one application to the program; the scholarship committee will choose the thirty winners from all applications received. These thirty scholarship winners will be notified of their selection by telephone no later than June 1. Finally, during the annual convention the scholarship committee will decide which award will be presented to each winner.
Attending the entire NFB national convention is one of the requirements to become an NFB scholarship winner. Of course attending the convention is also a significant part of the prize. This is the largest gathering of blind people to occur anywhere in the nation each year, with 2,500 or more people registered. Those chosen as scholarship recipients will have the opportunity to network with other blind students, to exchange information and ideas, and to meet and talk with hundreds of blind people who are successfully functioning in many, many occupations and professions. Our past winners often comment that the money was quickly spent, but the contacts they made and the information they gathered at convention have continued to make their lives richer than they ever imagined.
Often students apply more than once before winning a scholarship, so applicants are encouraged to reapply. The NFB may award three or even more scholarships to men and women who have already received one Federation scholarship in the past if enough strong and worthy candidates apply. Individuals receiving a second NFB national scholarship are recognized as tenBroek Fellows. The secret, if there is one, to winning an NFB scholarship is to read carefully the application on our Website and then provide all of the required information and supporting documentation before the deadline of March 31, 2011. However, I actually maintain that there is no secret. The only way to win an NFB scholarship is to apply.
One of the great satisfactions in life is having the opportunity to assist others. Consider making a gift to the National Federation of the Blind to continue turning our dreams into reality. A gift to the NFB is not merely a donation to an organization; it provides resources that will directly ensure a brighter future for all blind people.
Seize the Future
The National Federation of the Blind has special giving opportunities that will benefit the giver as well as the NFB. Of course the largest benefit to the donor is the satisfaction of knowing that the gift is leaving a legacy of opportunity. However, gifts may be structured to provide more:
NFB programs are dynamic:
Your gift makes you a partner in the NFB dream. For further information or assistance, contact the NFB planned giving officer.
by Samantha Flax
From the Editor: Samantha Flax is the fourteen-year-old daughter of longtime Federationist Christine Grassman, a past winner of an NFB scholarship. She is a remarkably articulate and self-confident high school student with great attitudes about blindness and a Federationist’s determination to identify problems and then do her best to solve them. Here is a what-I-did-last-summer essay that you will not soon forget:
Not many programs for blind children and teens exist in New York state, and most of them are inadequate. For years my parents had heard wonderful things about the Columbia Program, staffed by New York Commission for the Blind counselors and young visually impaired friends and employees. It is commonly known as the best program in the state. Sadly, it probably is.
When I began the program this past summer, I didn’t know what to expect. I was pretty sure it would improve my city travel skills. I have often been told that I have good independent travel skills. I had been the youngest student receiving services from the Nassau County Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). I learned to walk home alone from school at the age of eleven. I was used to Long Island streets and public transportation. I had spent time in the boroughs before but not enough to say I was an experienced city traveler. Though I think I know the layout of the city better after completing this summer program, I believe that on the whole my independent mobility skills suffered because of the way I was treated at Columbia.
At first the question was, “Do you need a guide?” This didn’t bother me too much because everyone was asked it and I suppose that, since it was the first night, it sort of made sense. No, what bothered me was that, when the students who didn’t use canes said no, the counselors accepted that, no, they didn’t need to grab an elbow. However, being a cane user meant that the counselors asked six times or more and did not take no for an answer. After the third day it was, “Hi, Sam, I’ll be your guide.”
“Didn’t you hear me say I didn’t need a guide?” went through my head, but I didn’t say anything. I knew it was useless.
I began to have thoughts that I knew were disgusting and ridiculous. I couldn’t believe I was thinking such stupid stuff. “What if they’re right?” “What if my skills aren’t good enough?” “What if the partially sighted people will always travel better than I?” “I miss Colorado! I miss my sleepshades!” (At the Colorado Center for the Blind all students had to wear sleepshades even if they had only light perception. Everyone had to use a cane, learn Braille, and learn to use all cooking equipment with no vision. If you were caught using a sighted guide, even if one totally blind student was guiding another one, you were chastised. It was great.) These thoughts haunted me. Why was I allowing myself to lose the confidence I had had for years, that my totally blind, independent mom had instilled in me? Who were these people to take my confidence away? So I did what I always do. I told someone in an attempt to change the status quo.
One of our classes was called social work. We talked about stuff—anything. I can not disclose most of the subjects because I respect the confidentiality of the other attendees. I will tell you, however, that I explained my feelings about the fact that the cane users had to be guided everywhere. My mom had urged me to do this earlier, but I was too nervous. The teacher’s understanding of my point made the situation a little better. After that discussion, sometimes I was allowed to walk with directions from someone walking right next to me. I accepted this compromise because I have learned that you can’t change opinions overnight.
However, the contest of wills wasn’t over yet. Two battles took place during the last week—clashes happened more often, but these two instances bothered me the most. Every morning the counselors asked the people with sight to help the people without sight. Then they did it again in the afternoon.
On the final Tuesday, when we were getting ready to leave the Lighthouse for Coney Island, there weren’t enough guides for all the cane users. My partially sighted friend was asked to help guide another boy to the subway station. Believing he was a competent traveler, the boy said, “Am I really that helpless?”
The response he got was, “No, you are definitely not helpless. You can do it yourself; it’s just in case.” Anger built inside me. Just in case what? Just in case you lowered our confidence? Well, I’m not letting you lower mine! I will not be scared anymore. Previously I had begun to feel scared to walk alone in case I made a mistake, for fear they would use the error as an excuse for forcing guides on me. I knew that everyone makes mistakes, but, if you have the right attitude, you learn from your mistakes—not so you will seek help the next time, but so you will refine your skills or pay more attention. To add insult to injury, when representatives from the Mass Transit Authority came to speak with us, they said, “If you have no sight, you should travel to a new station with sighted assistance before going on your own.” So every time a totally blind person has an interview, a date, a meeting, or some other activity that requires traveling to a new subway station, she or he should cancel the plans if a sighted person is not available? The MTA people have been talking to Columbia Program students for years, yet no one on the staff has told them that this statement and attitude are wrong? These are the people who are supposed to be preparing us for jobs, college, and the responsibilities of adulthood!
Two days later, on the last night, the same thing happened to me. My emotions were running high. I was happy that I was going home the next day, and I was sad to be leaving the wonderful friends I had made. We were just about to go to dinner. Again they did not have enough guides to go around; I was asked to go with the friend who had been asked to guide the other boy two nights before. A few of my friends and I protested, saying I was fine walking independently. The head counselor persisted, so I just went with it. I got very upset and took it out on my friend, for which I apologized later. It was by no means his fault. He had to do what he was told.
I told a counselor about my feelings—that I hated using guides all the time, that I felt that my confidence was being lowered, and, most important, that the totally blind teens were treated differently from the partially sighted ones. Sure, they were nice to all of us; they didn’t talk down to us; but some of the counselors and volunteers treated the partially sighted teens with more respect, gave them more independence, and expected them to help them guide totally blind teens. The counselor responded, “Don’t let anyone lower your self-confidence.” Why weren’t all the counselors like that one? I decided then and there that I would do something about it.
Despite what I have said above, the program was not all bad. Many people (mostly the partially sighted ones) loved it. I made wonderful friends, and we went on fun activities. I have great memories of good food and terrific nights around the city. Of great times staying up too late with the girls in my suite. An amazing new friend, Angela, commented that these were “memories I will always hold dear.” Another friend, Whitney, says, “The program is extremely enjoyable, but how much you enjoy the program depends on two things: the other kids in the program (because you're surrounded by them twenty-four hours a day, five days a week) and how willing you are to try new stuff (the counselors usually have awesome stuff planned, and, if you decide not to go to those events, you're just wasting your time and money).” So the Columbia Program definitely has merit and is enjoyable. The people are fun and sweet. But it can be really hard if you’re a cane user.
