Volume 36 Number 4 Convention 2017
A magazine for parents and teachers of blind children published by
the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults in partnership
with the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children.
Deborah Kent Stein, Editor
ISSN-0883-3419
Copyright © 2017 American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
For more information
about blindness and children contact:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230 • (410) 659-9314
www.nfb.org/nopbc • [email protected] • [email protected]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Convention Revisited
by Deborah Kent Stein
NOPBC CONFERENCE
Kid Talk
by Mark Riccobono
#Howweseeit
by Kim Cunningham
The Impact of Disability Simulations
by Arielle Silverman
Enable Your Child to Succeed Academically
by Denise Robinson
Student Perspectives
by Hank Miller, Julia Gebert, and Lindsay Adair
It's Recess Time!
by Deja Powell
NOPBC AWARDS AND OTHER HONORS
Twig Awards
Presented by Carol Castellano, Jean Bening, and Kim Cunningham
Twig Book Award
Presented by Carol Castellano
Dan Ryles Memorial Award
Presented by Carol Castellano
2017 Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award
Presented by Carla McQuillan
NOPBC BOARD MEETING
Bigger, Better, Brighter
by Anil Lewis
Targeting Independence
by Amy Lund
Preparing for the Future: Services for Transition Age Students
by Dick Davis
NFB GENERAL SESSIONS
Leadership in Literacy: How Do We Know What We Do Not Know?
by Marc Maurer
Breaking Blind: Staying Fit with a Dose of Federation Love, Hope, and Determination
by Maureen Nietfeld
CONVENTION EXPERIENCE
Strutting Their Stuff
by Gary Wunder
Growing Up in the NFB
by Michelle M.
NFB Convention Reflections
by Alyssa Shock
NFB AWARDS
A Word of Thanks to Our Scholarship Partners
by Patti Chang
Meet the 2017 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Class
Presented by Patti Chang
The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards
Presented by Jim Gashel
ANNOUNCEMENTS
ODDS AND ENDS
Are you the parent of a blind or visually impaired child? Don’t know where to turn?
Founded in 1983, the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC) is a membership organization of parents, educators, and friends of blind children reaching out to give each other vital support, encouragement, and information. We have thousands of members in all fifty states plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.
The NOPBC offers hope, encouragement, information, and resources for parents of blind or visually impaired children. NOPBC provides emotional support and a network of other families dealing with the same challenges you are facing. We also provide information, training, and resources to empower you to take an active role in guiding your child’s development and education. We can provide information on your child’s rights and on the laws and legislative issues that will enable you and your child to become strong and effective advocates.
Have you ever wondered what your blind or visually impaired child will be capable of when he or she grows up? The answer to that question is that blindness/visual impairment does not have to stop your child from doing anything he or she wants to do. We can connect you with other families and blind adults who can serve as positive mentors and role models. They can teach you the attitudes and techniques that will enable your child to become independent and to succeed in life.
What is different about the NOPBC?
Our status as a division of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the largest and most influential organization of blind people in the world, provides many benefits. Our members are well informed about the societal, legislative, and technological issues that affect blind people. We also enjoy the resources, support, and expertise of fifty thousand blind people who can serve as mentors and role models for us and our children. Finally, as our children grow up, they have the Federation to belong to.
No other organization for parents of blind/visually impaired children offers more programs, activities, and training to families, children, and youth. One of our most exciting activities is our annual conference. Every year since it was established, the NOPBC has conducted an annual conference for parents and teachers of blind children as part of the national convention of the NFB. The program has grown to include five exciting days of workshops, training sessions, activities for all family members, including sighted siblings, and countless opportunities to meet blind adults and other families and children from around the country.
What is the mission of the NOPBC?
The purpose of the NOPBC is to:
Most states have an NOPBC affiliate chapter. You can find your state chapter at http://www.nopbc.org. If your state does not have a chapter and you would like to start one, please contact us. We may be able to offer training and other assistance to start a state NOPBC chapter.
What are the programs, activities, publications, and resources of the NOPBC?
Contact Us:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
[email protected]
www.nopbc.org
by Deborah Kent Stein
"What in the world is happening here? Where did all these people come from?" a startled guest asked me in the lobby of the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel. Around us were hundreds of blind people of all ages, some with guide dogs, and others with long white canes.
"What's happening is the annual convention of the National Federation of the Blind," I explained. "We come from all over the United States and from a lot of other countries, too."
Every year thousands of blind people, along with our families and friends, gather for the annual convention of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). The NFB convention is an event unlike any other. It is an extravaganza of information and communication, a festival of connection and renewal for the blind community. People come to share ideas and strategies. They leave with fresh energy, exciting plans, and new friendships.
The 2017 convention of the National Federation of the Blind took place from July 10 to July 15 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in Orlando, Florida. The annual conference of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC) was held on the opening day, with a wide assortment of presentations and workshops related to the needs and abilities of blind children. Additional presentations were given during the annual NOPBC board meeting on July 12, and other sessions of particular interest to parents were scheduled throughout the week. While the parents were busy in these sessions, children played in NFB Childcare and teens enjoyed a variety of Youth Track activities.
Convention general sessions were held from July 13 through July 15. Speakers provided information about groundbreaking new technologies, shared powerful stories of personal growth and achievement, and pondered philosophical issues around blindness. Convention week culminated with the annual banquet and a stirring address by NFB President Mark Riccobono. You can listen to the general sessions and President Riccobono's banquet speech by visiting https://nfb.org/national-convention-highlights.
This issue of Future Reflections can only capture a few of the highlights from the 2017 convention. If you were able to attend, the articles and photos gathered here may remind you of people you met and things that you and your children experienced for the first time. If you were not able to go to convention last summer, we hope you will be inspired to join us in 2018. Let's go build the Federation!
by Mark Riccobono
From the Editor: By long-standing tradition, the President of the National Federation of the Blind visits with the blind children who attend the opening session of the NOPBC Conference with their parents. This year President Mark Riccobono sat on the floor in a circle of blind children to talk about blindness and life in general.
Mark Riccobono: Can you all tell me your names? Okay, I hear Emma, Paul, Elizabeth, Oriana ... Oriana? I think I know you! [Laughter. Oriana is his daughter.] Who else is here? Jordan, Collin, Kayleigh, Nick, Nathaniel, Marly, Matthew, Abby, Amelia, Darius, Lily, Alexis. This is a great turnout! Okay, I have a very important question. We're in Florida. What do you call an alligator in a vest?
Matthew: A croc vest?
Mark Riccobono: Anybody else? An investigator! Now, do you guys know what potential is? Who said yes? Elizabeth, tell me what potential is.
Elizabeth: When something could do something.
Mark Riccobono: Anybody have something to add? Well, potential is exactly what you said, and potential is what you're building at this convention. All these folks are listening in on our conversation—they want to help you build your potential.
Child: I get scared of eating corn. Corn is poisonous.
Mark Riccobono: I can see your point. I'm from Wisconsin, and we always looked over at Iowa that way. [Laughter] Trying new things is a little scary, but when you do it, you build your potential.
Child: Zip lining.
Mark Riccobono: Zip lining! Yes! Do you like to zip line?
Child: Not that much.
Mark Riccobono: Okay, you've done it, but you don't necessarily like it. One beautiful thing that you have here in the National Federation of the Blind is a whole network of people. Many of them do not even know you, but they want you to build your potential. You know what you need to use that potential for? To pursue your dreams. Anybody have dreams?
Chorus: Yeah!
Mark Riccobono: You need lots of potential to pursue big dreams and small dreams. We're here to help you with that. That's the first message I want to leave you with today. Anybody like to play?
Chorus: Yeah!
Mark Riccobono: Well, if you work hard in your life, you get to play hard. The more you work, the more you get to play. In order to build your potential and pursue your dreams, you've got to work hard and play hard. That's the other message I want to give you. Any questions?
Collin: What state are you from?
Mark Riccobono: Great question. I live in Maryland, and I'm originally from the great state of Wisconsin. What state are you from?
Collin: Texas.
Mark Riccobono: A small state, with lots of potential.
Kayleigh: I'm from Louisiana.
Mark Riccobono: Kayleigh's from Louisiana. You drove here? You didn't drive yourself, did you? What do you guys like to do for fun? ... Painting ... I heard reading ... Swimming ... Sneak a cookie! That's a sport right there! Who said sneak a cookie?
Nathaniel: Me. Nathaniel.
Mark Riccobono: So if anybody wants to know how to sneak a cookie, we have an expert here. If you hear that someone else is really good at doing something, like swimming, or sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar, you can talk to them. You can find out what they do and how they do it.
Nathaniel: I do it when I'm in time out.
Mark Riccobono: Oh! He sneaks the cookies when he's in time out! He's already in trouble to begin with! That's pretty good! Anybody else have things they like to do?
Chorus: Swimming!
Mark Riccobono: I think we have a whole group that wants to go to the pool. There are three pools in this hotel. Any other questions?
Jordan: How do you sneak a cookie?
Mark Riccobono: Jordan, I could give you hints about this privately, but since my daughter Oriana is here, I don't want to disclose. Oriana might learn how to do it.
Oriana: I already know.
Mark Riccobono: Oh! She says she knows how to do it already! We'll talk about that later. Okay, I hope you all will come to many more conventions to build your potential and pursue your big dreams. And here's the other thing—if you want to talk to me about anything, come up to the Presidential Suite, and we can continue the conversation.
by Kim Cunningham
Introduction by Laura Bostick: Kim Cunningham is mother to three kids and five grandkids. Her youngest daughter, Kayleigh, is blind, and now employed (yay!) with the National Federation of the Blind of Texas. Kim currently serves as the NOPBC president and also as president of Texas Parents of Blind Children. She has a passion for helping blind children navigate the education system. She has been a member of the NFB since 2008, when she attended her first national convention.
Good morning, everyone! Welcome to the 2017 NOPBC National Conference! And if you are from the south, please allow me to translate that for you—“Hey, you’all! Glad yer here!”
First, I must say what a wonderful opportunity it is to serve as the president of NOPBC! I would never have dreamed in a thousand years that this is where my life would take me. What a beautiful journey it has been! I have learned that there are many ways to accomplish a task (please don't tell my husband I said that.) I have learned that different is okay. I have learned that you have to walk through fear to understand that there was nothing to be afraid of. I have learned that a family can be stronger than ten thousand men, and yet one person can build a seemingly impenetrable wall. I have had the opportunity to meet so many people in the same situations, seeking answers to the same questions.
It is my passion to work with families to spread the news that the words blindness and independence can be used together. I know that many of you came this week seeking to understand more about raising blind children. You are in the right place.
You may have noticed that our theme for this year is #HOWWESEEIT. And you must all think that we are a bunch of Twitter tweeters, so you may be surprised to know that I don't tweet on Twitter. I can barely say it, let alone do it! Actually, the idea for this year's conference title came in response to a social media fundraising campaign that circulated on Twitter, Facebook, and TV last year. It was a campaign by the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) called #HOWEYESEEIT. This fundraiser caused quite a commotion within the blind community.
Please know that we are not against fundraising, and we wholeheartedly support research! The problem occurred because FFB did not seek or want input from the blind community when planning this campaign. Members of the NFB told FFB that this campaign would have a negative impact on the blind community. We were ignored, and they did it anyway.
This is what the FFB did. The Foundation Fighting Blindness asked sighted people to take part in a blindness simulation activity. The participants were asked to wear sleepshades to simulate blindness, and then they were asked to do a certain task. The participants did not have a cane or know of any of the tools and training that blind people use throughout the day. As a result, the sighted people became disoriented and were unable to attend confidently to any given task. They ended the activity feeling sorry for blind people and thinking that if you can't see, you are "unable." They were sad for blind people, so they donated a lot of money to help cure this horrible blindness.
During this time my blind daughter was looking for a job. She had attended a four-year university and received her degree in elementary education. At that point, she was on about her seventieth job application, and still no job. She couldn't even get a job at a day-care center. Potential employers saw her as a safety risk, both for herself and for her students. Never mind that she had just completed four years of college independently. School personnel couldn't believe that a blind person could live independently, let alone manage a classroom full of children. This was the exact message that the FFB was sending. They were showing the message on all of the social media sites so that millions of people would have that image imprinted on their brains!
This FFB campaign made me angry! Why must people perpetuate these myths about blindness? The participants doing these blindness simulations were our children's potential employers and teachers and friends. What are they going to think when a blind person applies for a job at their business? What if one of these participants had a blind person as their child's teacher?
We don't want the public to see our blind children as people to be pitied. We want people to know that if your child becomes blind, it will be okay. Your blind children can have jobs and get married and have children if they want. We know our blind children can grow into successful adults, accomplishing much along the way—if they are provided with the proper tools and training.
We as parents, professionals, and friends of blind and low vision children want FFB and all others to know that blindness is not going to hold our children back. This is #HOWWESEEIT! We see that if given the right training, our children can learn the skills to lead successful, independent lives. We see our children master spelling bee competitions, bake cookies and pies, ride bikes, ski, march in the marching band, rollerskate, and skateboard. We see our children compete on the debate team, mow the grass, rake the leaves, take out the trash, clean their rooms (sometimes), and do their homework. We see that our children are happy and joyous. We see that our children are brave and brilliant. We see limitless possibilities. We see ordinary futures for ordinary people who happen to be blind. We see a community of leaders and movers and shakers!
The NOPBC would like to spread the message that blindness will not hold your children back from living the lives they want. We want to encourage your children to spread their wings and dream their own dreams. And we want to walk with you along your journey.
We hope you find this week to be life-changing. The NOPBC board members have worked hard to provide meaningful workshops and activities. Please thank them when you see them this week. They give of their time freely, and I am thankful to call them all my friends. The truth is it is going to take every one of us working together to educate the public about what it means to be blind or to have low vision. We must work together to change the misconceptions about blindness. Blind and low-vision children can lead very independent and fulfilling lives—just like everyone else—as long as they are provided with the proper training. The general public should know that our kids can be future employees, parents, and friends. They are not amazing for finding their classrooms at school, tying their shoes, or doing countless other everyday tasks expected of their sighted peers. Our kids are certainly amazing in other ways, just as all children are amazing; we need to educate the public so people understand this fact.
I know we are all busy, and we sometimes can feel "too busy." But please join us in building a stronger community. As President Riccobono reminded me, the NFB is not a certain select group of people. It is a collective us!
Please take the information that you will learn this week and go back into your community to help build change. Our children are depending on us to build a better future for them. Please join us in sharing our message. Please help us show the world #HOWWESEEIT! Thank you!
by Arielle Silverman
Introduction by Kim Cunningham: Arielle Silverman offers disability research and training services to organizations nationwide. She received her doctorate in social psychology from the University of Colorado/Boulder in 2014. Arielle has been an active member of the National Federation of the Blind for fourteen years. Previously she served as president of the National Association of Blind Students (NABS) and of the Greater Seattle Chapter of the NFB. Please welcome Dr. Silverman.
I'm going to talk today about the research that I did for my dissertation. It's a dissertation, so I could probably talk for hours if you guys let me!
By way of background, I have been totally blind since birth. I have Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA). I always felt growing up that blindness was just an ordinary part of me. It was about as normal as being female. It was never something I gave a lot of thought to. It never really occurred to me to feel bad about my blindness or to see it as a limitation, except when other people felt that way.
Obviously, most people don't see blindness as a normal characteristic. I decided to get my doctorate in social psychology because I wanted to understand better why so many people are afraid of blindness, have negative ideas about the abilities of blind people, and discriminate against blind people. I wanted to figure out why this happens so we can see what we can do about it.
When I started graduate school I studied theories about human judgment and decision-making. I found some research findings that bear on where people's attitudes about blindness come from. One of these is known as the impact bias. It's the tendency to overestimate how strongly and for how long we will react to life events. For example, there have been studies in which people pretend that they have won the lottery. They're asked to imagine that five years ago they won the lottery and to think about what their quality of life would be. Then the researchers asked actual lottery winners to describe their quality of life after five years, and they found that people overestimated how happy they would be. People don't realize that eventually life gets back to normal. The high of winning the lottery doesn't last forever.
People make the same mistake in the opposite direction about disabilities. When people imagine what it would be like to lose the ability to walk, they think it would be worse than it actually is. People tend to dwell on the beginning phases of a disability, when it's really scary and they don't have coping skills. They don't realize that when you have a disability, eventually you adapt. That's called the impact bias.
The other relevant theory is that when we think about other people's experiences, we tend to use our own experience as a reference point. When sighted people think about blindness and try to imagine how blind people feel or perform everyday activities, to what extent do they try to put themselves in the shoes of blind people? Do they imagine being blind, imagine how they would feel, even close their eyes and imagine doing something in the dark in order to make a judgment about what blindness is like? Because of the impact bias, I predicted that sighted people would overestimate how bad blindness is because they tend to think about the beginning stages and how scary it is when you first close your eyes and try to do something without blindness skills.
These findings really got me interested in studying blindness simulations. Simulations are activities in which people pretend to have disabilities, such as by wearing a blindfold and pretending to be blind. I discovered that simulations are popular among educators and others who are curious about blindness. I found that a lot of educators were confident that simulations are a great idea, that they promote empathy and understanding. I also noticed that a lot of blind people and others with disabilities were opposed to simulations. As a member of the Federation I was very interested in the tension between blind people and the professionals who work with us.
I designed a series of experiments and worked with my husband, Jason, who is sighted. We were in the same doctoral program, and we were dating at the time. We collaborated on an experiment. We had college students come into the psychology lab. By a random coin flip some were selected to wear a blindfold and others were not. We had a bunch of comparison groups. We had some who did nothing, we had some who did simulation tasks without any equipment on, and we had some who watched videos of other people doing simulations. The main comparison was between people who wore blindfolds and people who did not. We had our subjects do a series of tasks, including navigating a classroom and later on navigating a hallway with a zigzag in the middle. When they navigated the hallway they used canes, but we did not give them any cane instruction. We just said, "Use this cane to avoid running into obstacles."