On the Sunday before the last week, my parents asked me if I thought it would be a worthwhile program for my brother to attend once he is in high school. My response was as follows: “He’ll have fun, he’ll make great friends, but it will not teach him many blindness skills. It will not help his confidence as a totally blind person. If he had vision, it would do all those things. If I were you, I would send him to the Colorado Center summer program first.” My mother and stepfather, who is legally blind, were disappointed in my assessment of the program about which they had heard so many wonderful things.
My intentions for writing this were not to attack anyone. The Columbia Program is a good program, and Marie Bramlett runs it very well, but, because it is the best program in the state, it needs to be improved. People’s expectations of totally blind students must be raised. I learned a lot from this program: I learned how to act professionally at an interview and how to write a résumé, and I learned that people have to speak up and improve services and attitudes for totally blind children and teens. I hope that, when it is time for my brother Braden to attend the program, the shortcomings I endured no longer spoil the experience for those who are totally blind.
by Peggy Chong
From the Editor: Peggy Chong is an active member of our Iowa affiliate whose enthusiasm for books, the library, and bringing new people to the NFB is captured in the article she has written for Monitor readers. Her article not only tells the story of a successful event, but gives step-by-step actions any chapter or affiliate can use to make this happen in its own community. This is what she says:
In the spring of 2010 the NFB of Iowa began to plan for a seminar on understanding the new National Library Service (NLS) player and the Victor Reader Stream (VRS), currently the two most popular downloading devices in Iowa for books from the National Library Service. We thought that this not only would be a great way to answer many questions that our members regularly get but would also help to build our affiliate.
We set July 24 as the date and the Des Moines Public Library as the place because it was an easy location for everyone to find. The seminar would provide an overview of machine features and an introduction to downloading material from the Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) Website. We set a fee of twenty dollars to help defray the cost of a catered lunch and the printing of some of our materials.
In early May the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped sent a letter to all of its patrons announcing the seminar. We invited people to suggest topics for upcoming seminars, whether or not they were able to attend this one. In addition we listed broad topics in which our NFBI members had expertise and provided checkboxes for would-be participants to express their interest. We sent a similar mailing to NFB-NEWSLINE subscribers in mid-May. Soon responses were trickling in with additional seminar suggestions.
Over the years NFBI has accumulated contacts and addresses for agencies and organizations that work with seniors and blind people across Iowa. We sent emails to the Iowa Department for the Blind, Area Agencies on Aging, and many other groups. We wrote to all of them announcing our seminar. We used every list we could find to disseminate our information throughout the state. Of course we also advertised it to NFBI members.
We developed handouts including articles on BARD, the VRS, and the NLS digital player. Pam Quinn, a Des Moines Chapter member, wrote an article about why it is important to update one's machine and a step-by-step guide about how to do so. We put together a beginner's dictionary of computer terms and included a list of suppliers where people could purchase cartridges and a cable for their NLS machines. We decided we should also include a catalog for one of the major suppliers of products for the blind. The catalog we chose was from Independent Living Aids, which was happy to provide print copies. We put all handouts on a disk for each attendee as well as preparing print and Braille copies.
Our goal was to register thirty-five people for the seminar. Near the end of June we were close to this goal. When we returned from the national convention, we found a flood of reservations. By July 23 we had seventy registrants. April Enderton, Des Moines Chapter president, called to remind people about the seminar and asked them to bring their digital players.
The day of the seminar people began arriving early. NFBI members greeted attendees and engaged them in conversation. By 10:00 everyone was seated and ready to start the day. The morning began with introductions of both the NLS and VRS machines. Mike Barber and Sandi Ryan explained the basic and advanced options of both machines. Curtis Chong described the Braille and Audio Download (BARD) service, and people were clearly interested as evidenced by their questions. We concluded the morning session with a discussion of additional services and resources available to blind Iowans, particularly those available from the NFB.
At lunch attendees could also look at the NFB of Iowa table and the NFB-NEWSLINE® exhibit. Material in several formats lined the table, including copies of the Braille Monitor, NFB brochures, and President Maurer's speeches. Much of this literature went home with attendees.
In the afternoon we began with an explanation of the BARD main page, including how to sign up for the service and how to log in. Curtis Chong described the links on the page, what they mean, and where they lead. The group asked a number of questions which made it clear that, though they had some computer expertise, mostly they were novices who really needed what we offered to make the most of BARD and their machines.
Tracey Morsek, director of the Iowa Library for the Blind, came to help people sign up as new subscribers for library service and to help them register their machines on the BARD site. As a result our attendees could go home and download from BARD that night. Tracey Morsek reported later that they had seventeen new applications for BARD and that three people added digital service and got their first players the next week. Sixteen people upgraded from the easy to the advanced NLS player, and two asked for and received free digital Bibles from the Library. Later, as a result of the seminar, one new library patron signed up. This event has been the most successful one in Iowa for signing up new BARD users.
Our last program item was a fifteen-minute presentation on how to download music to the NLS player and the VRS. After the meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m., attendees asked questions of all presenters. Many people took the time to assure us that they had learned a lot at the meeting. It was a great success, and we learned much about setting up future seminars so that we can make them even better. Our next one will be on the Friday afternoon of our convention in late September. We will discuss using the accessible cell phone and will invite service providers and a representative from a big-box store to show their wares.
We have discovered a great tool for using our skills and expertise to help people across the state. At the same time we think these seminars will prove to be a great recruitment tool. Now all we have to do is find the time to organize them.by Bill Clapp
From the Editor: If you have attended state conventions for a number of years, you may have forgotten just what an impact these events can have on new members and those still trying to cope with the challenges of blindness. The following article will bring back fond memories to some readers and may inspire others to attend their state conventions this year. Now meet Bill Clapp, a new member of the Utah affiliate:
Sixth Street is where the National Federation of the Blind of Utah has its annual convention, at the Red Lion Hotel and Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. This year’s convention (May 20 and 21, 2010) had record-breaking attendance, nearly 350 registered participants. NFB President Marc Maurer, Governor of Utah Gary Herbert, and U.S. Congressman Scott Matheson were all guest speakers.
As a new member of the NFB, I would love the opportunity to explain why I am a member and the wonderful impact the state meeting has had on my life. I am eighteen years into retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and just a few years from total blindness. For the first fifteen years my wife and I struggled with my constantly decreasing vision. I have gone through all the symptoms I now hear so much about, from denial and grieving to acceptance and independence.
Three years ago an NFB member, Jerry Neeley, called me and insisted my wife and I attend local chapter meetings of the NFB. We reluctantly went, always asking ourselves, “Why are we doing this?" We attended our first state convention two years ago and went to a few of the sessions. One of the attendees later told me that I looked like a deer caught in the headlights. True, I was uneasy, totally out of my comfort zone; I just never realized it was so obvious to others. I know now that I was struggling with depression and that my wife and the NFB pulled me through it. This last state convention I felt right at home with friends all around me.
I am now on about step thirty-seven of a hundred and learning what lies ahead, and my friends are helping me. On the other hand, I now clearly understand that it is my responsibility to be available for those who are coming behind me. I have no idea what step thirty-eight is, but I am trying to piece this puzzle together and always seeking advice from others.
The miracle of it all is to see my relationship with my family improve and my energy level and competence at work return to where it was before my vision loss. I was contemplating retiring three years ago; now my level of energy and success at work are greater than ever. I am starting my twelfth year as the chair of the computer and electronics engineering technology department at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. A few weeks ago I was selected to be the chair of our new electronics engineering degree, which would never have happened without a loving wife and the NFB.
I feel a need to give back to those who have helped me survive my plane crash. I can now say I am a survivor. Most of you will agree with me that the crash (vision loss) was horrific and that few survive. I am one of the fortunate ones, and I must now help others. So you will never guess what I get to do to help others with vision loss. I am the new president of the Senior Division for the Utah NFB. Yes, I am a senior, but not yet old enough to slow down. It is time for me to get back to work, but not until I tell you what I like most about the NFB of Utah convention.
From the Editor: Need some motivation to improve your own Braille reading speed or that of your blind child or student? Between November 1 and January 4 we conduct competitions for students of all ages and adults. Read the following information to get the detail; then join the fun:
The National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille, and the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children are pleased to announce the twenty-eighth annual Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest. The contest encourages children in grades K-12 to be proud of their ability to read Braille and to continually work to improve their skills.
Seven Simple Steps
Important Dates
Breaking Down the Contest
Prizes
Everyone
Top Readers
Team
Twelve Lucky Winners
Remember: whether you are competing as an individual or as part of a team, the goal is to read as many Braille pages as you can.
For more information or to request paper registration forms, contact:
Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest
200 E. Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
Email: <[email protected]>
Phone: (410) 659-9314, extension 2293
Website: <www.nfb.org/BRAL>
The National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute and the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille are pleased to announce the second annual Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest for adults. This contest promotes the use of Braille in recreational reading among blind adults as a means to maintain and improve their skills. Braille-reading individuals eighteen years of age or older who are no longer enrolled in compulsory education in the USA and Canada are eligible to compete in the contest. Adults with various levels of experience reading Braille are welcome to join in the fun.
Seven Simple Steps
Important Dates
Breaking Down the Contest
Prizes
Everyone
Top Readers
Teams
Remember: whether you are competing as an individual or as part of a team, the goal is to read as many Braille pages as you can.
For more information or to request paper registration forms, contact:
Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest
200 E. Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
by Robert Gardner
From the Editor: Our Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest was expanded last year to include a category for adults. People wanting to improve their skills were encouraged to form teams to support and encourage one another. In this account we share our surprise in winning, the bonds formed by reading aloud to each other, and the joy and accomplishment of one team and the individuals in it.
"Here's a package for you," my wife said, handing me a box large enough for a new pair of shoes. "It's from the NFB National Center. Did you order something?"
"No," I said, mystified. After cutting through the packing tape and fumbling through the packing peanuts, I pulled out...what?
My wife took a peek. "It's a plaque," she said. "Wow, you're Team of the Year."
I stood there, stunned. Our team had won the 2009-2010 adult Braille Readers Are Leaders Team of the Year Award. This had been the first year for the adult contest, and we were the winners. I could hardly believe it.
The ABLE Group was formed in the fall of 2008 from within the Blackhawk Chapter of the NFB of Illinois. ABLE stands for Access to Braille Literacy for Everyone. Our goal was to increase our Braille skills by getting together weekly and reading aloud to each other. We'd usually have four or five people involved, and all of us were in the Beginner category, meaning all of us had plenty of opportunity to improve.
Group member Lois Montgomery told me, "Meeting with the ABLE Group every week and encouraging each other to improve our reading and writing skills has definitely reaped benefits for all involved. Though I'm not a speedy reader and will probably never be one, I focus on the fact that I am literate. I think back to the time when I couldn't see print and didn't know Braille. This motivates me to advocate for Braille literacy.”
In the fall of 2009 our group read about the new adult category in the NFB Braille Readers Are Leaders competition and the fact that we could form a team. When quizzed, the members of the ABLE Group unanimously wanted to enter the contest--and we became the ABLE Team. We charged forward with five people joining the team. Enthusiasm was high. We continued to meet face to face each week and kept in touch by phone and email. Articles sent out by those coordinating the Braille Readers Are Leaders contest were passed around electronically. We even turned one of our weekly meetings into a travel exercise by riding the bus to a local restaurant and having an ABLE Team Christmas party.
Jean Rauschenbach's story is unique but has some elements that are universal amongst the group. She said, "I attended BLIND, Inc., learning the skills to become a successful blind person. They changed my life and improved my self-esteem. Because of learning these skills, especially Braille, I had the courage to go back to school at the age of fifty. I am literate again! I take notes on a Braille notetaker and can read out loud what I have written—if haltingly. It is so great to be able to have notes to go by when giving presentations in classes. My speed is still slow, but I know that it will improve as I read Braille more and more."
Jean continued, "Being on the ABLE Team was a challenge during the school year, but I decided to concentrate my time on reading a book for school. I spent a good deal of time on reading, but it paid off by increasing my reading speed. Sometimes we need the challenge of pressure to make us do what we might put off to another time."
At the start of the contest each of us had goals, but soon we noticed that the competition had spurred us all to exceed them. When Lois Montgomery began to pile up pages read, she was encouraged to enter the individual reading award competition. As the Leader Board was posted in the latter stages of the competition, we found Lois on top. And wow, what a fantastic ending to the competition! Lois took number one in the beginner category. She read around three thousand pages during the two months of the contest.
Team member Patrick Olson said, "Braille provides a way for me to enjoy a book or document without straining my eyes with large print. Reading Braille gives me much more satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment than an audio book provides." As a side note, Patrick and team member Jana Hergert had let their Braille skills slide before joining the ABLE Group. With a year of work on the team, both of them cemented their understanding of the contractions and probably doubled their reading speeds.
Last spring I was shocked when I first held the plaque signifying that the ABLE Group had won Team of the Year. Here we were, in our little corner of Illinois, and we had been selected out of all the teams across the entire country. I immediately grabbed the phone and relayed the news to team members. I then had to contact several people at BLIND, Inc., where I learned Braille. One of my greatest pleasures was a personal phone call to my Braille instructor, Melody Wartenbee, to thank her for all her patience and perseverance.
The Braille Readers Are Leaders adult contest brought the ABLE Team closer together and increased our dedication to improving our Braille skills. The contest pushed us all to write more, read more, and increase our commitment to Braille literacy. The ABLE Team will continue to meet, inspired to reach new levels by the Braille Readers Are Leaders Contest.by Reji Mathew
From the Editor: The following article is reprinted from the Diabetes Self-Management Quarterly for March 12, 2009. According to the author, the journey of managing a chronic illness often follows a bumpy road with unexpected twists and turns. Successfully taking charge of any chronic condition requires good medical care, access to resources, and social support. Often, however, it’s a person’s own ability to cope with the daily, nitty-gritty realities of the condition that is the essential ingredient for overall wellness. Dr. Mathew is a psychotherapist and clinical instructor at New York University in New York City.
In the case of diabetes, achieving a consistent balance between exercise, medication, and diet so that blood glucose levels stay in the desirable range is a daily, ongoing challenge. Being skillful in each of these areas is tough enough, but the real hurdle is making them all work together to manage the condition. For most people it can feel like an elusive formula to master.