We also had people sort coins into piles, based on their denominations. That task was inspired by an incident when I dropped a bunch of coins and realized that a newly blind person might have a really hard time finding them. We had people pour a glass of water, and in one experiment we had them write their names on a chalkboard.
The subjects did all of these things, some with blindfolds on and some without. Afterwards all of the subjects filled out questionnaires. Because we were concerned about bias in the students' responses, I was not allowed anywhere near the sessions. My presence might have an effect on how people responded. Jason, my husband, was in charge of managing the experiments. Either he ran them himself or he trained research assistants to run them.
Jason told me a lot of stories about how terrified, confused, and distressed the students were while they wore the blindfolds. One person actually ripped off the blindfold and said, "Thank God I'm not blind!" From where I sit, that's really not a desirable outcome for an educational exercise! It reinforces people's idea that they're glad they're not blind. They're glad they're not like me.
On the questionnaires the students answered questions about what they thought blindness was like in general. For instance, they had to write "Agree" or "Disagree" for the statement, "If I were blind, I would do anything to get my sight back." We had the subjects rate emotional reactions, such as how often they thought blind people felt angry, sad, lonely, or scared. Also we had them rate blind people as a group regarding eight different activities. Some were professional activities such as being an elementary school teacher. We also had them rate blind people's abilities to live in their own house or apartment. Blind people and sighted people were compared in their skills related to these activities. A ‘1’ indicated that blind people are much worse at performing the activity, a ‘4’ meant that they are equal to sighted people, and a ‘7’ meant that they are much better. We threw in a few decoy items, such as asking how good blind people are at recognizing voices and navigating in the dark. That way people could feel good about giving blind people some high scores, and they could be more honest about the other questions.
We found that the students who had been blindfolded felt that blindness was worse, that it was a more debilitating condition. They were more likely to agree with statements such as, "If I were blind, I would do anything to get my sight back." They thought that blind people experience more negative emotions than sighted people do on a daily basis, particularly fear, loneliness, distress, confusion, and frustration. Incidentally, those were the feelings they themselves experienced when they had the blindfolds on.
Most importantly, when we looked at their ratings on various activities, subjects who had been blindfolded felt that blind people could not perform as well as sighted people, compared with the subjects who had not been blindfolded. For example, a higher percentage of the blindfolded students believed that blind people cannot live independently in their own houses or apartments, or at least not as well as a sighted person can.
Finally, when we looked more carefully at the mechanism behind these judgments, we asked students to imagine that they just became blind. We asked them to rate at six-month intervals how limiting blindness would be in their lives. They used a scale of 1 to 10, where 0 was not at all limiting, and 10 was as limiting as it could possibly get. They actually drew graphs to show how limiting blindness would be from immediately after to three years after. We found that basically everybody agreed that immediately after becoming blind it would be a 9 or a 10, very limiting. But the students who had not been blindfolded expected that over time blindness would get easier. The students who had been blindfolded also expected that blindness would get easier, but at a slower rate. When we looked at the predictions of how limited they would be three years after becoming blind, that number was significantly higher for the blindfolded students than it was for the unblindfolded students. The blindfolded students thought that their abilities and their quality of life would recover less over time compared with the control students who were not blindfolded.
These results told us that blindness simulations done the way we did them play into the impact bias. They get people hyper-focused on the initial minutes after becoming blind and lose track of the adaptations that happen over time. Consequently, when we asked people to judge how employable blind people are, how well they can teach elementary school, the blindfolded students thought that blind people would be more disabled.
Any good research project raises more questions than it answers. I think this project raises a lot of questions about what kind of blindfold simulation, if any, is beneficial. I think these results tell us that if you slap blindfolds on people and ask them to fend for themselves, and don't give them any training or instruction or exposure to blind role models, these people are likely to have an experience that is negative and scary. That type of experience will reinforce what they already believe about blindness. People already have fears and misconceptions about blindness, and if you give them an experience with blindness that is what they expected it to be, their attitudes are going to be reinforced.
Simulations such as those done on #HOWEYESEEIT and some of the simulations that are done in schools can do harm. They reinforce people's existing biases and stereotypes. A blindfold simulation is a bit like taking people's attitudes and melting them down under a heat lamp.
The research also suggests that if you give people a positive experience of blindness, maybe it will reduce prejudice and discrimination. That's a hypothesis that is yet to be tested. The cane walk that you can do tomorrow, where you can choose to put on sleepshades and walk around with a cane, might give you a positive experience. It might give you a more positive view of the abilities of blind people when they use canes.
The last thing I'll say about simulations is that I think they might be a good way to teach about environmental barriers. In order for that to work, though, the simulation must be set up in such a way that the person experiences both accessibility and inaccessibility side by side. Otherwise it's hard to draw the conclusion that challenges are related to accessibility.
I've heard parents talk about having the classmates of a blind child be blindfolded to get an experience with blindness. If you decide to do this, if you simply have the children put on blindfolds and hang on for a while, it's likely to scare them. The traditional blindness simulation is likely to reinforce a lot of negative attitudes. But if you have the child put on a blindfold and experience a game that is not accessible and then experience an alternative game such as goalball, that experience can teach a lot of good stuff about the importance of accessibility.
If you want to get in touch with me, my email address is [email protected]. I look forward to having further dialog with you on this important topic.
by Denise Robinson
Introduction by Kim Cunningham: Dr. Denise Robinson is a teacher of the visually impaired. She founded Tech Vision to write lessons for teachers, parents, and students that can enhance learning through emerging technology. Please give your attention to Dr. Robinson.
I created Tech Vision because technology instruction will give you vision. I've been teaching for about thirty years. I often tell teachers and parents that they must always teach today what the child will need tomorrow. So what are the tools we need to use right now, and what are we expected to use in the years ahead?
Let's do some unofficial research and see whether it matches the real research. Say "Aye!" if you use a smartphone. [Enthusiastic chorus of ayes] Say "Aye!" if you use a Mac. [Scattered Ayes] Say "Aye!" if you use a PC. [larger Aye response] Say "Aye!" if you use both a Mac and a PC. [very small response]
You get the idea here. Top Pew research (I love that name, P E W!) says that 80 to 90 percent of respondents use a smartphone and a computer. The top computer that is used is the PC. It is used especially for the low-vision and blind child.
Apple did a phenomenal job with the Mac. It's a great machine, but there is better and there is best. Teach the best tool first, the tool that will do anything and everything—and that is the PC. Teach that first!
Please take clear note of what you just heard. The PC is the tool your child needs right now, and it will serve your child tomorrow. It takes years to learn that computer well, so start as early as you can. Taking on a high school student who does not know the PC is a bit like doing emergency room triage, where you're working to stop the bleeding. The student needs to learn the computer primarily and then focus on other educational tools. If you start with these kids really young, they can learn it all, and learn it well.
Your kids are amazing—but no one will know it unless they can use a PC inside and out. No one will know how brilliant your child is if he or she only uses an iPad or a BrailleNote, or if your child dictates the work to a paraprofessional.
Ideally, when a child is three years old, I begin instruction on Braille and technology. By kindergarten these students are doing all of the same work the other kids are doing. No extra help is required. They've got the skills they need.
Don't panic! You can start right now. I've taken on many high school students who only knew the BrailleNote or iPad or Mac. They were very limited by what they could do with those tools. If your child cannot do everything his peers are doing, with the same speed and efficiency, he's using the wrong tool. Possibly he has the wrong instructor.
Once a blind child sees that she can do everything the other kids are doing when she uses the PC, it will become her go-to machine. All others are supplementary. If a child can get a vision of who she is and what she can do, regardless of visual acuity, she will be unstoppable. But the blind child needs the right tech instruction and the right tool to bring out her brilliance.
Let me emphasize that I'm talking about the low-vision child, too. He also needs a computer. Typically our low-vision kids are the ones who are falling through the cracks. The PC computer and the smartphone are the primary tools your blind or low-vision child needs to learn. They are the tools your child will use to access the world—all of it.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm pretty passionate about this field. Why? Let me tell you my story.
I grew up with an incredibly strict father who ruled with an iron fist. We attended a church that did not believe in going to doctors. At sixteen I went into a diabetic coma. My mother was watching me die, day in and day out. If not for her bravery in standing up to my father and taking me to the hospital, I would not be speaking to you right now. My last memories were of gasping for breath at our home.
Years of total lack of care resulted in that outcome. Later I was scolded by family and church members for using insulin. Let me tell you—don’t play Russian roulette with diabetes!
During my last semester of college both of my eyes hemorrhaged. Since I had no idea how to function with little usable sight, I dropped out of school. I was in my twenties, and I had no blindness skills.
I varied between crying and being numb. I was broken—or at least I thought so. I did basically nothing other than going to doctor appointments and undergoing procedures. I was dependent on those around me.
Three months into my journey of dependence, my life took an unexpected turn. A friend asked if I wanted a change of scenery, so to speak—something different from sitting around the house knitting. She was taking night classes, and she said I could sit in the back of the room while she attended her lectures. So I sat in the back of a very large, noisy room and knitted away, listening to all the exchanges of conversation.
Suddenly the room got quiet. Then I heard prayer, and then someone started to speak about how good God was. The anger that poured through me was unspeakable. I swear, I had smoke coming out my ears! I stood up and spewed out the most awful, hateful words! Everyone became very quiet, listening to my condemnation of all they believed. When I was spent, the leader asked why I believed all that. Tears poured from my eyes as I retched up my past, the least of which was the hemorrhaging of my eyes and the need to drop out of college during my last semester.
With great loving kindness, the leader asked if the students could lay hands on me. Slowly, surely, hands were laid upon me one by one as each of the students prayed over the broken parts of my life and asked for the recovery of my sight. I was broken all over—a broken heart, soul, and spirit. Loss of sight was nothing compared to all of the other things that were broken in me.
You all probably want to know if I was miraculously healed when they were done praying. Did I get my sight back? I did not, not one iota! But I gained peace—an incredible peace that overwhelmed me. And a few days later I had a vision of what to do next.
I had no idea about training programs for the blind. Good grief, I'd never even met a blind person! I did know that I needed to go back to college, and I needed to develop blindness skills. I found a great blindness training program at the university. A friend helped me get into the dorm, and I began to study all things blind. I lived totally independently as I gained my skills.
All my books were on cassette tape. I used a very large cassette player, heavy enough to give me muscles from carrying it around. I also learned on an Apple 2GS—anybody remember that one? I carried my Perkins Brailler with me, and let me tell you, that thing is hard to pack! I rejoiced when the Braille ‘n Speak came along!
As my attitude changed, so did my life. As my perspective grew positive, what I had viewed as negative lost its power over me.
We all go through hard times. I bet just about every one of you could tell a story like mine. Those of us who gain a positive attitude can go forth and make change for ourselves and those around us. We may not have total control over our circumstances, but we always have control over our attitudes. Our attitudes determine what we can do with our circumstances.
I grew more powerful in my understanding of the blind world when I met a teacher named Ted Lennox, and then Fred Gissoni of the American Printing House for the Blind. Then I met Abe Nemeth, the guy who developed the Nemeth Braille Code for mathematics. They were great mentors, and they made all the difference in the world for me.
Ted Lennox was one of the most incredible people I've ever known. He was one of my first true teachers on how blind people can live and what we need in order to achieve our goals. Ted was my constant go-to person while I was in school. Fred was my go-to when I got a job. And Abe—well, he added to everything they taught me. I applied every principle they taught me in my daily life, and eventually in my career. It shaped the way I teach my students. I learned that losing my sight, which I thought was a bad thing, could turn into one of the best things that ever happened to me. I was finding great opportunities to change what it means to be blind.
Ted was sixty when I met him, over thirty years ago. Fred and Abe were up there, too. Ted taught blind students in his career. He also taught college-level classes on all things blind. As I gained blind skills, I wanted to become a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI). When I gained my degree I taught under Ted to gain more experience.
Our students had computers on rolling carts; there were no laptops back then! The students wheeled their computers around the school to do their work. They came to Ted and me a period or two a day to continue their blindness training. They did not get less work or more time than their classmates. They met the same standards that applied to all the other students. The only accommodations they had were Braille for reading and the computer for typing their work.
Ted taught us to memorize everything—shortcut keys, configurations, everything. I could remember a string of numbers fifteen or twenty digits long. I want to add a caveat here. Be careful of Siri! Let’s face it, we humans are lazy.
Ted grew up like most other kids. He rode bikes and fell down. He threw balls, got hit by them, got up, and kept playing. And yes, he had chores to do. He had beautiful blue fake eyes. He used the typewriter to output his work, and he read Braille books. He was taught by a TVI when he was young. No para, and no extra time—he did the work, just as requested.
In the beginning Ted did a lot of his schoolwork verbally. His TVI corrected all the mistakes he made in those beginning years. Then Ted learned to type. He realized he did not know how to spell or even type out a sentence.
When he got older, Ted was always the first person to try out new technology. He brought it back to our classroom. We all used it and gained the power to access the world.
Over the next ten to fifteen years, my sight slowly returned, still with deficits. But my vision of who I was and what I could do had become clear when I gained blindness skills in my twenties.
As I began teaching full time, I followed the principles I was taught. I saw kids break through the glass ceiling of what others thought the blind could not do. I wanted people to stop saying, "This is amazing!" My constant goal is to show everyone that these are just kids who use a computer, other technology, and Braille to access the world. When I've had students for a few years, their teachers expect them to do all the work just like everyone else. My students don't have a para or TVI beside them in class, but they get daily virtual instruction to teach them what they need to do on the computer. Blind and low-vision students in the classroom can text a question about a command they forgot and immediately get an answer. Daily tech instruction enables them to get their work done in the most efficient manner. Most of the time they work faster than their sighted peers.
These students learn to do their work using the most advanced skills in PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and Google. They can do it without long homework nights, or at least no longer than any other kid in class. They are able to access all parts of their education, and when they graduate they are ready for the world.
Recently I took on a high school student who was in advanced placement (AP) classes, yet he did all his work verbally, by dictating his answers. He could not spell or write a sentence on his own. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. Basically, the student's para had been doing all the work, and no one really knew that. The parents insisted that this boy take AP classes. Worse still, they insisted that he must get A's, or else!
The teachers were totally stressed out. They pushed the kid through, due to the parents' negativity and constant interference. That one parent took more of the teacher's time than the whole class combined. This situation also resulted in sighted classmates, teachers, and administrators viewing blind and low-vision students as hopeless, privileged, and unable to do the work. This boy had no friends.
I've had several students in this scenario. Even after four years of computer instruction and work on basic skills, they fail in college immediately. Some go back home and are still there.
One thing to keep clear is this: teamwork is essential! Willingness to work with your school district will result in positive outcomes at least 95 percent of the time. I've worked in some schools where a bit more pressure is needed, and sometimes parents have to apply it to show what their children can do. Your child may be the first blind person the principal ever met. Your attitude will determine how everyone in the school views the blind population from then on.
Research shows that placing a person next to your child to help her all or part of the time will undermine her confidence and her will to do things on her own. She will never learn to be independent. Eventually this plays out very poorly, adding to that nasty 75 percent unemployment rate for the blind. When you get the right technology instruction in place, the computer will allow your child to do everything the other students are doing. More importantly, she will gain confidence in herself as a person. She will know that she can contribute in the world. Friendships develop because others will come to her for help. Roles reverse as the blind student becomes the go-to person.
Once your child learns skills, if he refuses to do the work, let him face the natural consequences. If he fails, let him get a failing grade. Teach your child self advocacy, and slowly but surely back away.
I haven't mentioned orientation and mobility (O&M) yet. You can have the best academics in the world, but if you do not know how to travel well, that knowledge will do you no good. Get excellent O&M skills also.
Attitude determines aptitude. Like a plane full of fuel, a positive, hardworking personal attitude will fly high. It is our will, not our circumstances, that changes our path. As parents you are in the driver's seat right now. I know you may feel pressured as you try to figure out the right path. Just remember how this speech started. What was the most used technology? Remember the two main tools that your child must learn. Get him the best advantages in life that will help him reach his true potential. At a minimum it will take a computer PC and a smartphone. Start as young as possible, but jump in no matter where you are. Find an instructor to teach your child what he must learn. All the other tools are supplementary. The PC and the smartphone come first. Then your child can learn to use a notetaker such as the BrailleNote, followed by all else. Some of you already have figured this out, and some of you have less-than-ideal situations. Learn from the stories!
I wish I could tell you that all of the schools know exactly what to do for your child. They do not! Sometimes you must go out and find an instructor.
Without the right instruction, the right tool will collect dust or become a toy. Your child may learn to hate it, based on the bad instruction that made learning it a struggle. Do not get a tool without the right instructor!
Right now you will have to do the legwork to find a great instructor and to show the school what your child can do with the right tool. Even if you can only find someone to teach the basics right now, continue looking for an instructor with more advanced skills. Your school will hire that person, because most schools want to do the right thing. In the past eight years, since I've owned my company, I've only had one school outright refuse to do it. The result of your hard work will be a successful child who will go on to meet her potential. She will do everything she dreams of doing and more.
One of my students just emailed me. All my students have expressed this same idea as they realize how far they have come. Jordan emails,
I wouldn't even be writing this email if it wasn't for you. You have revealed to me that blindness is not a limitation, but rather an innovation and a form of self-expression in a unique and wonderful way. You have taught me to go beyond my scope and explore new things, and that nothing is too big or too small for me to accomplish.
This is what I hope for all of you. Go in peace. Find the people. Get the tools. Show your children that nothing is too big or too small for them to accomplish.
by Hank Miller, Julia Gebert, and Lindsay Adair
From the Editor: Each year during the NOPBC conference, blind students share their experiences with the parents of blind children. This year parents heard from three teens: Hank Miller from New Jersey, Julia Gebert of Alaska, and Lindsay Adair from Louisiana.
Hank Miller: Good morning, everyone! I know some of you know my story and how I became a part of the Federation, but some of you don't. So allow me to tell my tale of denial, discovery, and determination.
It started when I was in elementary school. My parents realized that I was not doing as well as the other students. At the time I was reading large print. That's what I was doing up until second grade. My mother realized that my reading comprehension was plummeting. After long periods of reading, my eyes would get very strained. It was hard for me to focus on what I was reading.
My mother spoke to the school and asked for Braille instruction. Let's just say the school was less than eager to oblige. Fortunately, my mother was not going to go down without a fight. At that time she knew about the Federation, but she was apprehensive about asking for help. She didn't think the NFB would help a child who wasn't totally blind. She was happily proven wrong!
My mother finally got in contact with Carol Castellano. The next thing I knew, my mother was taking the school to court because they would not give me Braille instruction. This all started when I was in fourth grade, and the court case lasted for a year. Finally the judge ruled in our favor. I ended up getting an hour and a half of Braille instruction every day of the week.
I'm sixteen now, and I'm a sophomore in high school. I'm glad to say that I can read contracted Braille, which is how I'm reading this speech.
A couple months ago my mother asked me, "Do you want to give a speech at the NOPBC conference?" I said, "Sure," before asking what it was going to be about. When I did ask, she said it was to be directed toward new parents who might be apprehensive about the Federation, to show them by example how awesome the Federation is. My mother said I shouldn't just talk about the things I have done in my life as a success story.
I don't think success is a very good way to show how wonderful the Federation is. I'd rather talk about the hardships I've gone through. I've had my share of mental breakdowns. There have been times when I have been in complete self-pity and self-loathing because of my visual impairment. But there were always two things that kept me going. One is my amazing mother, who, with the help of the Federation and the NOPBC, knew exactly what I needed to hear as a blind child. Without her wise words, I honestly don't think I would be in the state of mind that I have right now.
The other thing that has kept me going is the family that I found through the Federation. No matter how much I might pity myself at certain times, there are always people who believe in me and everything that I do. I can't think of a single way my life would be better if my mother had not discovered the Federation and if I was not a part of this family.
Julia Gebert: Like everybody, sighted or blind, I have challenges, but blindness truly is not one of them. I am not going to deny that there are some negatives to being blind, but there are also many positive and neutral aspects. I see my blindness as simply a part of who I am.
I am a high school student who happens to be blind and a little bit short—well, a lot short! I prefer to think of myself as a high school student who happens to read Braille and use a long white cane.
One of the biggest helps to being okay with my blindness has been the ties I have with the blind community. Being a member of the NFB and attending its youth programs has allowed me to build relationships with some wonderful people. My NFB experiences have introduced me to some of my closest friends.
I've also gotten to know some of the NFB leadership during the three weeks I spent at the Louisiana Center for the Blind in the Buddy Program. Eric Guillory and Pam Allen challenged me to be better and to aspire to more than I believed I was capable of achieving. Their kindness and understanding were amazing.
Realizing my enjoyment of good food, Eric Guillory once asked me if I would be content living on a diet of boiled hot dogs and rolls. I quickly understood what he meant. He gave me more appreciation of the challenging, and sometimes intimidating, questions before me.
That said, I'm going to be completely honest. I still feel vulnerable and unsure of my abilities at times. Why am I insecure? Here are some of the things that happen in my life. Sometimes teachers excuse me from assignments, pair me with sighted partners, worry about me getting hurt on the playground, and basically water down their expectations because of their misunderstanding of blindness. Do you see why it is a challenge for blind kids to believe that they are equal and capable? It has been a never-ending struggle to convince people that, even though I am blind and small, I can do it.
After years of fighting for appropriate assistive technology training, this year I finally began overdue training with the PC and JAWS. With a tremendous amount of support from my technology instructors, Nate Kyle and Dr. Denise Robinson, both of whom are in the room today, I'm working to remove the words "I can't" from my vocabulary. This past year I have created data with Excel spreadsheets, written documents with properly formatted citations and footnotes, prepared PowerPoint presentations that include photographs with alt text, and more. To both of my instructors, I give my heartfelt thanks. I know you can attest that I often feel overwhelmed with worry, apprehension, frustration, and doubt. Please know that I am grateful that you both hold a fundamental belief in my abilities. Time and time again Denise and Nate have translated that belief into action. Even when I feel overwhelmed, they believe in me and continue to teach me the skills I need to make their belief a reality.
It is important for blind children and their parents to know blind people. I think that in a lot of ways blind kids are much better off than kids in a lot of other groups, because they have a network. Because we knew capable blind people my mother and I fought for appropriate technology training. It's not my blindness that has me feeling insecure at times, but rather, what others think about my blindness. Challenges are many, but my blindness is not one of them.
Lindsay Adair: It is a great pleasure to speak to you all today. I wish to share with you the idea that blindness is nothing more than a nuisance. As a blind person you can still be independent, despite your disability.
I myself am a blind student, and I am treated the same as any sighted one. Teachers give me the same assignments as any other student. I receive all of my materials in Braille, whether it be hard or electronic copy. I would like to thank my Braille teacher, Mrs. Crystal Guillory, and my para, Ms. Treva Olivero.
Cane travel instructors have taught me to walk independently with a long white cane. The cane is used in front of a person. I use mine to detect different surfaces, to keep from running into objects, and locate a building by its echo. When using my cane, combined with my senses of hearing and touch, I can detect streets, sidewalks, and parking lots. Once a week I receive a lesson in cane travel to help me better my skills. I recommend the long white cane for all blind people. It will ultimately lead to a life of independent travel.
We blind people can obtain cooking and independent living skills and learn to care for ourselves. I receive cooking lessons twice a month during the school year. I can use my other senses to help me. I can tell when a pot is boiling like a bubbling fountain, and I can smell a package to identify its contents. I can memorize where utensils are located and feel them to determine what they are.
I have also been training in other living skills. I can use certain apps on my phone such as my color identifier to match my clothes. I use my money reader to identify paper bills. The KNFB Reader, another application, can scan printed documents and read them to blind people. These apps have been a blessing to me. They benefit blind people in several ways. I can recommend these applications for you or your child.
Now that we have reviewed the ways blind people can be independent, I will explain ways that I entertain myself. I have often used my other senses to view a landscape or explore my surroundings. For example, the sound of the waves on the beach tells me I am getting close to the water. My imagination also plays a role in my entertainment. I often make up stories and write them on my Braille notetaker. There are also games blind people can play that can be downloaded onto a phone.
I understand that many people have apprehensions about blindness. But as Federationists say, it is not the characteristic that defines you or your life. Of course we have problems, but that is the case for everybody. I have ninety-nine problems, but blindness ain't one of them!
If you or your child or your student are blind, understand that blindness is only a nuisance and nothing more. Anyone can live with it and also be independent. Never put limitations on yourself or any blind person you may know.
Now I will conclude by saying, "Live the life you want!"
by Deja Powell
From the Editor: During the 2017 NOPBC conference, Deja Powell led a workshop exploring ways to encourage physical and social activity for blind children. This article is based on ideas that were discussed in that workshop. Deja Powell is a certified orientation and mobility instructor who has taught both children and adults. She is currently working on a PhD in K-12 education.
It's very important to get kids moving, but blind kids face some particular challenges. Many children's activities involve throwing and catching balls. As a blind child, I always found balls kind of scary. Playing dodgeball was not my favorite entertainment, and none of the other kids wanted me on their team.
Participation in social activities can be complicated, too. Parents sometimes observe their blind child sitting on the sidelines during recess.
Sometimes the blind child is discouraged from taking part in physical education (PE). The school is all too happy to comply if the parent brings in a doctor's note saying the child should be excused. This actually happened to me. I was taking dance and gymnastics classes outside of school, so I was excused from PE. As a result I missed a lot of interaction with my peers. Sometimes the school will come to parents and say, "What do you think about not having your child enroll in PE class? There are too many things in there that could be dangerous."
PE and recess often are considered the best times to pull out a child for orientation and mobility or other blindness-related training. It's important to remember that recess and PE are valuable parts of the school experience. Students learn new skills during those periods of the day, skills that are useful for all children, blind and sighted. Even the negatives about gym class can be valuable. Classmates bond as they grumble about ugly gym suits and embarrassing exercise routines.
I remember when the PE teacher would say, "We're going to go play softball out on the field." I would start to shake inside, wondering how I was going to play. I didn't have the confidence to go to my teacher and say, "Can we think about a solution here?" Instead, I tried to fake it. I pretended that I had typical vision. I'd stand in the outfield and hope the ball didn't come toward me. I didn't have a TVI who could help advocate for me. I had some sight, so they thought I didn't need Braille or O&M. Yet I couldn't play sports, and I couldn't even see the blackboard. I was very confused.
What can you do, as parents, to make sure your kids are included in these activities? Sometimes changing teachers or coaches can make all the difference. Having your child learn to interact with other kids at recess can actually be an IEP goal.
Sometimes an adaptive PE instructor can be helpful. These instructors specialize in working with kids who have various disabilities. They may bring in equipment such as beeping balls, and they'll work to get your child moving.
I have mixed feelings about adaptive physical education. I think it's great when it's used in the proper way. It gets complicated, though, when blind kids are pulled out of the regular class for one-on-one instruction. Separate instruction can be valuable for teaching certain skills and concepts. But the child who is pulled out on a regular basis misses the benefits of inclusion in the group, such as developing skills around teamwork. I encourage parents to advocate for the blind child to be included in group activities. Urge the adaptive PE instructor to work closely with the regular PE teacher. Together they can find ways to include the blind student in general PE activities. We all need to learn to work with others. That's part of life.
Interacting with kids on the playground can be very challenging for a blind child. Talk to your child about ways to approach other children. If your child is new to the group, it may be helpful for him or her to open the topic of blindness. Kids need to know that it's all right to ask questions. Once the topic is in the open, everybody can move on.
It's terribly easy for a blind child to be shunted to the side and left alone, waiting for something to happen. For this reason it's important to teach assertiveness skills early on. As a parent, you have to figure out when to intervene for your child and when to back off.
Parents can help their blind children by giving them information. At the pool a mother might tell her daughter, "There's another girl here, and she's trying to get your attention." I had to teach my mother cool ways to give me information instead of ways that embarrassed me. For instance, if she was holding a door open for me, I wanted her to tell me, "I have the door open," instead of shouting my name across the field! All parents embarrass their kids, though—that’s one of the perks of being a parent!
O&M training can teach children to pick up on a wide variety of information around them. But inevitably there will be times when they miss something. To this day there are times when someone tries to get my attention and I don't pick up on it. They might wave or gesture, or they might say something without referring to me by name. In high school I got a reputation for being kind of snooty because I ignored people when they waved to me. I didn't use a cane back then, and my classmates didn't know I was blind. I felt awkward when I realized suddenly that someone was talking to me. There's no perfect solution, but if your child uses a cane, people are more likely to understand that they can't just use visual cues.
When I was in high school I wanted to play sports, but I knew it wasn't going to work for me. I decided to be a cheerleader, which was second best. Years later my coach and I wrote an article about that experience. My coach said that she gave me a chance because I explained that I am blind when I told her I really wanted to be on the cheering squad.
Get your kid involved in some kind of group activity. It might be a sport, a play, a singing group, or a dance class. Any activity that involves others is a great opportunity for your child to start learning self-advocacy skills. She has to learn if she's on a team, or she won't get to participate at all. She'll lose out on the feeling of being included. I learned a lot about groups through my involvement in dance and gymnastics. Those activities really helped me pull out of my shell.
When I grew up, our house was Play Central. Kids were in and out all the time. Hosting play dates can be enormously helpful. You bring other kids to your home. Your child is on his own turf, where he feels most comfortable. He knows his own yard. Maybe he knows his favorite park. He can point things out and say, "Come here! This is my swing!" In a familiar situation he has the chance to know more than the other kids do.
When you go to a playground, walk around with your child and show her where things are. Tell her, "This is the slide, this is the jungle gym, and here are the monkey bars." Do this when you and your child are alone together so she has time to explore. Later she'll have confidence when she's on the playground with other kids.
If you don't know how to adapt an activity, get in touch with me and we'll talk about it. If I can't figure it out, there are lots of other people I can email to get ideas.
One time I asked a student what career he wanted to go into. He told me, "I can't do what I wanted to do before I went blind. I wanted to drill for oil." I didn't know any blind person who had drilled for oil, but I put out a message on a listserv. Within three days I found someone for this student to call. I said, "You've got to be kidding! There's a blind oil driller?" My student couldn't believe it either, but he went ahead and called this guy. We have an amazing network of people. If your child wants to do something unusual, it's very likely that there's a blind person doing it out there somewhere. That network is vitally important for you as parents and for us as teachers.
Sometimes our kids don't know things that we assume are intuitive. A lack of basic knowledge will really hold them back. One day I lined up a group of kids in a gym and told them to run. They all took off except for one little boy. I asked him, "Why aren't you running with the other kids?" He said, "I don't know what running is." It had never occurred to me that he had no idea how to run. We went through the motions step by step. I talked him through it.
If I say, "Okay, guys, we're going to do jumping-jacks!" sighted kids can look around and get the hang of it right away. They watch the kids who know what I mean, and they imitate their movements. If you're a blind kid, people may assume that you know what a jumping-jack is, but you might have no idea.
A lot of instruction in dance and other movement activities consists of an instructor modeling the movements from the front of the room. That doesn't work for us. We learn best through verbal explanation and touch. It can be offensive if an instructor just walks over and starts manipulating your body, but if he asks first, it's usually okay. Sometimes I'll say, "I'm not understanding this. Could you come over here and show me?"
When I teach movement to kids, I use a lot of songs such as "The Hokey Pokey" and "YMCA." You've never done "YMCA?" Okay, I'm going to teach you! I'm going to explain the movements verbally. Come on! Everybody stand up!
Y
Make a Y by holding your arms up over your head, straight up and out to the side at an angle.
M
Make the M by bending your hands in toward each other. Point your fingers down toward the top of your head. That's the M.
C
For the C you make a half circle with your arms. The open part of the half circle is toward your right.
A
For the A you put your hands above your head in a clapping position. Your arms form the strokes of the letter.
Okay, we're going to turn on the music. You're all ready to dance. Here we go!
[Deja leads the group in "YMCA," with everyone singing and dancing along.]
Presented by Carol Castellano, Jean Bening, and Kim Cunningham
Introduction by Carol Castellano: "As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined." These words from Alexander Pope are the inspiration behind the title of several awards presented by the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children. The NOPBC initiated the Twig Awards at our twenty-fifth anniversary banquet in 2008 to honor those whose work has influenced the direction in which our children grow.
That first year we presented twenty-six awards, one for each year of our existence and one to grow on. In the years since, we've continued to give awards to those whose work has changed the lives of our children.
The award itself is a medallion engraved with a tree and the words "As the Twig Is Bent Award" and "NOPBC Since 1983." The word NOPBC appears in Braille and print. On the back of the medallion are the recipient's name and the year. This year we will present four Twig Awards.
[Presented by Carol Castellano]
Anyone who has been active in Parents of Blind Children at the state level knows the critical importance of the NFB affiliate president to the health and success of the parents' division in that state. Our first Twig Award honors a longtime NFB state president, someone who has worked tirelessly for decades on behalf of blind adults and blind children and their families in Utah.
I don't know if you've ever met Ron Gardner. If you haven't, I hope you will. His warmth, friendliness, positive attitude, energy, and love of people will make you have a brighter day.
During Ron's long tenure as president of the NFB of Utah, the parents' division thrived. He gave support at every level—from sincere compassion and concern to helping parents get to state and national conventions, holding state seminars, and integrating parents and parent issues into convention agendas. Ron also volunteered to present the finances workshop at our Parent Leadership Training Seminars for many years. Ron’s love and caring for blind children and their families have been extraordinary.
[Presented by Jean Bening]
Our next Twig Award winner is another true friend of blind children and their families. Most of us know this person through the NOPBC Cane Walks at our national conventions. Originally recruited by Joe Cutter in 2001, he has participated in every Cane Walk since. For several years he has served as the coordinator of the walks, recruiting our volunteer instructors, providing the introductory lesson, and going out with families to teach. With his warm, welcoming personality and his empowering message, he is a favorite each year with families in their evaluations. Jeff Altman, would you come up to the front?
Jeff has lots of letters after his name, like those showing a master's degree and national certification. But he will tell you that what is really important in a cane teacher is knowing how to travel independently, knowing how to teach, and being able to empower students through exploration and the Structured Discovery Method.
We often hear on plaques in the NFB that a person's contribution is measured not in steps, but in miles. For Jeff Altman, this is quite literally true. Congratulations, Jeff, and thank you!
[Presented by Carol Castellano]
Our next recipient has the distinction of being the only member of the NOPBC board to serve continuously from Barbara Cheadle's presidency through Kim Cunningham's current presidency. She is a quiet, unassuming, modest individual who never asks for any public attention or glory, and she's probably going to kill us for doing this!
Jean Bening works behind the scenes to make every project she is involved with the best it can possibly be. She figures out what needs to be done and just does it. One example is procuring prizes for our NOPBC activities—she is a wonder! Another is our Cane Walk—every year it gets better and better due to Jean’s energy and organizational abilities.
Our lives and the lives of all blind children and their families have been enriched by Jean's efforts. Jean, here is your Twig Award.