Unfortunately, the health-care professionals who care for people with diabetes and even the friends and family members of people with diabetes do not always recognize how stressful having and managing diabetes can be. Dr. Deborah Languish, a psychotherapist who specializes in working with people with chronic illnesses, has counseled many people with diabetes. She says, “For many of the diabetic patients I work with, there is a lack of support and acknowledgment of the feelings of stress and strain they may feel on a daily basis. I find that diabetic patients get a common message from practitioners: ‘You are not in control,’ resulting in blaming the patient rather than recognizing that this is a complicated disease requiring time and practice to develop the skills needed. It is a stressful process. It takes a lot of mental work.”
Jane, forty-two, has Type 2 diabetes. She describes the type of stress she felt and what she did to address it: “Even though diabetes is an invisible disease, I don’t think that people who struggle with diabetes ever forget they have it. Everything I put in my mouth I have to think: 'Is this good for me?’ This started to really stress me out, and then I would give up and eat poorly and then get sick. When I reached my breaking point, I finally decided to work with a nutritionist to learn more about food and also a psychotherapist to work with my anxiety.”
Marge, thirty-eight, has both high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes. Like Jane she struggled with issues related to food choices: “I could not get over the feeling of 'restriction.’ I am restricted from eating this for the sugar, restricted from eating that because of the fat. I was starting to feel deprived and unhappy. I talked with my counselor. I learned that food was the main stress reliever for me. I found other ways to feel nourished, and, whenever I have the deprived feeling with food, I distract myself.”
In my own counseling work with people who have diabetes, I have learned of two central issues with which people struggle. First, diabetes management is not simply about access to good education but also about developing discipline—learning to stick to routines, plan meals, and schedule exercise. This is particularly difficult for people who have not previously practiced much discipline in their lives and do not have the skills of self-discipline. For these people it can be overwhelming to suddenly have to take control of managing an illness. As one person said to me, “I had to suddenly deal with exercise, diet control, and checking my finger sticks three times a day, overnight and all at once. It was overwhelming and hard to get used to.”
Second, people are so often inundated with information on the health risks associated with diabetes that they don’t have time to process the feelings that arise when they are diagnosed. Without processing, however, the feelings—which often include fear, a sense of loss, anger, and frustration—tend to linger, and they can get in the way of effective diabetes management. Not taking the time to fully recognize or express one’s feelings about diabetes can make it harder for a person to take full responsibility for his diabetes and to perform all of the tasks necessary to manage it.
There is hope, however. The skills of self-discipline can be learned, and it’s never too late to start addressing the emotional burdens of diabetes, particularly since diabetes tends to present new challenges—causing new emotional reactions—over time.
Developing new coping skills
Learning to cope with life’s stresses starts in childhood, as children model the responses and behavior of those around them. Some parents and schools go beyond just modeling and offer instruction to children on such skills as recognizing their feelings, expressing them in a constructive manner, calming themselves down, communicating with others, and problem-solving. However, even the best set of coping and interpersonal skills learned in childhood and in subsequent years may not be adequate for dealing with the new stresses presented by developing a chronic disease. If contemplating the need to manage your diabetes for a lifetime makes you feel anxious, recognizing that you can improve your coping skills or develop new ones can be a source of relief and hope.
The basic idea of a coping strategy is that it should ease stress, provide comfort, or enhance one’s mood in a difficult situation. However, it’s important to be wary of coping mechanisms that provide immediate gratification but have secondary consequences. For example, shopping can provide immediate stress relief, but overuse has secondary consequences for your budget. The key is to look for coping strategies that provide comfort but also have a constructive, lasting impact on the mind and body.
Since lifestyle choices directly affect diabetes control, it is important to develop a holistic plan for managing the condition that includes not just diet and exercise but also ways of coping with stress, particularly since stress can affect blood glucose control. For some people seeing a mental health-care provider and taking antidepressant or anti-anxiety medicines may be part of the plan for coping with stress. Practices such as yoga, deep breathing, using humor, journaling, pet therapy, aromatherapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, biofeedback, exercise, or meditation may also be useful for coping with chronic stress, regardless of whether a person seeks the services of a mental health-care professional.
Paul, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of sixteen, found some strategies that worked for him: “Breathing and meditation exercises felt a little New-Agey to me at first, but I have noticed I am able to calm myself down with practice when I am feeling stressed out about all the effort that goes into controlling my diabetes.”
For people who need help developing self-discipline, a variety of tools can help. One technique is to post visual or written reminders—in places such as the bathroom mirror or the refrigerator—to check blood glucose or perform other diabetes tasks. Another is to keep a diabetes log that includes a schedule for monitoring and taking medicines. Learning how other people manage their diabetes can also provide practical tips and motivation, so meeting others through support groups or online communities or even reading about other people’s experiences with diabetes in books or magazines can be helpful.
As you explore new coping strategies, you’ll find that different strategies match different needs. For example, you may find that doing yoga or meditating is particularly helpful when you need to relax. Or you may find that using humor, playing with a pet, or socializing with friends helps to energize you. Exercise may do the trick when you need to release pent-up stress. The important thing is to stay open to trying various strategies to find what works for you.
In many cases you will call upon a mix of skills to deal with the specific stressors in your life. Lisa, seventy-six, coped with a source of stress that she faced both by asking for help and also by learning some new computer skills. She says, “My husband and I are on a fixed income. I am diabetic, and he is in a wheelchair. Maintaining a healthy diet is expensive. I was feeling worried and overwhelmed. I told my niece, who was helping us plan our meals. She orders bulk items from the Internet to reduce costs, and I go to the grocery for the fresh foods. I am doing better with managing my diabetes. I felt ashamed to talk about this. Exercise is free, but not food. I did not know how to use the computer and would not have thought of it as a coping skill. My niece is now teaching me how to use the Internet.”
Chronic illness management can easily feel like a second job. Keeping up with doctors’ appointments and medicine regimes can be emotionally consuming, and it is natural for frustration or boredom to set in. One coping strategy that may help with frustration or boredom is to reward yourself for carrying out necessary tasks. For example, you might reward yourself for keeping a doctor’s appointment by scheduling time with a friend or taking an afternoon off to watch a good movie.
Peter, a thirty-two-year-old with Type 1 diabetes, tells how he evaluated his coping strategies during a time of change in his life and later rewarded himself for his efforts: “During my first week of graduate school, I suffered a hypoglycemic attack during my commute to school. It was very scary. I talked with my psychotherapist. Before grad school I was a pro in managing my condition. Once I started school, my routines to check my blood sugar would waver dramatically on a daily basis. I could not pinpoint why. I kept a coping-skills journal for three weeks, in which I recorded my class schedule and planned breaks, as well as unplanned interruptions such as traffic delays. What my therapist and I learned was that my new goal of getting a graduate degree took up much of my mental energy, which made me easily forgetful and overwhelmed. I had to change the way I planned my days and took breaks. I now keep extra food with me on my commute to school because I never know if I could be delayed. I also let my professors know of my needs in case I need extra support. I rewarded myself with an iPod for getting through this period.”
Working on relationship skills
In addition to exploring new coping and stress-reduction skills, successful management of a chronic illness often requires building interpersonal relationship skills. Many people find it hard to accept that illness and disability often require depending on others. Developing your people skills can make it easier to ask questions, initiate communication, and ask for help, but it takes practice.
Exercises that may help in this area include role-playing, in which you rehearse a potentially anxiety-provoking conversation with a trusted friend, who plays the role of the person you need to talk to (such as a doctor or an insurance company representative, for example). It may also help to write down requests before you make them orally. And it can help to problem-solve with a psychotherapist before taking on a feared situation.