[Presented by Kim Cunningham]
Our next Twig Award is given in memory of a very special person, Megan Bening. Receiving the award for Megan is her mother, Jean Bening. Megan passed away shockingly and unexpectedly in January, at the age of twenty-two. But we'd like to tell you about Megan's life.
Megan was first introduced to the NFB as a preschooler in Minnesota, when her TVI asked her if she'd like to be a Slate Pal with another little girl in California named Kyra Sweeney. The girls exchanged Braille letters for months, but after they exchanged phone numbers, that was the end of letters and the beginning of lots of phone conversations.
Kyra and her family convinced Megan and her mom and dad to check out the NFB convention. When the girls finally met in 2002, a lifelong friendship and tradition were born.
Megan's independence blossomed from that very first convention when she ventured out, at eight years old, to buy breakfast for the family. She was successful, too. With the loving encouragement of her mom and dad, this adventurous girl grew to be an adventurous, competent, self-confident teen and young woman. She enjoyed traveling, skiing, and, yes, jumping out of airplanes to sky dive.
Megan was a computer expert who majored in IT and was continuing her education in a master's program. Her work as a computer specialist took her to the Netherlands, and she was scheduled to make a presentation in Spain. Her dream was to become a white hat hacker, helping large corporations plug holes in their computer security systems.
Megan combined her computer skills, her leadership ability, and her passion for helping others and changing the lives of blind people. She was a technology and life skills mentor to others, and in the summers she worked as a counselor at BISM [Blind Industries and Services of Maryland] and the Colorado Center for the Blind. She was always willing to help the parents' division, leading sessions and making presentations for us.
Megan made friends everywhere she went and kept them throughout her life. She had the magic combination—friends, family, meaningful work, and lots of laughter and fun.
We're so sad that this girl with the beautiful smile is gone from us so soon, but we're very glad for every minute we had with her. Jean wrote that many think that at age twenty-two people are just approaching the prime of life. But for Megan, the prime of her life happened all through her twenty-two years. She had strength, confidence, and a true zest for life. We will always miss her. Jean and Al, here is the Twig Award for Megan. [Applause]
Presented by Carol Castellano
Our next award is the Twig Book Award, given to recognize a book that presents a positive and realistic depiction of blindness. The awards committee invited Anna Hughes to be our chief book reviewer.
Anna is an English teacher with a strong interest in literacy and children's literature. She grew up in Baltimore with a blind brother. Both of her parents worked in the field of blindness, and one of them happened to be our founder and president for twenty-three years, Barbara Cheadle.
The award-winning book is Oskar and Klaus—The Mission to Cataria by Travis Brossard and Mick Szydlowski. The following comments come from Anna Hughes's review.
"Can't you see that the world is a thrilling place?" questions Oskar, a cat who just happens to be blind, as he prepares to embark on a space adventure with his best friend, Klaus.
The Mission to Cataria is written in sparky verse that mirrors the fast-paced action and humor of the feline best friends as they train for their adventure into deep space. The training is no problem for boisterous, Braille-reading Oskar.
The interplay between adventurous Oskar and homebody Klaus is a delight, striking a balance between celebrating the imagination and depicting realistic strategies used by the blind. Independent Oskar takes initiative, solves problems, and develops strong and lasting friendships. Klaus and the other minor characters accept Oskar as a multidimensional feline, exemplifying healthy and positive attitudes toward blindness.
At a time when STEM careers are becoming more and more accessible to the blind, The Mission to Cataria is sure to inspire a new generation of young readers, both blind and sighted. It shows that for anyone, blind or otherwise, there is "no limit to the thrill and wonder of life; all you need is the power of friendship and your imagination."
The plaque I am about to present has a Twig medallion placed against a red velvet background and the name of the book and its authors. Below the medallion are these words:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
Twig Book Award
celebrating exemplary literature that bends children's minds
toward understanding, acceptance, and inclusion
of those with blindnessJuly 2017
Unfortunately, both authors were ill and unable to attend the convention. Accepting the award on their behalf is longtime Federation leader Barbara Walker Loos, who was involved in the project since its inception.
Presented by Carol Castellano
The award we are about to present is given in memory of a very special person. Dan Ryles was a young man who grew up in the Federation and whose escapades we learned about through the writings of his famous mother, Ruby Ryles.
As a little boy, Dan was a lover of Braille who became an excellent speller, reader, and writer. He had a paper route when the family lived in Alaska. He delivered his papers even when the snow was up to his knees, due to his excellent mobility skills and his strong sense of responsibility.
Dan also loved the game of chess, and he made his own chessboard in woodworking class at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. When he was young, he used to have to wait around a lot at his siblings' hockey games. Once, to ease the boredom, he brought along his chess set. One of the dads felt sorry for the poor little blind boy and offered to play him a game. Dan whooped him good!
My husband and I had the good fortune to meet Dan at a convention when he was about fourteen years old. Every year after that we'd find him at the piano, and we'd hang out talking and laughing sometimes late into the night. Now, Dan was a handsome young man, and he had no trouble picking up girls. There came a time when he decided he'd rather hang out with the girls than with us old fogies at convention.
Sadly, Dan's time on earth was far too short. He passed away unexpectedly in 2007 at the age of thirty-three. He lived a rich, full life and left a legacy of inspiration for so many.
We created the Dan Ryles Memorial Award in 2008 to recognize special people in the Federation who have provided significant inspiration and mentorship and have made extraordinary contributions to our literature. We have only bestowed the award three times since we created it, and this will be our fourth.
I am most happy to announce the recipient of the Dan Ryles Memorial Award—Deborah Kent Stein.
As Debbie makes her way up to the podium, I'd like to tell you a little bit about her. Most of us are familiar with Debbie through her outstanding work as editor of our national magazine, Future Reflections, and through her many articles over the years in Future Reflections and the Braille Monitor. But Debbie is also an author "on the outside." She was first published when she was six years old! Since then she has written many young-adult novels and works of nonfiction for children. When I say "many," I mean that I stopped counting at eighty-nine titles on Amazon!
Her nonfiction works are in series such as America the Beautiful, Cornerstones of Freedom, and Exploring Cultures of the World. She has also written biographies of US presidents, first ladies, and other important figures in history. Other works explore aspects of disability, including such books as Extraordinary People with Disabilities; Athletes with Disabilities; Animal Helpers for the Disabled; and Snake Pits, Talking Cures, and Magic Bullets: A History of Mental Illness.
Debbie's work has been described by reviewers as "splendid," "engaging," "lively," "highly readable," "well-paced," "thoroughly researched," "agreeably unbiased," "concise," "factual," and "accurate." When you have some time on your hands, look up her biography on jrank.org!
The heroine of Debbie's first novel, Belonging, was blind. But Debbie branched out from there. She did not want to be typecast as someone who could only write about blind people. At the same time, she felt that people with disabilities needed to be more positively portrayed in books, so she made sure to include them as both major and minor characters in many of her works.
The awards committee initially thought of presenting Debbie with our book award, but then realized that that just wouldn't be enough. We wanted to recognize Debbie's broader contribution to literature, especially for children, to help them grow up with inclusive attitudes toward blindness and people with disabilities.
Our book reviewer, Anna Hughes (who knows a thing or two about blindness, growing up with a blind brother and being the daughter of our president emerita, Barbara Cheadle) says this about Debbie's book, What Is It Like to Be Blind?:
This book for early readers is a high-quality example of a nonfiction text reflecting positive attitudes to blindness and providing accurate information about the tools, aids, technologies, and techniques used by the blind to go about everyday activities. The author addresses common misconceptions and misunderstandings about blindness, such as it being like "living in the dark all the time," and sends the message that "blind people find ways to do almost everything." Throughout, the book maintains the sense that there is nothing different about being blind apart from some of the techniques that are used to accomplish one's goals.
The contributions Debbie has made through her work in the Federation are countless. I will mention just a few. She has served on the NFB Scholarship Committee, she heads the Blind Parents Group, and she was presented with a Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award for her work on the quiet cars issue. She leads workshops on tactile graphics and imagery, serves each year as a mentor with the Parent Leadership Program, and, in her work as editor of Future Reflections, she creates collections each quarter of some of the finest, most inspirational literature in the field of blindness.
Now I'd like to read you the plaque. It is made of alder wood and is inscribed with a picture of Dan.
The National Organization of Parents of Blind Children presents
the Dan Ryles Memorial Award
to
Deborah Ann Kent Stein
In recognition of a life's work in teaching, inspiring, and mentoring
countless parents and their blind children
and for invaluable contributions to the literature.
You are our teacher, our role model, and our friend.
Orlando, Florida
July 2017
National Federation of the Blind
Live the life you want
And here is Debbie Kent Stein!
Debbie Kent Stein: I'm speechless. Thank you Carol, thank you all of you! I am honored beyond words, and words are my livelihood! I had absolutely no idea this was going to happen.
I've been working in the Federation to build opportunities for blind kids for nearly thirty years. I'll tell you a small story about how it all began. I lived in the town of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico for five years in the late 1970s. While I was there I got involved in trying to develop a program for blind kids in that town, because there were no opportunities at all. I tried to teach them basic blindness skills so they could go into regular schools. I worked with a group of American and Mexican teachers, and we started an alternative school for kids with and without disabilities. It was an amazing experience.
One day a family brought a little boy named Guillermo to the school. He was six years old, and he had been blinded very suddenly when a teenager came to the playground at his school, flaunting a BB gun around. Guillermo had barely let go of his mother's hand in the four months since he lost his sight.
Guillermo came to our little school, and I put a cane in his hand. He just took off with that cane! Everybody stood there watching him with tears in their eyes. I knew that kid was ripe for learning. He remembered what it was like to be a regular kid, and he wanted to get back there. It was so exciting!
But we never saw Guillermo again. His mom never brought him back to school. She would not let go of him. She didn't respond to any of our efforts to contact her. We couldn't reach her or her son.
When I came back to the States, I knew the work I had done in Mexico was very incomplete. I felt sad to leave when the need was still so great. But then I realized that there was a lot to be done right here in the United States. We did not have it all together here. There were still too many kids who were not getting what they needed from the schools, and there were frightened parents hanging onto their kids just the way Guillermo's mom hung onto him. I knew that here I could try to have an impact. When I connected with the Federation, I saw that this was my vehicle.
I truly thank you all for working on these issues, too, for doing everything you can to make the future better for blind kids. The fact that you are here shows how committed you are to doing that. Thank you!
Presented by Carla McQuillan
Carla McQuillan: Every year the National Federation of the Blind recognizes a teacher of blind students who has not only embraced the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind, but who incorporates it every day into teaching students. Before I discuss this year's winner, I'd like to thank the members of the committee who helped sort through the applications and determine who was going to be the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students for this year. Laura Bostick, Michelle Chacon, Cathy Jackson, Carlton Walker, and Dan Wenzel were all members of this year's committee.
This particular individual received her bachelor of science in low vision and blindness from Illinois State University. She also received a master of science from Illinois State. She began teaching in 2001, and in 2009 she was a chaperone for our LAW program (Leadership and Advocacy in Washington), bringing one of her blind students. LAW coordinator Natalie Shaheen said, "Once I got to know her, I saw that this woman really got it!" A parent who wrote a letter of support said that this teacher is "an expert in her field. She is professional, friendly, kind, and fun. She is very good at motivating her students." I would like to announce Amy Lund of Illinois as the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students of 2017. [Applause]
For Amy today we have a plaque with the logo of the National Federation of the Blind. It says,
The National Federation of the Blind honors
Amy Lund
Distinguished Educator of Blind Students
for your skills in teaching Braille and other techniques of blindness,
for graciously devoting extra time to meet the needs of your students,
and for empowering your students to perform beyond their expectations.
You champion our movement,
you strengthen our hopes,
and you share our dreams.
July 12, 2017.
Along with that beautiful plaque Amy receives a check for one thousand dollars.
Amy Lund: President, Board of Directors, and members, I am so honored by this recognition! I have been so fortunate to be involved in Federation activities throughout my career. I've met the best, strongest, and most skilled mentors that my students can have. I've been lucky to be involved in the LAW Program, Youth Slam, and the BELL Academy. The NFB student programs have helped shape my teaching philosophy to facilitate my students' ability to live the lives they want. Thank you for this recognition. I am truly honored!
by Anil Lewis
From the Editor: Anil Lewis serves as executive director of the NFB Jernigan Institute. In this capacity he coordinates a variety of programs that challenge and encourage blind children and teens. At the 2017 meeting of the NOPBC board, he talked to parents about the NFB and the future we can build for blind people.
Good afternoon. I really appreciate this opportunity to speak with all of you. This is always one of the highlights of my existence in the Federation, talking to the parents of the blind children who are the future of this organization that I have come to love so much.
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise expectations for blind people, because we realize that low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. We as an organization believe wholeheartedly that we can live the lives we want, and that blindness is not what holds us back.
You've been here long enough to understand that the National Federation of the Blind is the largest and most powerful organization of blind people that exists. I'm going to talk about building a bigger, better, brighter future for blind people through the work of the Federation.
Collective action is our true power, and that power is fueled by the love that we have for one another. I hope that you all have the chance to experience that love here this week. With the fast pace of convention, sometimes it's hard to stop and shake hands or give someone a hug, but that's really what gets me through. As I walk around and deal with whatever problems come up, leaning over to give an extra hug to Kim Cunningham or one of our other great members reminds me that yes, I really can do this!
But are your kids getting the education you want them to get? Is their future assured? Will they find jobs and have the opportunity to build their own families in the world as it exists today? We're closer than we were yesterday, but we still have far to go! We have to build our organization even bigger. I hope you will recognize that this is one of the charges you have here—to help this organization grow.
To help move us toward our goals, the Federation has developed some great programs for blind children. We have our Braille Reading Pals program, and I hope you have your kids sign up for it. We send Braille books to kids all around the country, preparing them to be literate.
We also have our Early Explorers program to encourage parents to be the first travel instructors for their blind children. I've heard stories about blind youth who don't get their first canes until they're about to graduate from high school. That's ridiculous!
Carlton Walker is here in the audience today. She runs our BELL Academies, providing Braille instruction for our kids during the summers. Some of those kids don't get that instruction in the school system, and that's a shame! Hopefully our BELL Academies will dispel some of the myths about Braille. When one of those students goes back to school and gets Braille into his curriculum, that's a true win. But the win/win happens when we get the BELL Academy curriculum integrated into the school curriculum.
Our STEM programs bring blind kids to Towson University. We teach them to launch rockets, to build and program robots, and to dissect sharks. We're building opportunities for those kids. The school systems may tell them that they can't do science, but we tell them that they can. Then we send them back to say "I can!" to the school system. At Youth Slam we get the kids into a room, and we say, "What are you going to do when you go back to school and they tell you that you can't study science?" And the kids yell back, "Slam that!" We're instilling confidence in those young people so they can take control of their own destinies. Our goal is to help them become educated enough, powerful enough, and confident enough to be the developers and innovators of future technologies.
Last night I went to the meeting of the National Association of Blind Students (NABS). My heart gets so full when I see those young people running things! They get a little cocky sometimes, and sometimes they need a little tough love. But I would rather ride a horse that I need to use the reins on than one that needs the spurs. These kids, they're running wild! We just have to rein them in now and then.
In our collaborations with departments of education, with state agencies, technology developers, and employers, we change the expectations about blindness. Individuals in the organization who have the time, the knowledge, and the expertise work to develop those relationships. You parents are developing the expertise to go out there and expand that network of connections so that we can become a better organization.
As blind people we live our lives through problem solving. As we find new ways to get things done, we add to the next generation of technology. We established ourselves when there were already organizations for the blind. But we know what is best for ourselves. We want to continue in a way that allows us to control our own future.
What is that future going to look like? I want a future where there is quality education for our blind children. I want a future where people don't say, "Oh, that's a job that blind people can do." I want them to say, "You're looking for a job? Go to Monster.com." I want to see opportunities for our kids to have families. It's heartbreaking that today sometimes we have to go to court to make sure that blind parents don't have their children taken away from them right out of their living rooms. Let's see a brighter future where that kind of ignorance is gone.
What will our bigger, better, brighter future look like? We really don't know. I like the fact that it's not known. If we knew the future, we wouldn't push ourselves into that space that makes us uncomfortable. The future has to be bright—so bright that we can’t see it. [Laughter]
I'm going to leave you with a little bit of homework. This is your assignment as parents. First, I want you to acknowledge that you are an expert. There's no manual for raising kids, and there definitely is no manual for raising blind kids! Future Reflections is probably the closest you can get to that. You have the knowledge and expertise of living every day with your children, and you are learning things that we have yet to learn. We have to make sure that you actively participate in this organization in a way that acknowledges your expertise.
Next, we need you to raise expectations for your children. Carol Castellano has written that the expectations you have for your blind child must be based on the expectations you would have for any child. Actually, we in the Federation have higher expectations for our blind kids than for any other children. They have to be better, brighter, stronger, faster, just to be perceived as normal!
We want you to create opportunities for your children to fail. I said that to one group, and they thought I was crazy! When we create an opportunity for children to fail, we do two important things. One, we push them out of their comfort zone so there's true growth. And two, we create opportunities for us as adults to learn what we didn't know. That's important! We're the experts on blindness, but we don't know it all. We create opportunities for our children to fail because that's the only way we get true successes. I'm counting on you guys to do that, because that's the only way we can grow toward a bigger, better, brighter future.
I help develop programs at the Jernigan Institute. I manage the individuals who put forth the effort to execute those programs. But the ideas come from you. Tell us what is challenging you, and we'll create opportunities for meeting those challenges. Tell us what opportunities you see out there, and we'll find ways for your children to take advantage of those opportunities. We are only as strong as you allow us to be.