Pauline, fifty-one, shares her experience of recognizing her need to improve her people skills: “I am a nurse with diabetes. At first, since I am a health professional, I was very focused on the medical risks and spent a lot of time worrying about future dangers: `Am I going to lose my vision; am I going to get neuropathy?’ My doctor assumed I knew everything and that I could adjust. But, even though I knew everything in my head, I still had to emotionally accept and deal with everything. To take control of my diabetes, I had to learn how to communicate and be honest about what I needed and to ask for help. Even though I take care of people, it did not mean that I knew how to take care of me.”
One important point when asking for help and support is to spread your requests out over a variety of people so that no one person, such as a spouse or adult child, gets burned out. You may need to expand your social network to prevent this. Joining a support group is one way to meet others facing similar challenges who may be able to provide emotional support. Meeting regularly with a psychotherapist can also help both with emotional coping and with building coping and interpersonal relationship skills.
Barbara, fifty-three, a cancer survivor with Type 2 diabetes, shares how working on her people skills improved her relationship with her husband: “I now ask my husband, `Do you need a break?’ I don’t take his burnout personally any more. We agreed to bring in someone to help me at least once a week so he can have a break from caregiving. This has reduced a lot of the arguments we have.”
Blowing off emotional steam
Finding ways to empty out the daily emotional stress of a chronic condition is essential. Chronically ill individuals often grapple with anxiety, frustration, or emotional fatigue on a daily basis. Traditional psychotherapy can help, and so can taking part in an expressive art such as writing, dance therapy, art therapy, music therapy, or drama therapy. Any of these can provide a constructive venue for emotional expression and stress release.
Martha, a sixty-year-old with Type 2 diabetes who is recovering from a hip replacement, found a creative solution to her feelings of social isolation: “I did not feel comfortable with regular talk therapy support groups. I instead joined a poetry group. I found that many of the feelings I was feeling, others could relate to for different reasons. This helped me know myself as more than a person with diabetes.”
Renewed hope
The most important thing to remember is that improving your coping skills can help you to feel more hopeful. Knowing that you can deal with the inevitable stresses in your life is empowering and provides a sense of control. Learning new coping skills can even be a source of enjoyment, as you develop areas of personal strength you didn’t know you had. Life is a limitless road of discovery. So stay curious, and try to enjoy it along the way.
From the Editor: Every good recipe starts with a list of ingredients followed by the portion of each that will achieve the desired blending of tastes and the pleasurable experience it brings. The most successful blind people I know all share two things. One is a positive attitude about blindness; the other is a skillset that supports and is supported by that attitude. The blind people I regard as truly special not only share these ingredients, but blend them so they come to symbolize what is good and right in the world. Ray McGeorge, who died on June 18 and whose obituary appeared in the July 2010 Braille Monitor, was one of these, and to honor his life and memory, the Monitor prints here tributes from two members of his Federation family who loved him deeply and whose lives have forever been changed for the better because he cared about them. At the end of his story, “The Ties that Bind,” in the Kernel Book, To Touch the Stars, Kevan Worley talks about the skills Ray imparted to him. Peggy Elliott highlights the attitude Ray lived and shared with her. These two voices are representative of the hundreds of people Ray McGeorge touched in his time with us, and we are grateful for Ray and the people who have written these lines in his memory.
Ray McGeorge Made Me Tie a Tie
by Kevan Worley
When I was in training at the Colorado Center for the Blind, a group of students and I were heading out to the bus stop and talking about the things we wished we had learned as blind children. I casually mentioned wishing I had learned to tie a tie. Ray McGeorge overheard and said, "I can teach you to do that right now."
As I hurried away from the center, I told him I would appreciate the lesson. Perhaps we could get together sometime before I graduated. Ray replied slowly, drawing out his words as he always did, "I don't see why we can't get started right now."
It was past 4:30 in the afternoon, and I was ready to get back to the apartment. At the time Ray was working full-time as a machinist, and I was sure he must be tired from a hard day at work, but Ray was saying, "I'll see if we can't find a tie around here, and we'll just fix you right up." Certainly he would not be able to find a tie. But, as I stepped up to the bus stop on Broadway, I heard Ray's distinctive low voice behind me. "Come on, Kevan, this shouldn't take long. Let's get to it."
With busses going by every ten minutes, Ray stood behind me, patiently showing me how to make the knot. He had me do it until I not only got it right, but could do it again and again. "We need to do it so you will never forget," he said. And then he added, "Maybe someday you will show some other young man how to tie a tie."
It's funny how the people, events, and lessons of a life come together to create the person you become. I am now the project manager for M and K Food Service in Aurora, Colorado. I wear a tie every day. In fact, over the past six or seven years in the food business, I have collected over a hundred food-related ties. I enjoy collecting them and tying them so the knot is just right. It's a matter of pride and self-respect in a simple, very basic way.
I find myself thinking of Ray almost every morning as I tie my tie and head out the door for work. Ray reminds me of my grandpa, a man of quiet strength, wit, and patience. Not long ago I taught two young boys how to tie a tie before their first job interviews, sharing some of Ray's knowledge and confidence and passing along to others a little of the love, self-esteem, and zest for life that Ray and the Federation have so generously given to me.
The Things Ray Knew
by Peggy Elliott
Ray knew stuff. He was a big man with a voice booming enough to prevent his ever being unobtrusive. But his entire demeanor, his whole approach to the world and the beings in it, was gentle, kind, and positive. If you needed to change the way something worked or learn a new skill to sooth someone who was hurting or embolden someone who was frightened, Ray was your man.
Ray understood how the physical world worked. His skill with machines earned good money most of his life, but the knack went much further than a job. If something needed fixing or altering or replacing, Ray knew how to do it and what tools and time would be required.
With the world composed of millions of living and inanimate parts, Ray also understood how to rearrange or reorder those parts. He could organize your warehouse in a new and efficient way or help to plan the best way to move and deploy people for a demonstration against injustice.
Useful as these skills were, they were not at the core of the strength on which so many of us counted and upon which we drew. The important stuff Ray knew rested on a firm foundation of empathy and kindness—an intuitive understanding of the people around him that was charming and comfortable to the long-time friend and a beacon of hope and welcome to those who were new, fragile, or searching.
Upon meeting Ray for the first time, you took about a second to register that he never judged you, already valued you, and was ready—if you wanted—to teach you something. He was also there to help you through a personal struggle or just share a good laugh with you. He exuded a sense of confidence composed equally of assurance about himself and an interest in others. This was instantly recognizable and so genuine it drew others to him.
Ray believed deeply that people could improve, change, build new skill sets, and learn to accept more responsibility. The belief he communicated was the very same he lived: bravely and stoically facing the challenge of losing significant vision later in life and demonstrating he was as good as his word when it came to continuing to live fully and independently. Both before and after losing his sight, Ray did anything necessary to help found, grow, and stabilize the Colorado Center for the Blind so others could learn to live fully and independently.
The stuff Ray knew included a generous helping of belief in the best about people—not some theoretical "all people are good," but a down-to-earth, day-in and day-out belief about the people he knew and met and worked with daily. By his faith in them and his encouragement of them, Ray's call upon others to grow and change was answered over and over by people who understood that Ray's call was accompanied by the offer personally to help in the process.
People responded. Over the years hundreds of young and middle-aged people at the Colorado Center for the Blind learned a trick, a skill, or an attitude from Ray. As he aged gracefully himself, his call was made increasingly to seniors struggling with vision loss. They responded too: learning and laughing their way with Ray right into a new way of thinking about blindness that empowered them to be the managers of their lives once again.