Please continue to be active with the National Federation of the Blind. Let's all work together, shoulder to shoulder, to build a bigger, better, brighter National Federation of the Blind.
by Amy Lund
From the Editor: During the annual meeting of the NOPBC board of directors, the 2017 Distinguished Educator of Blind Students, Amy Lund, had the opportunity to share her thoughts about teaching and her aspirations for her students. Here is what she had to say.
I have been tasked with giving you my ideas about creating opportunities for blind children. This is a huge part of my job as a teacher of blind students, making sure that we make the connections from home to their education and to their lives beyond. I can't work with a child if I'm only thinking about his or her education. I have to think of what the child does outside of school. As a good teacher, I need to know what my students enjoy so I can make connections with them and help build and expand their learning. That's how all of us learn. We find something that really sparks our interest. Maybe it's math, maybe it's volcanoes, but something clicks for us and makes us want to learn. As an educator, it's my job to find those things that click for my students.
As a teacher for the past sixteen years, I've seen a wide variety of service plans, strengths, deficits, programs, and family values. All of these factors contribute to how an educator works with students and how you, as parents, build your own process. Here are a few of my observations and recommendations about blind children, to make sure we all stay on the same page.
First and foremost, you are the parent of a child. Your child will cry, fall, throw tantrums, and be amazingly loving. You are your child's first teachers, and you will love them, protect them, and foster their growth.
These adorable "poor" blind children (please note the sarcasm!) will be members of our society someday. Just like any other children, they will grow up. We really need to look at how we foster that growth. In education you make a gradual release. As parents you do that naturally. When your children are little, you hold their hands. As they get older, they walk next to you. When they're older than that, they walk way in front of you because they don't want to be seen with you. Gradually you release them. You give them independence and power.
As the parents of blind children, you may find that letting go can be hard to do. You need to make sure that you stay strong in that stance. You need to make sure that you release them, that you let them fall and fail. They will grow from those experiences, and you will grow as well.
How do we set high expectations for our kids and get others to buy into them? I picture our lives as targets. At the center of the target we have our immediate families. It starts with you—you are your child’s first teachers. When you set high expectations in your home, that attitude can extend outward to siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. Make sure you get everybody onboard. If your child is in middle school and wants to go to the mall, make sure it’s not in your mentality to tell your other child, “Look out for your sister.” Your blind child will be doing everything socially that her sighted peers are doing.
Your family structure will be the model for other structures as they take hold. When your child goes to school, he will have the confidence to say, "I can do this. I do it with my siblings. We play kickball all the time." He'll be able to play kickball with his classmates in PE class. We want your children to do everything that their sighted peers are doing. Maybe they'll do some things differently, but they'll be involved.
It's up to that central portion of the target, the family, to set high expectations. If it doesn't, any outside force that does have high expectations is going to look mean or unrealistic. As long as the family has high expectations you can get others to buy in.
The second ring on the target is your near community. Your park district, your Scout troop, your YMCA, your religious groups, your school, your regular camps are all part of this community. I live in Springfield, Illinois. It isn't rural, but it sure feels that way sometimes in terms of what's available for my students! I have to work with the resources we have. These mainstream programs can and should easily be adapted for your children. It may take a little collaboration. It may take reaching out to some of the divisions of the NFB, such as the Sports and Recreation Division, to figure out how to adapt some activities. You can reach out to other parents of blind children, people who know it can be done.
Our kids take part in Scouts, and they go to YMCA camps. They are active in all kinds of mainstream venues. They can be very successful and have positive interactions with others. It takes you, as the expert, to go in ahead of time and prepare people. You can help them build the mindset that they will do whatever they can so your child can be included. You can show your church that your child is part of that community, and she can participate when she has a Braille hymnal.
After we look at mainstream opportunities, we can look at some that are very specific to blindness. Obviously, I love BELL Academy. It is a phenomenal experience! I've been fortunate in Illinois to have kids as young as four and kids all the way up to fifteen. I see varying degrees of Braille skills, varying degrees of technology skills, travel skills, and nonvisual techniques. I feel so fortunate that we have two weeks to spend with them in Chicago and one week for our Springfield program. We can use that time to grow their skills. This program is very blindness specific.
In my opinion you have to pair mainstream social experiences with blindness-specific programs where kids can learn from blind mentors. My Illinois mentors have been phenomenal. When we're on a field trip, I have a blind mentor for every child. I'm in charge, but I can step back. I am sighted, but I recognize the importance of allowing the child to see blind mentors who are strong and confident. They are independent in their travel and their careers, and they use technology effectively. I can step aside and allow them to showcase their skills. The kids can say, "Bill Reif does this! It's awesome! I can totally do that!" or "Chaquita sings so beautifully. I love what she sings. I can learn that piece of music!"
As a teacher, I understand that I can spark ideas, but I am not the be-all and the end-all. Our blind mentors are the people who really can show these blind kids that they can be independent and have successful lives.
When I'm teaching, I feel a little selfish. I talk to my high school students pretty frankly. I remind them that they are going to be members of my society. They are going to vote, they are going to donate blood, and they are going to volunteer. They are going to have careers and families. They are going to do all those things to the best of their capabilities. This is the speech that all of my students get. You are in my society, and you are going to participate! Cooking classes and family development classes all fall under me as their teacher of blind students. I'm very fortunate to have all of these opportunities with my students all the way through high school.
So we have the family and the community and blindness-specific programs. Those include our NFB state affiliates. I can't neglect to say how incredible Illinois has been to me in its support for its BELL Academies. I've been very fortunate to go to other affiliates to see their BELL programs. I've been to Connecticut, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Arizona. It's phenomenal to see other states joining on this journey and ringing bells, too! I love hearing that we're getting more and more academies every summer.
And of course, there's also the national office, providing resources and giving me the chance to meet and network with other parents, teachers, and blind individuals. Networking is important for you as parents, and it's important for your children as they grow older. I see children so excited to come back and connect with the friends they made last summer, and they look forward to being with friends at convention every year. Through the NFB you have a huge family.
So providing opportunities begins with you, and it expands out to your community. You're the champions. You're the ones who are going to start it off. I wish you luck in every way.
by Dick Davis
Introduction by Kim Cunningham: If your child isn't ready yet for transition services, it will happen before you know it. Our next speaker is Dick Davis, chairperson of the NFB Employment Committee. Until his retirement he was associate director and a career instructor at BLIND, Inc. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Welcome to Dick Davis!
I know this sounds strange to those of you who have very young children, but one of these days your kids are going to go off to college, or maybe off to work. At that point you're going to have empty nest syndrome.
What are the symptoms of empty nest syndrome? It's when you look at your spouse for the first time in years without anybody standing between you saying, "Mommy mommy mommy mommy!" You're going to look at your spouse and say, "Who are you and what are you doing in my house?" If you don't think that's true, just wait! Kids have a way of changing our relationships, and we have to reconstruct them after they move on.
What's the alternative to having your kids go away and having to go through this reconstruction? It's that you're seventy years old, and you have this kid at home, and you're thinking, “I'd love to retire, but I don't know what to do with Jackie!" Unfortunately, some parents never prepare for that eventuality. Their kids stay at home, not doing anything for the rest of their lives. I don't think anyone here wants that scenario.
What makes the difference between sending your kids off to work or college, or being stuck with them for the rest of your life? It has to do with the transition period. Age fourteen to eighteen, or whatever age kids get out of high school, is the transition stage. There's a phrase that's used, pre-employment transition services, or PETS. I don't happen to like that acronym. The goal is to not have your children be pets! [Laughter] You want to get them out there working so when you retire they'll have enough money to help you out for a change.
What do you need to do in the transition period? First of all, you need to watch out for a big thing that's going to happen at age eighteen. When your blind children turn eighteen, they're going to become eligible for SSI (Supplemental Security Income). If they're still at home and you're supporting them, they'll get $550 a month. If they're paying you rent, because as parents you decided they should contribute (which is a good idea), then they're going to get $735 a month. It's not much money when you think about it, but to your kids it's going to look like all the money in the world! SSI has an unfortunate tendency to make people dependent on those monthly checks. People start to think they can't go to work because they'll lose their SSI benefits.
The rules around SSI are very complex, but let me give you a simple piece of information. Going to work will always help your child if he's on SSI. If your child is a student, up to the age of twenty-two, the Social Security Administration will ignore almost nine thousand dollars in earnings per year. Social Security wants students to save money for college. Even though they don't make a big deal about it (and they should!), Social Security really wants people to go to work. So if you remember anything about SSI, remember that it will always want people to go to work.
If you want to learn all about SSI and work incentives, there's something called the SSDI Red Book. You can find it at ssa.gov. The Red Book is your pathway to learning about all of the work incentives that Social Security has built in to make it financially advisable for your child to go to work. Please look it up and become familiar with it. It will teach you all kinds of things that you don't know about your child's benefits.
Why is this such a challenge? People who are getting $735 a month sometimes think they have all the money they need. They want to buy this and buy that. That's great for them, but most people in this country who are not blind have to work if they want money. You're going to have to build in incentives to get your child to work. The transition period is the time to do that.
Kids can start to work at age fourteen. The US Department of Labor has a lot of rules about what they can and can't do. There are restrictions about how many hours they can work. At the age of fourteen they can't run machinery. Basically they can do things that won't cut their arms and legs off.
As kids get older, the rules loosen up. By the age of sixteen they can run mixers and ice cream machines. By the time they're eighteen they're adults, and all of the restrictions are gone.
BLIND, Incorporated, the organization from which I am semi-retired, has some great year-round and summer programs for transition age blind kids. One of our programs is the PREP Program. The kids get a month of adjustment to blindness training and a month of paid employment experience. They earn at least minimum wage. They bring the money home. It's theirs to keep.
If you remember when you were a kid and you had your first job, you know it's the coolest thing ever to have somebody hand you a paycheck! It's the coolest thing not to have to go to Mom or Dad to beg for money! It's the coolest thing on earth not only to earn money, but to know that you are worth something. Believe me, you can have all the wonderful rehabilitation programs in the world and all the self-esteem-building programs, but until somebody hands you a paycheck, you don't really believe it. Why should you? When somebody thinks you're worth hiring, that is the greatest boost to a person's self-confidence.
You may be wondering, where's the money for these programs going to come from? This PETS program that I mentioned earlier is funded through a 15 percent set-aside from your state agency's vocational rehabilitation budget. It is irrevocable. Congress made it very clear that they want so much money put into this because for years rehab agencies haven't done anything with these kids. Special education people haven't been able to help, either; most special education people don't know anything about jobs for blind students. Neither do middle-school and high-school guidance counselors.
Our society has a bias. It has the idea that if you send people to college and get them a liberal-arts degree, everything is going to be fine. That's not the case anymore. It hasn't been the case since the 1960s. A college degree does not guarantee you a job.
Rehab programs must fund transition services. I know that some NFB affiliates are setting up PETS programs now. Please look into them. Please give your kids the opportunity to go to work before SSI kicks in. Visit our Employment Committee website, employment.nfb.org. Thank you very much!
by Marc Maurer
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, Volume 60, Number 8, August/September 2017
From the Editor: Immediate Past President of the NFB Marc Maurer is a thinker and an innovator. Drawing upon his wide-ranging reading and exploration, he strives to articulate how we will get from where we are to where we want to be. Currently Dr. Maurer serves as the executive director of the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults. He delivered these remarks on July 13 to the convention of the National Federation of the Blind.
How do we know what we know? Philosophers have had many answers to this question, but a great many thinkers believe that the basis of knowledge is the experience of our senses. However, Rene Descartes and Ebenezer Scrooge, along with many others, have opined that sense impression alone, without contemplation and imagination, is insufficient for knowledge. Consequently, they urge that we take proper steps to stimulate the imagination.
John Quincy Adams wrote, "To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is . . . the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence."
Learning something new is a great idea. However, theorists have not always felt this way, and some cultures do not value learning, especially with respect to certain groups. It may be fair to say that all cultures (or almost all cultures) resist change, and learning implies change. If the blind are the intended audience, education has often not been a high priority. Indeed, competent, inclusive, accessible, high quality education for blind students is today sometimes very hard to get.
Let us begin not with the blind but with society in general. Alexander Pope said that "a little learning is a dangerous thing." If this is so, how much is required for safety? When students finish the third grade, are they more of a threat to society than they were when they finished the second? Will they be more or less of a danger when they have completed fourth grade? What about graduate students or the professors who teach them? Current scientific research offers speculation that artificial intelligence can be built that will be able to hold more ideas than any human mind has ever possessed. Will the artificial intelligence add to the safety of our world? If so, whose safety will it protect? The debate rages with some futurists recommending that we invent new thoughts as fast as possible and others urging that limits be placed on scientific advancement. Regardless of the arguments, we in the National Federation of the Blind have a commitment to education; we believe that the blind have minds capable of learning whatever is to be known; and we intend to be in the midst of the educational process—participating in the learning for every discipline, teaching others, and pursuing the most imaginative research. Tell us that learning is dangerous if you like, but don’t try to keep us out because it can’t be done.
Although theorists have complained about the disadvantage of knowledge, societies have been stratified based upon the possession of it. In many places the priestly class could read, which gave this group an enormous advantage. Shakespeare said that we should kill all the lawyers. What advantage did lawyers have that caused such enmity? At least part of it is that they could read in a very specialized field.
Teaching slaves to read in many parts of the United States was regarded as a criminal act. Furthermore, education for women in the United States has only comparatively recently become required by law. Despite the restrictions we have placed upon its acquisition, we in the United States have adopted the policy that knowledge is valuable and that we must encourage its acquisition. We follow this policy despite vituperative arguments that the path we tread is dramatically dangerous—that the things we learn may create events from which humanity itself will not survive.
In the National Federation of the Blind we also follow this policy, and we encourage our friends to do likewise. We believe that we the blind have the ability to learn and we honor those who demonstrate this capacity among us. Do others share our commitment for the education of blind students? Are imaginative methods of education for the blind being invented? Is there a widespread effort by agencies of government or the private sector to foster the latent potentialities of the blind?
Not so much.
For more than forty years federal law has declared that students with disabilities have a right to a public education. When the law was adopted, the language it employed was revolutionary. Prior to its enactment public schools had discretion about whether they would permit students with disabilities to be in class. Some disabled students were welcomed, but many were not. When the law came into effect, students with disabilities had a right to attend. Some of the judges who interpreted the law felt outrage that members of Congress could believe that children (they would call these children normal) could be required to be in class with students who possess disabilities. These judges decided that although the Congress had declared the law to be that disabled people had a right to attend class, this did not mean that the students who possessed these disabilities had the right to get anything out of the education other than presence in the room. The school districts were under no obligation (said these judges) to provide specific services, materials, or educational programs designed to assist in meeting the demands involving the disability itself. Blind students could come to class, but the school district was not required to provide training in Braille. Blind students could study geometry, but the school district had no obligation to offer a line drawing of the angles that the sighted students could observe in their books. It is almost as if some of the judges took the position, "You can make the school district take you, but you won't like it when they do."
In March of this year, the Supreme Court reconsidered the rights of students with disabilities in the public schools under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The court said that disabled students have a substantive right to educational programs that are likely to provide a realistic education. This decision appears to restore the promise that students with disabilities have an equal right to an education.
Within the National Federation of the Blind we know that blindness is not a debilitating disability. Instead, it is a characteristic that many of us have. Many of us have wondered what the limitations of blindness are. We have speculated that this condition indicates an inability to perform certain functions. More than forty years ago some of us said that blind people could not fly a plane, drive a car, or serve as medical doctors. Since that time, we have created a way to drive a car, and some of us have come to be medical doctors. The airplane waits to be conquered, but I feel certain that it can be and that it will be. Which leaves the question, what are the limitations of blindness?
How do blind people learn? How do we stimulate the mind to be the medium in which the patterns of observation are implanted? How do we expand the range of such patterns, or cause the intuitive leap that connects one seemingly unrelated thought with another to bring new comprehension? Children are instructed from the time that they are born not to touch. Blind children are instructed to listen, and often they are expected to do nothing more. Although it seems intuitively obvious that learning will be faster when sound, touch, and perhaps other senses are combined, blind children with some remaining vision, or their parents, are sometimes required to choose between Braille and print. The argument goes, demanding that a student learn in more than one way will be overburdensome and detrimental to education. Does education advance more rapidly by listening or touching? Our experience suggests that both together are better than either one separately.
To learn effectively it is necessary to learn how to learn. Just as a birdsong may seem, when it is first heard, to be a jumble of unrelated notes and unmelodic racket, a polysyllabic word may appear to be incomprehensible upon first acquaintance. Visual imagery must also be learned before it has meaning, and the tactile sense must receive its own training if knowledge is to be gained through it. All methods of knowing are learned, except the innate knowledge that comes from being human. When knowledge becomes the goal, it is best for us to employ the widest range of methods for securing it that we can invent.
What does color signify? One tiny piece of the answer to this question is the wavelength of reflected light. The rest must include context, imagery, history, and culture. What does light signify? Only a part of the answer is an observable medium in the electromagnetic spectrum. The rest must involve context. Moonlight may be nothing more than a presentation of waves with certain characteristics, but its meaning is much more complex.
How can these concepts be presented in nontraditional forms—auditory, tactile? How can these nontraditional patterns be implanted in the minds of the blind? We have very little experience in testing alternative methods of knowing to the ones that have become most common. We must explore this kind of knowing, and we must expand it. Enormous amounts of intellectual energy have been spent on visual representation, and the language has been created to favor this form of learning, although a substantial segment of knowledge is represented by music.