Ray walked through every day telling people the truth, personally engaging with them as individuals, and being the fully complete role model who provided a living example to others. These insights, part of Ray's mental landscape, transparent to all, constituted the most important stuff he knew. He recognized it. And he knew one more thing as well: that the stuff he knew, the treasure within, could not be clutched or hoarded in solitude but must be shared in the sunshine as a proclamation of what blind people can do and be, if only they believe. Ray knew that the stuff he knew had to be given away in great handfuls so the people who needed it most would always find it in ample supply. Unlike gold, the stuff Ray knew grows by giving and shrinks by hoarding, and, when Ray died, he had one of the biggest collections around.
Any picture of Ray would not be complete without mentioning his beloved animals. While he loved and was proud of all the dogs that have lived in the McGeorge household, it was seeing Ray with a tiny little cat that revealed the depth of his love for animals. So small compared to Ray, cats had no fear of him and trusted and loved him as deeply as their larger cousins, the dogs. Cats and dogs, like people, instinctively knew that Ray was a man upon whom they could rely, and they did.
When Ray fell ill near the end of his life, it was hard to imagine a man of such physical and moral strength lying quiet and unresponsive. He's gone now, having changed the world forever. We'll never hear his chuckle or his wisdom again on this earth, but we have three things for which to be thankful. One is his sterling example of how a life should be lived, a life valuing and helping others as a calling. The second is that he didn't suffer and didn't linger long, but changed worlds as he did everything else—decisively. The third is that we can be assured he's in a place where his commitment to truth, his convictions about responsibility, and his certainty about the value of every being are honored and shared. It's easy to imagine him settled back in his chair with his pipe and glass of Scotch, telling a story that ends with a laugh all round. We can all hope we'll join him again some day for those stories because the stuff Ray knew and symbolized and gave to others came directly from the best that humans have to offer.Braille into the Next Millennium, edited by Judith M Dixon.Washington, DC: National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, 2000.
From the Editor: With some regularity we spotlight books in the tenBroek Library. Here is librarian Ed Morman's description of a recent acquisition:
Now that we are ten years into the new millennium—and with the organized blind having recently celebrated the bicentennial of Louis Braille’s birth—this seems a good time to look back at the state of Braille in Y2K (remember Y2K?).
Back in the year 2000, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped was the most appropriate agency to put together a wide-ranging look at the past, present, and future of Braille. As Kenneth Jernigan noted in his preface to this book, “It was the NLS and its director, Frank Kurt Cylke, who nurtured Braille and helped keep it alive during the bleak days of its lean years. During those bleak days a surge in the population of blind children (brought on by excessive oxygen administered to premature babies) had overwhelmed this country’s schools for the blind. A much higher proportion of blind children were attending public schools; their teachers tended to be unfamiliar with Braille and often failed to recognize its importance.”
At the time Dr. Jernigan wrote this, he felt somewhat reassured that growing numbers of professionals in the agencies and schools were coming to understand that Braille literacy is a necessity for blind people. Yet ten years later, only a few months ago, a New York Times Magazine article featured a successful blind woman who not only could not read Braille, but even disparaged the dot code as obsolete in the computer age.
Braille into the Next Millennium makes clear that, if anything, the age of the fully wired world makes Braille that much more important to the blind. Part I of the book looks back at the origin of the Braille code, the life of its inventor, and the alternatives to Braille that were used in the United States at one time or another. Part II discusses the current state of the various special codes (math, music, computer notation), and other topics, including Braille production, Braille libraries, and the advent of refreshable displays. Part III looks to the future of Braille: its relationship with technology, and its continuing utility to the blind.
With this book the staff of NLS demonstrated not only its commitment to Braille, but also its recognition of the importance of cooperation with the organized blind. Besides Kenneth Jernigan, among the contributors of chapters are Federationists Ruby Riles, Curtis Chong, Fred Schroeder, Marc Maurer, and Abraham Nemeth.
Anyone interested in Braille ought to become familiar with this book. In print it’s a slim paperback; the Braille edition occupies four volumes; the analog audio version is on three ninety-minute four-track tapes; and the digitized sound version is available for download from NLS (approximately seventeen hours, with one navigation point for each chapter).
Librarian’s note: We hope that readers of the Monitor have read the report of the chair of the Resolutions Committee in the last issue. To commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Federation, she included the text of some of the earliest resolutions adopted by the NFB. We’re pleased that the new editor of the Monitor has expressed interest in reprinting other early documents of the Federation, so, starting with this issue, the tenBroek Library contribution to the Monitor will alternate between historic Federation documents and interesting books from the library collection.This month’s recipes have been contributed by members of the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille (NAPUB).
Guacamole with a Twist
by Corbb O'Connor
Corbb O’Connor has won two NFB scholarships and is currently a student at George Washington University, where he will graduate this December. He has been interning with the American Public Media program, The Marketplace Morning Report, for which he has reported several stories. Corbb is an active member and past treasurer of the Potomac Chapter of the NFB of Virginia and a member of NAPUB. He says that this recipe makes enough guacamole for about 1 large bag of chips.
Ingredients:
2 avocados, mashed (reserve the halved shells)
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 extra large white onion, minced
2 teaspoons crushed red (cayenne) pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
Method: Halve the avocados, remove the seeds, and use a spoon to scoop out the avocado flesh into a bowl. Reserve the skins. Mash the avocados with a fork. Mix the minced onions and chopped tomatoes with the avocado. Add salt and red (cayenne) pepper. Toss all ingredients thoroughly. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve the guacamole stuffed in the avocado skins on a plate with chips or in a bowl with chips around it.
Tuna Steak for One
by Steve Booth
Steve Booth is treasurer of NAPUB and works at the National Center with Braille production. He enjoys seafood and finds that broiling in his toaster oven works well.
Ingredients:
1 small tuna steak
Butter or margarine
Fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Method: Lightly butter the toaster oven broiler pan rack. Place tuna on rack and broil first side for approximately five minutes. Remove pan from oven and turn steak over. Lightly butter top of steak, and return to oven to broil for another five minutes. Remove tuna from pan, season with salt and pepper to taste, and drizzle a little lemon juice over fish. Enjoy.
Mom-Mom's Cornbread
by Sandy Halverson
Sandy Halverson is the newly elected president of NAPUB. She is also first vice president of the Potomac Chapter of the NFB of Virginia. She says of this recipe, “In my family we called my grandmother Mom-Mom. Her cornbread was a favorite and very different from traditional offerings.”
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
4 cups water
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
Method: In a large pot mix all ingredients well. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, and cook until mixture is well thickened. Pour batter into a buttered 9-by-13-inch baking pan and bake in a 375-degree oven until browned, about forty-five minutes. The consistency should be firm to the touch but similar to that of spoon bread.
Pumpkin Squares
by C. J. Fish
C. J. Fish is secretary of NAPUB and a leader of the NFB of Virginia. As a tenBroek Fellow, she won the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship at the 2010 NFB convention.
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups granulated sugar
1 15-ounce can solid pack pumpkin puree
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking pan In a medium bowl beat together the eggs, oil, sugar, and pumpkin until smooth. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and stir into the pumpkin mixture. Spread batter evenly in the prepared pan and bake for twenty-five to thirty minutes. When done, the bars should spring back when lightly touched. Allow to cool before frosting.
Roasted Asparagus
by Peggy Chong
Peggy Chong is first vice president of NAPUB and an active member of the NFB of Iowa.