Nonetheless, touch is by far the most important sense we possess. It puts us in constant contact with the world around us, and it keeps us safe. Without touch the constant danger of injury would be devastating. However, our usage favors the language of the eye. When we speak with each other, although we sometimes say "get in touch," we more often use "I'll see you."
We must imagine a way to emphasize the nonvisual methods we use for learning, and we must create the language to support such alternatives. Can you hear a line? Can you touch a sound? Does the hue of a summer sky with the storm coming in from the north have an identifiable aroma? Let us begin with tactile imagery.
A significant part of the task before us is to change the perception that 83 percent of all knowledge comes through the eye. This idiotic statement came from an advertisement by Thomas Edison in 1923, I am told. Thomas Edison had invented the projector, and he wanted to sell it to school systems. He created this misleading line to get the school boards to buy his product, and we have been stuck with the false advertising ever since.
Some people may learn 83 percent of all they know by looking—though I doubt this. However, there are other ways to learn, and we must demonstrate that they are as good as the visual method.
We are creating a project for children to learn tactile imagery. We are offering raised-line pictures along with the tools to make more of them. The Tactile Art Kit is a box containing examples of tactile images along with the tools and supplies to perform tactile drawings. Both print and Braille instructions are included, along with directions to the website of the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults, the inventor and sponsor of this program, where audible and visual descriptions of how to create tactile art may be found. Five hundred of these kits are available for distribution to blind children ages two through eight. Half a dozen ways of making tactile representations are included in the suggestions about how to use the supplies in the Tactile Art Kit. Lines, two-dimensional solid forms, and three-dimensional images can be created. A leaf, two-dimensional; a tree, three-dimensional; and an object at a distance with the imagery to show that there is intervening space between the observer and the object being observed—all of these can be made. What is the difference in a tactile image of a dog standing still and one racing after a rabbit? Can the images be shown in ways that illustrate the calmness of a peaceful afternoon or the uneasiness of an impending storm? All of this will be in our first effort at capturing the ideas transmitted through the tactile imagery of art.
Can blind people be artists? Some of us are. Can blind people engage in the tasks of architecture? Some of us do. Can blind people convey knowledge through the tactile imagery associated with science? Some of us have invented methods for doing exactly that. Can we identify color and represent its meaning? In many respects, we have. How can we expand our knowledge in these areas? We will ask the children and the teachers of the children what works, and we will honor those who expand the range of what we know.
We intend to create artistic experiences with vibrancy, fascinating shapes, and sometimes intense colors. We intend to show other people how the blind do art. At the threshold of learning is a sense of wonder. We do not know what limitations exist for us in the creation of new forms of knowledge, but we are absolutely certain that whatever these limitations might be, we have not reached them. With our sense of wonder we will explore unknown horizons, and this will bring us to new frontiers. In the meantime, as I encounter you at this convention, I do not look forward to seeing you—I anticipate with pleasure hearing you; I anticipate with pleasure touching my hand to yours. I know I could have said touching you, but such expressions are currently easily misunderstood. The sound and the touch will help me to know your spirit and to share mine. Together we will build a better knowing.
by Maureen Nietfeld
Introduction by Mark Riccobono: Our next presenter is a home management instructor at the Colorado Center for the Blind. She is also an NFB Scholarship finalist this year. This will be a first of its kind presentation at this convention. It's a virtually live presentation. Here to give this presentation is a friend and colleague of ours, Maureen Nietfeld.
Hello, fellow Federationists! After sitting in the audience for nine inspiring conventions, it is an immense honor to be here on this stage today. Due to my recent brain surgery and other health complications, President Riccobono has graciously allowed me to record my presentation for you, my Federation family. I hope that you all enjoy it.
I was a very active child, and had a typical childhood. I played a lot of sports, and I went to public school. I was not born blind. I did know that I had the disease that would later cause my blindness, von Hippel-Lindau syndrome. This disease causes benign and malignant (noncancerous and cancerous) tumors in all of my organs.
When I was seventeen years old I became totally blind. This changed my life very dramatically. I absolutely wanted no part of being a blind person. I did not want to learn Braille, I did not want to use a cane, I didn't want to look blind, and I didn't want other people to know I was blind. I felt a lot of shame about being a blind person. I remember thinking I would rather have a hundred more brain surgeries if I could just have my vision back.
I didn't know anything about blindness, and I didn't know any blind people. Though I was able to finish high school and start college, I didn't have any confidence in myself as a blind person. Being active had always been a big part of my life, and I did maintain being active and exercising, but I depended on other people all the time to be able to accomplish the things I wanted to do.
Later, after ten years of being totally blind, I finally realized that I needed to accept my blindness in a different way. I went to the Colorado Center for the Blind, and I received nine months of training there. I learned all of the blindness skills that I needed to be successful and to do things independently. I also received the message of the National Federation of the Blind. I immediately became involved in the NFB when I was a student at the center, and it empowered me to do the things that I wanted to do. Later I became a staff member at the Colorado Center for the Blind, and currently I teach home management there.
Throughout my life von Hippel-Lindau syndrome (VHL) has caused many health problems. As of today I've had thirty-four surgeries. I need to maintain a healthy weight, stay active, and keep my heart and lungs strong, because I never know when I'm going to have to endure another operation. I've had a kidney transplant. I've had thirteen-hour procedures. So maintaining a healthy body has always been important to me. Three-and-a-half years ago I had spinal surgery, and wellness and maintaining a healthy lifestyle took on a completely new meaning for me.
Before my spinal-cord surgery I was exercising a lot. I was probably the healthiest I had been in a lot of years. I was doing a ton of exercise in the gym, and I was doing aqua aerobics. My very dear friend Jessica Beecham had started running, and I thought I would become a runner, too. I am definitely not an athlete, but I thought maybe I would like to become one.
But every time I ran I got a headache, and my right arm would hurt. I remember one particular time I was at the gym with Jessica and another friend of ours, training on the treadmills and running. I asked them if their heads hurt afterward, because my head really hurt badly. They each said, "No, my head doesn't hurt."
I was in more and more pain, with a very strange pain in my right arm. Finally one night I couldn't sleep because I was in so much pain. I went to the emergency room, and they found that I had two spinal tumors at C-5 and C-6. A week later I went in for spinal-cord surgery. They had to break my neck at C-4, 5, 6, and 7 and put titanium in there to put my neck back together.
After that surgery I couldn't dress myself. For a while I couldn't walk; I had to use a walker. We didn't know how much of my mobility I would get back. It was an extremely scary time for me. I knew that I needed to push myself and get some exercise.
As I began to feel stronger I would exercise, but then I would have days and days of pain. If I exercised once, I would have two weeks of terrible neck and back pain.
That is when I found yoga. A teacher was coming to the center to teach yoga classes, and I decided to try it. With yoga, instead of having more pain, I had less. I started on my journey to find exercise and nutrition that would allow me to be in less pain and to become stronger.
I started working privately with the yoga instructor and doing lots of strengthening exercises. I went back to my neurosurgeon and had my repeat scans, and everything looked really good. My neurosurgeon said there was no way I could be at that point if I hadn't started doing yoga and all the strengthening exercises. I had made the right choice for my life.
You don't have to be an athlete to be healthy. You don't need to run a 5K or even walk a 5K. I really started to embrace this philosophy for my life.
I really wanted to spread this message, and I was honored to become president of our NFB Sports and Recreation Division in Colorado. As I became stronger, I got back to where I was before the surgery. I was exercising and swimming again. I was able to do a lot of walking and weightlifting. But my doctors didn't want me to go back to running because they wanted me to protect my spinal cord.
Every time I went to the gym I heard Zumba music playing, and I really wanted to take a Zumba class. I love that kind of high-energy exercise! But the way Zumba is taught is completely nonverbal. An instructor stands at the front of the room doing all the moves, and everybody else follows. So I was never able to take a Zumba class. I thought about it for a while, and finally I decided that if I could become a Zumba instructor, I could modify my Zumba classes so that blind people could take them.
I looked for certifying classes in my area of Colorado. I found a class and reached out to the instructors. They were completely onboard with working with me.
When I went to the class I was very nervous, because I hadn't done anything like it before. But ever since I got my training at the Colorado Center for the Blind, it's been important to me to challenge myself in new ways. I really wanted to do this, to prove to myself that I could do it. So I took an eight-hour Zumba certification course, having never taken a Zumba class in my life.
That day was one of the most difficult days I ever spent. It was so hard! I really, really pushed myself! They provided me with half a day of one-on-one instruction to show me all the moves that the teacher would be doing. Then I had another person with me for the second half of the day, doing the same thing. At times they told me that most of the class was sitting down, while I was still able to push through. Though I was struggling, so was the rest of the class. That's what I always try to remember when I'm exercising or when I want to try a new class at a gym. I'm not going to be the only one struggling. I remind myself that I'm working to better myself, and it doesn't matter where I am at that moment and how much I can do. What matters is that I'm pushing myself to do it, and I know why I'm pushing myself.
After I completed my Zumba certification, I started to think more about what I could do to challenge myself. Getting my certification gave me the spark to go back to school and finish my degree. I decided to pursue a degree in human nutrition and dietetics. I felt passionate about going back to school and getting this degree. I want to empower others to do what they want through wellness and nutrition. Also, this degree will make me a stronger teacher for my students at the Colorado Center for the Blind.
Recently I had major brain surgery that has been one of the toughest things I've gone through in a really long time. It started in February, when I began stereotactic radiation for two of the brain tumors I had. Since then I've had to deal with a lot of nausea and vomiting and headaches. I continued to go to work and go to school because that is what fulfills me and makes me happy. I also continued to try to exercise during this time. If you can only do twenty squats one day because you don't feel well, that's okay. I had to keep telling that to myself.
It was very difficult to start at a time in my life when I felt my healthiest and experience a steady decline. Some days I would do twenty squats, twenty push-ups, and twenty sit-ups, that's all. It felt really good to me, that I could accomplish that in a day. If I could do that, and attend a class, and go to work, then I felt really good!
On May 17 I went in and had my brain surgery. The doctors told me it was going to be a very difficult procedure. The tumor was in my brain stem, a horrible area to operate on. When they went in, they found that one of the tumors was wrapping around my cervical spine at C-1, so the surgery was even more difficult than they anticipated. I woke up with central paralysis in my right arm. I have numbness in my right leg, in my foot, in my face and neck and chest. My right arm is not usable to do anything.
The support of my family and the friends I've made through the NFB really makes a difference, and the message of the NFB really resonates with me. I know that I'm able to come back from this as well. Four weeks after my surgery I started going back into the pool and being able to walk and move there. I started doing five squats a day and going up and down the stairs in my house. I started to rebuild my strength and to keep that message alive for myself. I know that I have to push myself to be able to be strong again. This message that we have through the NFB is going to extend to all areas of my life. This isn't going to stop me. It isn't going to define me. It isn't going to keep me from living the life I want.
I know that I'm going to get strong again. I know that I'm going to be a Zumba teacher. I know that I'm going to go to school this fall. I'm going to be able to do everything that I want to do despite my blindness, despite the VHL, despite every barrier that may be there or may come my way. Simply having the message of the National Federation of the Blind and knowing that I can live the life that I want. I truly believe that I can live the life I want, and that I will return to the life I had prior to this surgery. I will continue to meet new challenges and have more accomplishments in my life.
Each and every one of us is capable of making big changes for ourselves and for those around us. With love, hope, and determination, let's defy expectations and turn our dreams into reality.
by Gary Wunder
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, Volume 60, Number 8, August/September 2017
From the Editor: For the past several years, the NOPBC Style Show has been one of the most eagerly anticipated events for families at the NFB national convention. As they walk the runway, blind kids of all ages rewrite expectations and learn that they can be beautiful.
Definitions of beauty can vary widely based on culture, age, and a host of other societal influences. Living up to those definitions can be difficult enough on the best day. When you add in the pressures of telling blind people that they are broken, defective, or otherwise flawed, it can become nearly impossible to recognize our own beauty.
The National Organization of Parents of Blind Children works hard to help parents as they do whatever they can to see their children mature into competent and confident adults. The style show is but one of many activities to assist in this process, but oh, what an event it is! Young blind people from preschool to high school can participate, giving them an opportunity to strut their stuff and show that blind is beautiful.
One of our youngest models this year was Allyssa Hilliker. This poised Federationist looked every inch the princess with her white cane in hand as she smiled brightly for the camera. President Riccobono's daughter Oriana charmed the crowd in her pink floral dress. Abby Duffy rocked a different aesthetic as she posed confidently in her Harry Potter t-shirt and shorts.
But it wasn't just the ladies working the runway with confidence. Rudifer Frausto and Jarrison Gray may have come from the heat of Arizona, but they were two cool dudes when they walked out in front of the crowd.
Note: Photos courtesy of Bobby Cunningham.
by Michelle M.
From the Editor: In the National Federation of the Blind, it is almost a cliché to say that conventions change lives. However, this phrase is heard so often because it rings true for hundreds of blind people and their families each year. In this article, Michelle M. describes the effects of her family's first convention experiences.
In 2016 my daughter, Lizzy, and I attended our first national convention of the NFB. Lizzy was only a year old at the time, and participating in the NFB community was a very new experience for both of us. Though we learned a lot, convention was a bit overwhelming, as there was so much to take in over the course of the week.
When we had the opportunity to return to national convention this year, I was thrilled. I was excited to reconnect with people we met last year and to expand my knowledge about raising my daughter to be a confident and capable person. I expected to attend meetings, learn about the IEP process, and hear inspiring stories from NFB members in the general sessions. I was eager to connect with blind adults and with other families who are raising blind children. I love to learn from blind adults, as they offer a perspective into my daughter's world that I cannot fully understand as a sighted person. What I did not anticipate was the profound impact the convention would have on Lizzy.
During the course of convention week, I witnessed my two-year-old undergoing a transformation. Suddenly she was more willing to travel with her cane independently. She insisted that she walk by herself from our room down the long hallway, down the staircase, through the lobby to another staircase, and out the doors to the pool. I proudly walked behind her, offering verbal cues only as needed. She led the way, cane in hand.
When we walked down the hallway of the hotel to our room, Lizzy would hear other people tapping their canes along the floor. She greeted them with, "Hello. How are you today?"
Lizzy played in the pool and jumped on the bed like a monkey with other toddlers. Some of them also have prosthetic eyes, and some have parents who use long white canes—just like Lizzy. She listened to stories being read from a book written in Braille.
While I attended meetings about advocacy and education, Lizzy spent the evenings with teenagers who accepted her just as she is. They listened to music, sang songs, and played peek-a-boo in a cardboard box. Lizzy learned the names of nearly a dozen people and their guide dogs. She was so pleased when she got to greet the dogs—but only when they weren’t working! (She already knows they have an important job to do when they’re in harness.)
Even now, months later, Lizzy talks about going to convention. She talks about Mr. Eric and Ms. Rosie, playing in the pool with Sierra, and playing in the cardboard box at kids' camp. The NFB has already had a significant impact on her life. And this is only the beginning …
From the first Federation event I attended, I have known that the NFB was going to play a key role in my life as a parent raising a child who is blind. But it wasn't until this past summer, when I witnessed the transformation in Lizzy, that I realized the profound impact growing up in the NFB would have on her life. From her earliest memories, she will be able to recall positive role models—people who are living the lives they want. I hope that the NFB will inspire her to do the same.
by Alyssa Shock
Reprinted from The Sounding Board, the newsletter of the NFB of New Jersey
From the Editor: Alyssa Shock attended her first NFB convention in 2017 as the winner of an NFB national scholarship. In this article she looks back on her convention experience.
As a psychology major, I’ve been asked, “Isn’t psychology just common sense?” No, psychology is not just common sense. One thing a psychology major quickly learns is that he or she will be looking at a lot of scientific research. Psychology majors also learn basic skills to design and answer research questions. I applied for the NFB scholarship because I had a sort of “research question” of my own: Can someone with my qualifications and experience win a scholarship and a great opportunity to attend a convention from the biggest scholarship program for the blind in the United States? I proceeded to submit my application.
I was out to dinner on a Sunday when I got a call from an unknown number. I usually don’t pick up calls from unknown numbers because of all the sales and scam calls, promising things such as discounts on my electric bill. If it was important, I thought, the caller would leave a voicemail. This caller did.
Because I volunteer for a sexual violence resource center, I worried that an emergency had come up, that someone from there was trying to contact me. So, in the middle of dinner, I proceeded to listen to my message. When I discovered the call was from a member of the NFB Scholarship Committee, I couldn’t help but call back immediately.
I spent the rest of that meal celebrating the fact that I had won an NFB scholarship … and wondering how in the world I would manage to make it through the convention by myself. I had been to convention once before with my mother and an aunt, but I knew this time I would be on my own. The thought was a bit scary.
Before I knew it, I was inside the hotel on the first day of convention. Being that I am easily overstimulated, I found it overwhelming. One of the first things I learned was that to keep calm, I was going to have to break everything down into small steps and focus on the action I was taking at the moment. For example, if I wanted to get to a meeting from my room, first I would have to get to the first floor, then find my way around the rotunda, and so on. I needed to focus on each step and try to keep everything else out of my mind.
Once I figured out how to cope with the environment, I was able to gain a lot of information from the meetings. I learned about forms of discrimination and access barriers that blind people have faced, and how the NFB helps overcome these issues. For example, I learned that the NFB has fought for blind people who have faced low expectations from teachers and lacked necessary accommodations to gain the same knowledge as their sighted counterparts.
To be honest, I have personally faced little discrimination and few access barriers thus far in my life. I was shocked to hear about the terrible ways in which blind people have been slighted and the times they have been cheated out of opportunities and experiences. I believe that continuing the fight to overcome discrimination and access barriers is extremely important.
With all of this in mind, I want to take a moment to thank those who have been extremely accommodating and given me wonderful experiences throughout my life. These include, especially, my family, the Dumont (NJ) School District, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the YWCA of Bergen County.