Ingredients:
1 pound fresh asparagus
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste (I like lemon pepper)
Method: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut or snap off the bottom one-inch fibrous stem on the asparagus stalks and discard. Slice the remaining asparagus into two-inch pieces (you should have about five cups). Line a baking tray with foil and spoon the oil onto the foil. Sprinkle surface with salt and pepper. Add the asparagus and roll in oil, making sure all the spears are coated with the oil and seasonings. Spread the asparagus into a single layer and roast in the oven for five minutes. Roll it in the oil again to recoat and roast ten more minutes for thick spears, five more minutes for thin ones. Remove from the oven and serve with shrimp.
Cheddar Potato Soup
by Peggy Chong
Ingredients:
4 or 5 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 cup baby carrots, cut
1 tablespoon dried minced onions
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
2 cups milk
1 cup chicken broth
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
pepper to taste
Method: Place potatoes, carrots, onion, and salt in large soup pot, cover vegetables with water, and bring to a boil. Simmer over medium heat about twenty minutes or until vegetables are tender. Drain.
In a separate pan melt butter, and whisk in the flour. Then whisk in milk and chicken broth. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until liquid thickens. Pour into cooked vegetables and stir in cheese and pepper over low heat until cheese melts. Serve hot.
Chicken with Capers
by Peggy Chong
Ingredients:
4 to 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tablespoons olive oil
flour
lemon pepper to taste
1 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
(If substituting bottled lemon juice, reduce the amount of lemon juice and increase the amount of chicken broth.)
1 handful of washed capers
Method: Combine chicken broth and lemon juice in a small bowl. Mix flour and lemon pepper in another dish. Coat the chicken breasts with the flour mixture. In a large skillet heat the olive oil till hot. Place the chicken in the skillet and brown about two to three minutes on each side. Remove the chicken from the pan. Deglaze the pan with the chicken broth mixture, making sure it is well blended. Return the chicken to the pan and sprinkle the capers on top. Cook an additional three to five minutes.
The drippings from browning the chicken combine with the chicken broth to form a delicious gravy.
Creamy Chicken Over Pastry
by Peggy Chong
Ingredients:
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 can milk
Frozen peas and carrots
2 cups cooked chicken, diced
Puff pastry shells or biscuits
Method: Prepare a can of biscuits or croissant rolls or a package of puff pastry as directed. In a sauce pan, combine all ingredients except pastry. Cook over low heat till all is well warmed. Pour over warm pastry. So easy, so good!
Strawberry Meringue
by Peggy Chong
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
3 eggs, separated
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 1/8 cups crushed strawberries and juice
3/8 to 1/2 cup sugar, depending on taste
Method: Soften gelatin in cold water for about five minutes. Beat egg yolks slightly in top of double boiler. Blend in 1/4 cup sugar, salt, and lemon juice. Cook over hot water, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened, five to ten minutes. Blend in softened gelatin and crushed strawberries and beat with a rotary beater for one minute. Remove from heat and cool.
Chill mixture in refrigerator until barely thick enough to hold its shape. Then beat again with rotary beater until smooth. Make a stiff meringue by beating egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff peaks form, gradually beating in the sugar. Continue beating until the mixture is stiff and glossy. Fold the meringue into the strawberry mixture. Pile into pie crust or dessert dishes. Chill in refrigerator until set, about a half hour or until ready to serve.News from the Federation Family
David Andrews Honored:
David Andrews, longtime Federationist, manager of virtually all NFB Internet lists, and chief technology officer for Minnesota State Services for the Blind, received the 2010 C. Stanley Potter Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Audio Information Services (IAAIS). He was recognized during the group's conference in Dallas, June 3 to 6. Congratulations to Dave for decades of faithful service to blind people.
Elected:
In June the Greater Springfield Chapter of the NFB of Massachusetts conducted elections for the year beginning in September. The results were as follows: Robert Baran, president; Kristina Constant, vice president; Basil Maurice, treasurer; Heather Doray, secretary; Janice Frost, sergeant at arms; Sandra Burgess and Marshal Lovett, board members at large; and Carol Maurice, trustee.
In Memoriam:
Labor Day weekend word began filtering around the Federation family that Wayne Davis had died after a long period of ill health. He first came to the attention of people outside Florida when he was elected president after years of unhappiness and disruption in the Florida affiliate. It soon became evident that Wayne had the situation in hand. He was funny and down to earth, and he was not about to put up with anything that did not help blind people and build the Federation. As he began to lose his hearing, Wayne slipped back into private life, but everyone knew that he never stopped living his Federationism. Here is the tribute that current NFB of Florida President Dan Hicks wrote for Wayne:
Losing a longtime member of our NFB of Florida family is always a shock. I knew that Wayne Davis was very ill, but that knowledge does nothing to diminish the loss to all of us who knew and worked with him as a friend and colleague.
Born February 7, 1942, Wayne attended the Tennessee School for the Blind, where one of his instructors was the young Kenneth Jernigan. Music was one of Wayne’s many talents. In his early years he worked with country singer Donna Fargo; the rock group, Boston; and Elvis Presley, among many others.
Wayne served as president of the National Federation of the Blind of Florida for many years, through good times and not so good times. Occasionally Wayne and his streak of stubborn determination were the strongest forces keeping our affiliate together and moving forward. Wayne also proudly served several terms as a member of the NFB national board.
Wayne died on August 31, 2010, after a long struggle with failing health. I hope he knew how much we appreciated him and how much he and his hardworking spirit and infectious laugh will be missed. He was my friend and a friend to many of us. Our thoughts, prayers, and warm wishes go to his wife Carmen and their son David. Rest in peace, Billy Wayne Davis.
Notices and information in this section may be of interest to Monitor readers. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the information; we have edited only for space and clarity.
Order Chocolate Gifts for the Holidays:
Chocolate is a wonderful idea for gift-giving, and Sweet Tooth can accommodate your needs. Besides Braille chocolate bars and chocolate guide dogs, a complete line of products, including holiday items, mugs filled with chocolate, fudge, suckers, clusters of all kinds, and peanut butter cups are available. Solid chocolate items can be personalized with Braille, and Sweet Tooth has over 250 candy molds to choose from. Price lists are available in print, in Braille, and by email.
The Braille chocolate bars come with a choice of sayings including Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Love You, Have a Nice Day, and Thank You. They weigh 4 1/2 ounces and can be made in milk, dark, or white chocolate. Plain bars are $2.75 each, and bars with nuts, Rice Krispies, or crushed peppermint are $3. Sugar-free bars are available for an additional dollar a bar. All candy items are bagged in cellophane and tied with ribbon.
Shipping and handling is extra and depends on weight and destination. Orders are shipped two-day priority with the U.S. Postal Service. Candy can be shipped from late September to early June. To place an order, contact Sweet Tooth by calling Judy Davis, owner, at (585) 544-1853 or by email at <[email protected]>. Sweet Tooth’s address is 32 Vinton Road, Rochester, New York 14622. Payment is by check or money order only, made out to Judy Davis. Please allow four to six days turnaround for an order.
Genetics of Age-Related Maculopathy Study:
Dr. Michael Gorin at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA is conducting a nationwide study of genetic and other risk factors that contribute to the development of age-related macular degeneration (also known as age-related maculopathy). You or members of your family may be eligible to participate in this observational study (this is not a treatment trial). It does not require that you come to UCLA; you can participate through a confidential and secure Website. If you wish to learn more about this study, go to the following Website and read about the study with complete anonymity (and even send questions to the research coordinators): <https://jseiclinres.jsei.ucla.edu/garm/>, or call (800) 286-8581 or UCLA IRB Number 08-11-008-02. The expiration date of the study is June 22, 2011.
Library Resources for Ministers and Seminary Students:
Optasia Ministry provides blind and visually impaired people access to a significant free library of Bible study tools designed to meet the needs of pastors and seminary students. We have commentaries, theology, and language tools that allow blind people to access many of the tools of modern scholarship, as well as a number of books for general Christian reading.
Optasia ministry has its roots in the PAC Mate Tom Vos received with the assistance of the Iowa Department for the Blind. Because he is a pastor, he was interested in finding a Bible that would work on this machine. However, he could not find a vendor who could give assurance that it had a Bible that would work well on a notetaker. Tom’s son, who has a master's degree in computer science, took on the challenge. Within a remarkably short time he created scripts for a Bible that work well on the PAC Mate as well as on any desktop or laptop computer.
Since that initial version in 2007 they have improved the Bible formatting and have extended it to fifteen Bible versions. The Optasia Bible format allows easy access with links to books, chapters, and verses of the Bible. With a little practice users can find verses as quickly as sighted people (and may even have an advantage with a small book like Obadiah).
They wanted to share this material with other blind people, so they organized Optasia Ministry as an Iowa nonprofit corporation. Through a special provision of the U. S. Copyright code they distribute these Bibles free to those who are blind. In addition they have a library of over 800 books such as devotional reading, Bible commentaries, and a variety of other Christian resources offered as the Optasia Library. The entire library is free, and they rely on donations to support the cost of the ministry.
If you wish to know more, visit the Website at <www.optasiaministry.org>, or email Tom at <[email protected]>.
Flameless, Fragrant Warmers Available:
Scentsy is a line of flameless, wickless, fragrant candle-like ceramic warmers. They are a decorative, safer alternative to traditional candles and use a low-watt bulb to melt a special wax slowly while maximizing fragrance time. Scentsy candles are safer around animals and children because there is no flame and the melted wax does not get hot enough to burn. Scentsy bars are available in over eighty fragrances, and the warmers are available in a variety of styles and colors. Jywanza Maye invites you to visit the Scentsy Website at <www.scentsy.com/indy>. To discuss product selection, contact (347) 878-6293.
Brailler Repair:
The Selective Doctor, Inc., is a repair service for all IBM typewriters and Perkins Braillewriters. Located in Baltimore, the service has done work for the Maryland School for the Blind and a number of other organizations in Maryland. They accept Perkins Braillers sent to them from around the country.
The labor cost to repair all Perkins Braillers is $60, plus parts. The Brailler will be shipped back to you by U.S. mail, Free Matter for the Blind and insured for $400. The cost of this insurance ($5.70) will be added to your invoice. This listed insurance charge may fluctuate due to rate changes by the postal service.
To mail Braillers using the U.S. Postal Service, send your Brailler(s) to the Selective Doctor, P.O. Box 571, Manchester, Maryland 21102. With your Brailler(s) please include your name and organization (if applicable), shipping and billing addresses, telephone number, and a brief description of your Brailler's needs. Should you require additional information, please call (410) 668-1143, or email <[email protected]> or visit our Website at <www.selectivedoctor.com>.
Ski for Light 2011 Invites Applications:
Are you a blind or visually impaired adult who cross-country skis or is interested in learning the sport? If your answer is yes, then join two hundred-fifty-plus active adults from across the U.S. and around the world for our thirty-sixth annual Ski for Light International Week. Ski for Light attracts recreational cross-country skiers from beginners to advanced competitors. Skiers and guides come from every adult age group and occupation. You will be paired with a sighted instructor/guide who will assist with skills, technique, and endurance while describing the countryside and enjoying the trails with you. Two sets of parallel, groomed tracks are set in the snow, with the skier and guide deciding together how far, how long, and on what kind of terrain they will ski. Many attendees report that the confidence, new skills, and friendships they develop is an experience of a lifetime that carries over into increased confidence and independence back home.
The 2011 Ski for Light event will be held from Sunday evening, January 30, through Sunday morning, February 6, 2011, in the Rocky Mountains at Snow Mountain Ranch in Granby, Colorado. Snow Mountain Ranch, near Winter Park, has 100 kilometers of groomed trails. It is rated one of the top Nordic venues in the country and has a variety of other recreational facilities.
New this year will be on-site lodging so all participants can ski directly onto the trails from just outside their rooms. There will also be a more affordable range of ski packages based on the type of accommodations you select (one-, two-, three-, or four-person rooms), with prices starting at $500 per person. All rooms have private bathrooms with daily maid service. Prices also include all meals, round-trip transportation between the Denver airport and the resort, and trail fees. Skis, boots, and poles will be provided free to first-time participants, and partial stipends based on financial need are available for first-timers.
The application deadline is November 1, 2010. Applications received after this date may be considered on a space-available basis. Visit the SFL Website, <www.sfl.org> to learn more and to submit your application for a fantastic week of fun. Additional information can also be obtained by contacting the VIP recruitment coordinator, Bob Hartt, <[email protected]>, (703) 845-3436, or Lynda Boose, VIP application coordinator, <[email protected]>, (906) 370-7541.
New Tactile Map Atlas from the Princeton Braillists:
This second volume of maps of Africa, Eastern and Central Africa, covers fourteen nations: Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania (including Zanzibar), Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Gabon, and Sao Tome and Principe. Each country has an introductory section in Braille of facts and general information followed by a full-page tactile map. The maps show cities, towns, rivers, mountains, and places of special interest. The book is seventy-nine pages, including thirteen maps of individual countries and two overall maps. Price: $14.00; shipping by free mail where eligible.
To order, send check or purchase order to the Princeton Braillists, 76 Leabrook Lane, Princeton, New Jersey 08540. Credit card and fax service are not available. A complete listing of the volumes available from Princeton Braillists can be found on our Website: <http://mysite.verizon.net/resvqbxe/ princetonbraillists>. To contact the Princeton Braillists by phone, call Ruth Bogia at (215) 357-7715 or Nancy Amick at (609) 924-5207.
Christian Material and Services Available:
Message of Hope, a ministry of the Unity School of Christianity, provides the following services free of charge to the blind and visually impaired:
1. Daily Word Magazine on CD and in Braille and the Daily Word Message of the Day by email;
2. Nondenominational spirituality-centered books, pamphlets, and literature through an audio lending library, a hardcopy Braille-book lending library, and email BRF format materials;
3. Follow-up letters of prayer support on cassette or in Braille.
For more information contact Message of Hope at (866) 421-3066 or send email to <[email protected]>. A transdenominational organization located in Unity Village, Missouri, Unity is dedicated to supporting people of all faiths on their spiritual journeys and to helping them apply positive spiritual principles in their daily lives. Unity is on the Internet at <http://www.unityonline.org>.
The notices in this section have been edited for clarity, but we can pass along only the information we were given. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the statements made or the quality of the products for sale.
For Sale:
Judith Lung has a brand new PAC Mate BX with a 20-cell Braille display. It has all the features and accessories needed for an efficient and convenient accessible pocket PC. Asking $2,999 plus shipping for the notetaker. Contact Judith Lung at <[email protected]>.
For Sale:
Dennis Farro is selling the following items:
1. Brand-new, unused Perkins Brailler--$375
2. Bookport with user guide, USB cable, Braille instruction manual, and batteries, never used--$230
3. Epson cx7800, all-in-one printer/copier/scanner, straight-out-of-the-box--$130
4. Adaptive tech carrying case. This is a soft-pack fabric carrying case measuring 10.5-by-13.5 inches, designed for carrying notetakers and other adaptive equipment. Has a large outside pocket for cables and smaller devices. Comes with a shoulder strap for easy transport--$30
If interested in any of these items, contact Dennis Farro at <[email protected]> or by telephone at (803) 714-7890.