At convention I also learned about technologies intended to help overcome access barriers, such as the awesome development of a Braille display that makes images tactile. I also learned about Aira, a new technology that helps blind people have easier access to information. I would be lying if I said that I have come home from convention without the desire to invest in some new technologies for myself.
Probably the most important thing I learned is that blind people all over the nation and the world are overcoming barriers and getting the degrees, finding the jobs, and having the experiences they want. In other words, they are living the lives they want. My mentors during convention were people I will never forget. They affirmed my belief that I can obtain my career goal of becoming a mental health counselor. Bigger than that, they affirmed that I can do anything I put my mind to and truly want, even if doing so requires me to overcome discrimination and access barriers. Speaking of that, I learned that the NFB will do everything it can to help blind people with these kinds of struggles.
Of course, I did not spend all of my time in convention activities. I spent my spare time meeting new friends and visiting with old ones. When things became too overwhelming, my friends helped me relax and find some peace. Learning did not stop when I was outside of convention events. I learned and shared perspectives even in my spare time. All of this learning was fun, and it certainly did not feel like work.
With all of this in mind, I would definitely recommend that everyone who is blind or visually impaired try to go to an NFB convention. There is so much to experience and there are so many great people to meet. However, I have one word of caution regarding convention: Sleep may be hard to come by. There is so much to do that getting the normal six to eight hours of sleep per night may not be possible.
Looking back from home, I cannot believe that one small "research question” could lead to such awesome results. A final thank you is due to the NFB Scholarship Committee for facilitating the awesome experience I had at convention.
by Patti Chang
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, August-September 2017
From the Editor: The National Scholarship Program is one of the most important and inspiring programs of the National Federation of the Blind. In this article, Patti Chang, who chaired the 2017 NFB Scholarship Committee, recognizes the many individuals and organizations that make our scholarship program a reality.
The National Federation of the Blind sponsors the largest scholarship program for blind students in the United States. Each year we award more than $120,000 in cash prizes. Our generous partners add to both prizes and cash awards.
We want to take this opportunity to recognize the partners who contribute to our scholarships and those who add cash and prizes to help make this the dynamic program that it is. Our winners are living the lives they want, and we sincerely thank those who believe in the capacity of the blind. You help make dreams come true. Thank you so very much.
Many NFB scholarships are made possible in part through the support of the Jesse and Hertha Adams Charitable Trust. Through this trust, Jesse and Hertha Adams wanted to help people with disabilities lead productive and meaningful lives. Some scholarships are supported by the Lillian S. Edelstein Trust. All scholarships that are awarded to blind women and are not otherwise endowed are made possible by a generous bequest from the estate of Dorothy R. Olson.
Before we thank specific scholarship donors, we need to thank several partners who add cash and prizes to each of our winners' packages. The Kurzweil Foundation and Ray Kurzweil add $1,000 to each recipient's award. Ray Kurzweil is a longtime friend of the Federation and deserves our special recognition. Google adds another $1,000 to each winner's scholarship. Our students receive a Chromebook from Google as well. Cary Supalo and Independence Science give a generous certificate toward the purchase of a Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest. From the Federation each student also receives a license for the KNFB Reader app, the leading app designed for low-vision and blind people giving access to print on the go.
As to our specific scholarships, we begin by expressing our gratitude to the collective membership of the NFB for funding many National Federation of the Blind Scholarships. These awards recognize and honor achievement by blind scholars.
We have one NFB Science and Engineering Division Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to a student studying in a STEM or related field. The Science and Engineering Division is a group of blind students, professionals, and individuals committed to the success of the blind in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, or in related fields. The Science and Engineering Division wishes to encourage the success of blind STEM students in their chosen fields of study.
We thank Expedia for two awards. These scholarships are awarded to students in STEM fields or in any other field of study relevant to Expedia's business.
The E. U. and Gene Parker Scholarship honors two longtime leaders of the National Federation of the Blind whose participation stood for strong principles and strong support of the Federation's work.
We are also thankful for a $3,000 and two $5,000 Charles and Melva T. Owen Memorial Scholarships. In funding these scholarships, Charles Owen wrote, "There shall be no limitation as to field of study, except that it shall be directed toward attaining financial independence."
Thanks go to Betty Allen for funding the Charles and Betty Allen Scholarship. This scholarship is given by a longtime leader in the National Federation of the Blind of Kentucky. Betty and her late husband, Charles, began this scholarship prior to Charlie's passing to support young people in attaining higher education. Charlie, who was extremely successful, left school at an early age to care for his family, but he retained a strong belief in education.
Our Larry Streeter Memorial Scholarship is next. Federationist Larry Streeter worked tirelessly to ensure quality education for blind and disabled children inside and outside of the classroom. His wife, Sandy, and their daughters, Erin and Jennifer, along with friends and colleagues, sponsor this scholarship to carry on Dr. Streeter's promotion of higher education that will assist blind students to elevate their quality of life, equipping them to be active, productive participants in their family, community, and workplace.
Our next contributors remain anonymous. You know who you are, and we all thank you very much. The Adrienne Asch Memorial Scholarship is given in loving memory of Dr. Adrienne Asch, a consummate scholar and a longtime member of our scholarship committee.
We also have four $5,000 awards for which we are thankful. The Pearson Award is funded by Pearson Education and is given to a student who plans a career in education. For Pearson, learning is a never-ending road of discovery.
The Mimi and Marvin Sandler Award is funded by longtime friends of the Federation, Mr. and Mrs. Sandler. Marvin Sandler served as president of Independent Living Aids for more than thirty years. His wife and he wish to further academic excellence by sponsoring this award.
This year we have two $8,000 scholarships, both donated by Oracle. Thank you, Oracle. The first is the Oracle Scholarship for Excellence in Computer Science. Oracle seeks to hire the best and brightest talent to build its products. The company recognizes the significant impact that its products and technologies can have on people with disabilities. This scholarship is for a student in computer science, computer engineering, user experience, or a related field.
The second is the Oracle Scholarship for Excellence in a STEM Field. This scholarship recognizes academic excellence and leadership in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. Oracle wishes to promote excellence and funds this scholarship based on Oracle's understanding of its impact on disabled employees and customers throughout the globe.
Our $10,000 scholarship is the JAWS for Windows Scholarship. This scholarship is funded by the developers of the JAWS screen reader, part of VFO Group. The developers of JAWS (Job Access with Speech) have been committed to expanding the opportunities for education and employment for the blind with both speech and Braille since the late 1980s. In establishing this award VFO said, "On behalf of all the individuals responsible for the development and support of this product over the years, we are honored to establish this scholarship for students recognized by the Federation."
Finally, we have our most prestigious award, the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship, for $12,000. This scholarship is given yearly by the American Action Fund for the Blind, a nonprofit organization that works to assist blind people. It creates Twin Vision publications and distributes them through the Kenneth Jernigan Library. Kenneth Jernigan is viewed by our field as the most important figure in the twentieth century in the lives of blind people. The Action Fund wishes to keep fresh and current in the twenty-first century the understandings he brought to the field. It has endowed this scholarship dedicated to his memory and to the continuation of the work he began.
These scholarships reward academic excellence and promote leadership in the blindness community. They are possible because of the contributions of many individuals and partners. We sincerely thank each and every one of you.
Presented by Patti Chang
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, August-September 2017
From the Editor: The presentation of the NFB Scholarships is a leading highlight of the national convention each year. At the open meeting of the NFB board of directors, Scholarship Committee chairperson Patti Chang invited the thirty finalists to introduce themselves. Patti read each scholar's name and home state, followed by the state where he or she will attend school in the coming year. Those identified as tenBroek Fellows have previously won a scholarship from the National Federation of the Blind.
Jackie Anderson, Georgia, Georgia, tenBroek: Through my involvement with the first BELL Program in Maryland in 2008, I've learned the importance of parental involvement in developing Braille literacy. This is what I will continue to study as I pursue my doctoral degree, where I'll be focusing on parental involvement and its impact on Braille literacy. I want to thank the Federation for believing in me. Thank you.
Lindsay Ball, Maine, New York: I will be attending SUNY Brockport [State University of New York] this fall to earn my second bachelor's degree in adaptive physical education. I was a Paralympic athlete in Sochi, so I will be helping other blind and visually-impaired students learn that they can be athletes and physically active. I do that as a volunteer right now—I’m the vice president of the Maine Organization of Blind Athletic and Leadership Education.
Cricket Bidleman, California, California: First I'd like to thank Patti Chang, President Riccobono, and the scholarship committee for believing in me and awarding me the scholarship. Life is about sharing stories, so here's mine. I was adopted from China when I was three. In China, if I had been unlucky enough to have a career, it would have been in prostitution. In America I have so many opportunities, but I still recognize the unique problems that blind people face every day because I am one of you. The NFB has taught me to advocate for myself and to teach others to live the lives that we want. Next year I will be attending Stanford University with the goal of attaining a PhD and becoming a college professor so that I can teach other people to live the lives they want. Thank you.
Katherine Brafford, California, California: Good morning. I'm fascinated by the intersection between science and religion. I'm majoring in plant sciences at the University of California-Davis and minoring in religious studies. I hope to become an Episcopal priest specializing in ecological issues. I'm really thankful to the NFB for all the decades of work that have gone on before I was born, as well as the specific support I have received. Without the NFB my dreams would just be fantastical impossibilities, but instead they are tangible. I want to pass on the help that I have received. As part of that I have become vice president of the Southern Oregon chapter and president of the Oregon Student Association. I'm having a wonderful time at my first convention and learning a ton from all you amazing people. I'm so honored to be a scholarship finalist and look forward to continue learning here.
Aneri Brahmbhatt, Illinois, Tennessee: Hi, everyone. This is my first convention, and this fall I will be starting my freshman year at Belmont University in Nashville. I am pursuing a degree in music and entertainment business, so if you want a record deal, hit me up in four years. [laughter] I am so excited to be here at my first convention. This place is amazing. I love everyone's enthusiasm for our cause here, and I look forward to getting to know all of you over the next many, many decades.
Shannon Cantan, Hawaii, Hawaii: Hello, fellow Federationists. Thank you, Scholarship Chair Patti Chang; President Riccobono; and the scholarship committee. What does, "Live the life you want," mean? At seventeen years old I believed it meant girls, junk food, sports, and accepting that blind people could never be parents or ever have a job. At twenty-seven years old I'm helping raise my baby nephew. I'm reading him Braille books almost every single day. I'm pursuing my master's degree in business administration, and I am an active member of the National Federation of the Blind. I am living the life I want and living the life I deserve. [applause]
Melissa Carney, Connecticut, Massachusetts: Hi, everyone. I'm a rising junior at Mt. Holyoke College, double-majoring in English and psychology. I want to start by thanking the scholarship committee for this honor. This is my first national convention, so it's been a great experience, and I'm taking every opportunity to further my independence. Ideally in the future I want to become a clinical psychologist, and I feel that the NFB has given me chances to be more of a leader, so thank you.
Trinh Ha, Arkansas, Arkansas: Hi, everyone. It is a huge honor to be here today. I moved to the US from Vietnam in 2012. I'll be going into my second year at the University of Central Arkansas, studying nutrition. I want to be a registered dietician or a chiropractor. Yes, I'm blind, and yes, as Ms. Chang said, I'm a little shy, but I have not and will never let my blindness or my fear stop me from making my hopes and my dreams become reality. Thank you everyone, and have a great convention.
Afton Harper, Missouri, Missouri: Well, I'm fresh out of high school. I will be going to Missouri State University in the fall as a freshman with some college credits, and I will be pursuing a major in journalism with a minor in photography. I've had a lot of struggles with my photography career, but I've found adaptive technology that I'm actually able to use for my camera, so that's wonderful. I hope to meet some more of you throughout the week. Thank you.
Qusay Hussein, Texas, Texas: Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Ms. Patti, thank you, Mr. President. When I lost my vision in 2006 I was studying to become a plastic surgeon. But I lost my vision, and I switched to psychology, and I am studying right now to become a psychologist. I study at Austin Community College. I serve on the board of the Austin Chapter, I serve on the board of the student affiliate in Texas, and I am a mentor in the College Prep Program in Texas.
Catherine Jacobson, Minnesota, Minnesota: I just graduated from Hamlin University with a double major. I am really proud of my 3.9 GPA, but I believe that most of my growth came from outside of the classroom. I've held ten leadership positions in my university, including being editor-in-chief of our literary and arts journal. I've had life-changing internships at the Jernigan Institute and the United States Senate. In the fall I'll be starting my master of public health at the University of Minnesota, and I hope to conduct nonpartisan health-care policy analysis. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Cassandra Mendez, Ohio, Ohio: Good morning, Federationists. This fall I'll be continuing my bachelor of science at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in the computer science engineering program. I've been honored to serve in the National Organization of Albinism and Hyperpigmentation as a writer for the quarterly magazine for three years. Ultimately I would love to go into the field of access technology to help us all live the lives we want. Thank you.
Tabea Meyer, Colorado, Colorado, tenBroek: Good morning. Thank you, scholarship committee and national board. I am a master of social work student at the University of Denver to serve youth and marginalized communities. I am honored, grateful, and humbled to be here. I've served the Colorado Association of Blind Students and the Denver Metro Chapter. I deeply appreciate you, our leaders, on whose shoulders I stand, benefiting from your sacrifice, learning from your wisdom, and continuing your legacy as an activist on whose shoulders I truly hope future generations stand with confidence. Thank you.
Ibeth Miranda, Texas, Texas: Hello, everyone. I would like to begin by thanking the scholarship committee again for giving me the opportunity to be here today—thank you. I am currently working on a doctoral degree in developmental education at Texas State University. My goals for the future are to be an educator and a researcher to help students in postsecondary education persist and complete their educations. Thank you.
Regina Mitchell, Nevada, Nevada: Thank you, Patti Chang, and thank you, scholarship committee for investing in me. I really appreciate it. Currently I am a nontraditional college student attending the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and I am majoring in psychology as well as neuroscience. My goal is to become a cellular immunologist. I would like to research and have a treatment for autoimmune deficiency diseases. Thank you so much for investing in me, and I hope to have a lifetime fellowship here with the Federationists, and I'm just so proud to be here. Thank you so much.
Maureen Nietfeld, Colorado, Colorado: I had no confidence in myself as a blind person before receiving the message of the National Federation of the Blind while receiving my training at the Colorado Center for the Blind. [cheers] I am now able to share that message with my students at CCB and also through my YouTube channel, BreakingBlind, where I have over 15,000 subscribers. I am studying human nutrition and dietetics at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and I hope to empower others through health and wellness. Thank you to the committee and to the National Federation of the Blind.
Efose Oriaifo, Virginia, Massachusetts: Good morning. I would like to thank Ms. Patti Chang, the scholarship committee, the NFB, and the board of directors for giving me this wonderful opportunity. For a long time my life has been all about overcoming the odds, from my racing and taking part in my school's mountain bike team to leading my high school's science Olympiad team. Like Nelson Mandela said, "It always seems impossible until it's done." In ten years time I see myself in a research lab investigating therapies for cancer and other genetic diseases. Once again I'd like to thank the scholarship committee for believing in me so much.
Chelsea Peahl, Utah, Utah: Hi. I first want to start out by thanking the scholarship committee as well as my own affiliate, which has pushed me to be the person that I am today. I am a junior at Utah Valley University, studying behavioral science with an emphasis on family studies, with the ultimate goal to go into law and advocacy. I know how it feels to feel like I don't have a voice, and I plan on spending the rest of my life being a voice for those who need one. I read a quote once that said, "Great leaders don't start out with the mission to be a great leader; they just start out wanting to make a difference." That's all I want to do. I thank you so much for investing in my future; I promise to show you that you won't regret this. Thank you.
Gloria Rodriguez, Washington, Washington: Maxine Hong Kingston once said, "In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; or a peaceful moment." Positively positive. This is the quote I live by, and maybe I take it a little too literally, because I seek to study destructive natural disasters, prep, and recovery. I grew up as low-income, first-generation, and blind. Absolutely nothing was expected of me. But I quickly learned that anybody can create something and create their own legacy, no matter who they are. Thank you very much. I love you all.
Luke Schwinck, Kansas, Kansas: Thank you, everyone. Thank you to the committee. Thank you to everyone in the NFB who has taught me that it is in fact respectable to be blind. This has led me to a career in what I think I excel at; that is, talking a lot. That talking is used for sport marketing. I love going out and making new relationships, I love facilitating needs that I can discover, and you can't discover those needs unless you talk to people. I am routinely yelled at by my wife and my superiors that I stop and talk too much. I would encourage you all to stop me and talk to me, because I don't care. Thank you.
Carla Scroggins, California, California: Good morning. First of all, thank you to the scholarship committee, to the board, and hello Federation family. I will be attending the University of California-Davis in the fall as a junior, a political science major. I intend to then continue with a concurrent degree program to reach a law degree and a master in political science, ultimately reaching my goal of a PhD in international relations. I hope to work in the international community, potentially——hopefully—as a policy analyst, something like that. I appreciate very much the investment that’s been made in me by this fantastic organization, and I look forward to spending a long time just giving back. Thank you so much.
Alyssa Shock, New Jersey, New Jersey: Go New Jersey! Good evening——or good morning—oh my goodness! I want to thank the scholarship committee for giving me this opportunity, because I’m studying to be a mental health counselor. I’m studying psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and to that end I am also currently answering calls on a hotline for people who are suffering from struggles with sexual violence. Also, recently I have been tutoring a student in fourth grade, helping her. I’m hoping that those opportunities will help me live the life I want as a mental health counselor; and thank you to the NFB for helping me along to this goal. Thank you so much.
Heather Simmons, California, California: Good morning. I would like to extend my gratitude to the president and scholarship committee for bringing me to my first convention. I just graduated with my bachelors in English from Cal State-Bakersfield, and I will enter the master's program at Cal State-Stanislaus this fall. I am quite active in both journalism and theater in my community and on my campus. And one day I hope to be a literature professor. Thank you.
Thomas Smith, Maryland, Maryland: Morning, everyone. I would like to first thank the board of directors, Patti Chang, and the scholarship committee for this wonderful opportunity. I am going to the University of Maryland hoping to——or I will—gain a bachelors degree in both computer engineering and electrical engineering. I hope to work with people like Cassandra to increase the technology that we have at our disposal to help us with accessibility. Thank you very much.
Andrew Sydlik, Ohio, Ohio: Hi, everyone. I am a PhD student at the Ohio State University studying disability studies and American literature. I teach students about the misconceptions and prejudices toward blindness and other disabilities. When I graduate next year, I hope I continue to do that working with students. I've presented my research all around the country and world, including recently in Paris, France. I have been involved in founding a student disability group. This is my first convention, and hopefully the first of many. Thank you.
Sophie Trist, Louisiana, Louisiana: A few of my fellow scholarship finalists have come to you with wonderful, inspiring quotes and words that have been passed down. I am going to be a rising sophomore at Loyola University New Orleans, where I'm pursuing a degree in English with a focus in writing. I hope to use my words and my talent to make the dreams of the National Federation of the Blind a reality. I want to thank the NFB for helping to make my dreams a reality.
Rachel Wellington, Georgia, Georgia: Good morning, everyone. I just graduated high school. In high school I served as captain of my school's dive team for three years, and for two years I was the leader for a student-led youth group. I'm entering the University of Georgia with a major in biological engineering with a focus in assistive technology, and I hope to enter law school to study patent law. This is my very first convention experience, and my very first experience with the NFB. That being said, I am ready to join the ranks of blind people who overcome obstacles and shatter expectations. Thank you.
James Yesel, North Dakota, North Dakota: Hello, everybody. I would like to say thank you to the scholarship committee and the Federation in general. I'm going to be attending Dickinson State University. I will be a senior this semester. I'm going to be majoring in business administration and human resources, and my goal is to be an entrepreneur. Many entrepreneurs will tell you that you should do what you want to do; the more you hesitate, the more the opportunity could be missed. I think the NFB would agree with that. I think we should do what we want to do, and we can do what we want to do. Thank you.
Zeynep Yilmaz, Arizona, Arizona: Good morning, my Federation family. I am originally from Turkey and am still hoping that we would have a convention in Istanbul. [laughter] In Turkey, unfortunately, we do not have many opportunities for blind people to have core blindness skills and even career options. But I was really lucky to have my blind mentors who believed in me and really supported me to become an independent person who does not listen to others, especially the ones who have low expectations, like my teachers. In 2011 I came to the United States. I received my masters in rehabilitation psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Right now I am pursuing my PhD in rehabilitation counselor education at the University of Arizona, and my ultimate goal is to train future rehabilitation counselors who will not have low expectations. Thank you so much to the scholarship committee for giving me this wonderful opportunity. I am really honored to be one of the scholarship recipients, and thank you so much.
Ayoub Zurikat, Texas, Illinois: Good day to all of you. I am originally from the Middle East. I am Jordanian. I got my undergraduate degree in theology and philosophy and then a master degree in human services. I intend to get another master degree in clinical psychology from Wheaton College, and I hope it will lead to a PhD. For the past twelve years I have had the honor of serving troubled teenagers and university students all over the Middle East, and I hope to be able to do that here as well through my masters and then leading to a PhD. I want to quickly thank two groups of people. In this movie called The Shawshank Redemption there is one line that I had carved on a plaque, and the line goes like this: "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." So first, I want to thank the NFB for teaching me how to turn a disability into hope. And the second group of people I want to thank——by disability I am family, but by race I am an outsider—so I want to thank Americans. I have lived here for two years. And I have been welcomed by nothing but kindness and love and honesty. Thank you, NFB, and thank you, America, as well.
At the banquet Maureen Nietfeld won the $12,000 Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship. Here is what she said:
Maureen Nietfeld: Oh my God, this is a surreal moment for me! [Cheering] When I lost my sight I dreamed of being confident, and I dreamed of being independent and successful. I dreamed of being able to go back to work and go to school. Thank you to the Colorado Center for the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind—my dreams became a reality! Thank you so much to my husband, David, for your love and support. Thank you to the scholarship committee for your mentorship and your investment in all of us. Thank you to all the members of the National Federation of the Blind for giving me love, hope, and determination. Let’s go build the Federation! [Cheers, applause]
Following is a complete list of the 2017 scholarship finalists and the awards they received. In addition to the awards listed below, each finalist also received $1,000 and additional prizes personally donated by Dr. Ray Kurzweil; $1,000 from Google and the newest Chromebook; and a $1,000 certificate toward the purchase of Independence Science technologies, specifically the new Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest.
$3,000 NFB Scholarships (14): Lindsay Ball, Aneri Brahmbhatt, Melissa Carney, Trinh Ha, Afton Harper, Qusay Hussein, Catherine Jacobson, Ibeth Miranda, Efose Oriaifo, Gloria Rodriguez, Alyssa Shock, Sophie Trist, Zeynep Yilmaz, and Ayoub Zurikat.
$3,000 Expedia Scholarships (2): Cassandra Mendez and Thomas Smith
$3,000 Adrienne Asch Memorial Scholarship: Andrew Sydlik
$3,000 Charles and Melva T. Owen Memorial Scholarship: Carla Scroggins
$3,000 E. U. and Jean Parker Scholarship: James Yesel
$3,000 Charles and Betty Allen Scholarship: Cricket Bidleman
$3,000 NFB Science and Engineering Division Scholarship: Rachel Wellington
$3,000 Larry Streeter Memorial Scholarship: Heather Simmons
$5,000 Charles and Melva T. Owen Scholarships (2): Shannon Cantan and Tabea Meyer
$5,000 Mimi and Marvin Sandler Scholarship: Luke Schwinck
$5,000 Pearson Scholarship: Chelsea Peahl
$8,000 Oracle Scholarship for Excellence in a STEM Field: Regina Mitchell
$8,000 Oracle Scholarship for Excellence in Computer Science: Katherine Brafford
$10,000 JAWS for Windows Scholarship: Jackie Anderson
$12,000 Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship: Maureen Nietfeld
Presented by Jim Gashel
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, Volume 60, Number 8, August/September 2017
From the Editor: The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards are among the most prestigious awards presented by the National Federation of the Blind. During a general session of the NFB national convention, Jim Gashel, who chairs the Bolotin Awards Committee, explained the history of the program and introduced the 2017 recipients.
Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, fellow Federationists. This marks the tenth year that the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards have been presented by the National Federation of the Blind, the Santa Barbara Foundation, and the Alfred and Rosalind Perlman Trust. To date we have presented $530,000 to forty-eight award winners in honor of the memory of Dr. Jacob Bolotin. By the way, a biography entitled The Blind Doctor: The Jacob Bolotin Story by Rosalind Perlman is available in print and in CD formats from Amazon. It's also free if you qualify for the Library of Congress NLS program. This book is your must-read for the coming year. Why don't you applaud that? [Applause] Read that book! Read that book!
Dr. Jacob Bolotin only lived for thirty-six years. He lived from 1888 to 1924, but he still proved to everyone, blind or sighted, that you can live the life you want. He dreamed of becoming the world's first medical doctor who was blind from birth. He made it happen, and he made it happen without much support from anyone. After he attended the Illinois School for the Blind, Bolotin sold kitchen matches, brushes, and typewriters door-to-door in Chicago and the surrounding area. He used the money to support his family and to save enough to go to medical school. There was no rehabilitation to help him at that time. The hours were long, the work was hard. But in the spirit of Jacobus tenBroek, Kenneth Jernigan, Marc Maurer, Mark Riccobono, and all of you here, Bolotin was in spirit—if not in name—a Federationist. [Applause]
In part supported with a bequest left to the Santa Barbara Foundation and the National Federation of the Blind, these awards include an amount of money to each recipient—and I’ll specify that. But they also include an engraved plaque and medallion. Here’s the text that goes on the plaque:
Presented to [name of the recipient] by the National Federation of the Blind
and the Santa Barbara
Foundation
July 2017
The text on the obverse side of the medallion suspended above the plaque says: "The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award" and then below that the logo of the National Federation of the Blind. Immediately below the logo is this text: "Celebrating Achievement, Creating Opportunity." Then on the reverse side of the medallion, above Dr. Jacob Bolotin's bust, it says, "Dr. Jacob Bolotin," and then immediately below that it shows his birth and his death years, and then below the bust it says "Celebrating his Life/The Alfred and Rosalind Perlman Trust."
Now for the 2017 Jacob Bolotin Awards.
American Bar Association, $5,000
Now with its headquarters in the heart of Chicago—the home of Dr. Jacob Bolotin—the ABA was founded ten years before Bolotin was born. Its mission is to serve equally its members, the profession, and the public by defending liberty and delivering justice as the national representative of the legal profession. Today the ABA has over 400,000 individual members and 3,500 affiliated entities. Therefore, it doesn’t exaggerate the point to say that the ABA is the foremost representative of the legal profession in the United States and around the world.
Beginning in 2017 the ABA will not just be the leading organization of the legal profession, but it is also leading the way in making accessible participation an imperative on behalf of blind lawyers and lawyers with other disabilities. [Applause] That's worth a little applause, and it's also worth the Bolotin Award. This organizational imperative comes from the ABA director as well as the ABA president, Linda Klein. Just imagine how far ahead we would be today if the medical profession had opened up its arms to welcome Jacob Bolotin a century ago.
Although the ABA came to the party a little later than we wish they had, they have come to the party big time. [Applause] By meeting the equal opportunity standard set by Dr. Bolotin, the ABA is using its leadership position to stand tall with the blind on behalf of our first-class status—this in furtherance of Jacob Bolotin’s mission and the compelling story of the blind doctor. We can live the life we want.
Here to receive the award is Ms. Linda Klein, president of the American Bar Association.
Linda Klein: Thank you very much. This prestigious award from an organization that's not primarily law related underscores an important point. Many, if not most, of the issues our society grapples with and the challenges we resolve, in essence, are legal issues—issues that benefit from, and indeed require, the full engagement of lawyers. This is the foundation of the American Bar Association’s decades-long commitment to justice and the rule of law for all, including persons with mental, physical, and sensory disabilities. Our lawyer members are equally committed to the full and equal participation in the legal profession and in society as a whole of people with disabilities. At the ABA we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to take full advantage of the benefits, services, and activities we offer, including members with disabilities. That’s why we’re taking steps to make sure we have a more inclusive, accessible, and sensitive workplace. The ABA could not be the advocate we are without our dedicated member-volunteers, including outstanding lawyers like my friend Scott LaBarre. [Applause] Scott is a member of the ABA Board of Governors, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Disability Rights Bar Associations, and president of the National Association of Blind Lawyers. We are proud that Scott is a leader of our team at the American Bar Association. [Applause] The ABA looks forward to continuing the work of lawyers to defend liberty and pursue justice with allies like the National Federation of the Blind. I thank you for the important work that you do and for this most impressive honor. Thank you. [Applause]
National Federation of the Blind of Illinois Freedom Link Project, $10,000
Jim Gashel: If there was ever a project designed to further the values and the mission of Jacob Bolotin, that is the project of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois called Freedom Link.
Before he was a doctor, young Jacob Bolotin acquired skills and confidence on Chicago's city streets working as a door-to-door salesman. Freedom Link uses the streets of Chicago as a classroom for teaching young blind people the ropes of navigating the city and beyond. This project was launched in 2008 and pairs blind young people with experienced blind adults who are living the lives they want in the Chicago area. Participants meet one Saturday a month in downtown Chicago, and they use the streets of Chicago and the entire surrounding area as a classroom. They go to places of interest using buses and trains; they learn things such as how to define or understand parallel traffic, move on escalators, look out for the edge of the subway platform, etc. This is the blind reaching out and teaching one another. By meeting the standard of reaching and teaching others set by Dr. Bolotin, the NFB of Illinois Freedom Link Project is paving the way for the blind from this generation to the next. This is in furtherance of Dr. Jacob Bolotin's story and the compelling message: you can live the life you want. Here to receive the award on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois is Denise Avant, president of the NFB of Illinois.
Denise Avant: Good afternoon, Mr. President and fellow Federationists. On behalf of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois, we want to say that we are truly honored by receiving this award. We thank the Bolotin Committee for recognizing Freedom Link. As you might imagine, Freedom Link is a very important program to us in Illinois. We strive to show teenagers what they can do when they use long white canes and nonvisual techniques to travel throughout the city of Chicago on public transportation on various field trips. We have some of our Freedom Link members with us at this convention. Emma Meyer, Amy Bosko, Aneri Brahmbhatt, and Batool Arastu have all been in our Freedom Link program and are now members of the National Federation of the Blind. We are so proud of that.
We thank our mentors like David Meyer, Mary Lou Grunwald, Marco Giannotti, as well as Patti Chang for giving up their Saturday afternoons to come and show blind teenagers how to live the lives they want. We especially appreciate Charlotte Lindon, who has funded our program since the very beginning. Our desire is that blind teenagers can live the lives they want and fulfill their dreams. Thank you. [Applause]
Rooted in Rights, $10,000
Jim Gashel: Next is the organization Rooted in Rights, a project of Disability Rights Washington, for its film Bottom Dollars—$10,000. Don’t you just love that name, Rooted in Rights? You know that’s just exactly what Jacob Bolotin and the National Federation of the Blind are all about. Rooted in rights, that’s where we started and that’s where we still are today, seventy-seven years later.
For more than fifty of those seventy-seven years, we have fought on behalf of blind industrial workers for the right to be paid at least the minimum wage, putting an end to legal exploitation of the blind. Welcome to the battle Rooted in Rights, with its feature-length documentary that reveals the exploitation of workers with disabilities and shows them to be successfully working on their own either in other industrial jobs where they're paid better wages or in starting their own businesses. There was no excuse for paying the subminimum wage. Through interviews with our president, Mark Riccobono, and these workers, the film Bottom Dollars takes the veil off of exploitation and shows it to be exactly what it is. Exploitation is wrong, and it must end now. [Applause]
By meeting the no-nonsense advocacy standard set by Dr. Jacob Bolotin, Rooted in Rights is advancing our cause. By exposing the myths and misconceptions about blindness and replacing them with truth and facts, this is in furtherance of Dr. Bolotin's mission and the compelling story of the blind doctor. We can live the lives we want. Here to receive the award on behalf of Rooted in Rights is Jordan Melograna, the organization's creative director. [Applause]
Jordan Melograna: Thank you to everyone who's here today, and thank you very much to the National Federation of the Blind for this prestigious award and also for all of the support and help they gave us in actually making the film Bottom Dollars. I also want to thank specifically Marci Carpenter from the great state of Washington, to my right, for nominating us for this award. The award money is going to go right back into producing the creative and accessible content that Rooted in Rights is known for.
I learned a lot about Dr. Bolotin when I heard that we were getting this award. I realized that he was a groundbreaker because he was the first blind doctor. But when he became successful and became a doctor, he didn't stop there. He knew his personal success was not good enough; the change he was looking for needed to be systemic. Others in the community needed to advocate for that change itself. That's why he went out into those communities and created all-new advocates who could carry on the charge.
In addition to advocating for other blind people, Dr. Bolotin spoke out against the living conditions inside the tenement houses where his family grew up and where my grandfather grew up. He did that because he knew that no issue exists in a vacuum. Eliminating discrimination without alleviating poverty is not good enough. At Rooted in Rights we believe the same thing. Bottom Dollars calls for the end of the subminimum wage, but that's not good enough. When the unemployment rate for disabled workers is no longer twice that of nondisabled workers, that won't be good enough. When we finally have fully-accessible hotel rooms and accessible restaurants and accessible movie theaters, that won't be enough. And when we finally enforce the most important civil rights law of my lifetime twenty-seven years after it was passed, that still won't be enough.
Ensuring equal rights is a moving target. It takes vigilance and hard work by advocates everywhere, including by all of you in this room. That's why we created Bottom Dollars, not only as a film but as an advocacy tool. We've given it away to individuals and organizations to hold their own screenings across the country—270 of them as of today. And the good news is you can, too. If you go to bottomdollarsmovies.com you can find out how to host your own screening. For the first time you can get the film streaming and download it online.
Before I go I want to say thank you one more time to the National Federation of the Blind and all of you for being here today. This award is an enormous honor for the work. Thank you. [Applause]
Dr. Paul Barlett, $10,000
Jim Gashel: Dr. Barlett is dean of preclinical education and professor of anatomy in the basic sciences department at Cleveland University in Kansas. This is one of our nation's premier schools of chiropractic medicine. It's located in Cleveland Park, Kansas. Jacqueline Ouellet is here today—in fact, she’s on the stage; she’s one of our members. She nominated Dr. Bartlett. In nominating him she said, “This guy is intuitive as far as being willing to work with a blind person so I can become a chiropractor.” [Applause] She said a lot of other great things about Dr. Bartlett and convinced our committee that we really needed to recognize this wonderful individual. One of the things that convinced us most is the knowledge that not too far from Cleveland Park, Kansas, is the Palmer Chiropractic College in Iowa, which told Aaron Cannon that, because he was blind, he couldn’t practice as a chiropractor. It took the Iowa Supreme Court to tell Palmer Chiropractic otherwise. They should’ve known Dr. Barlett. [Applause]
By meeting the equal access to learning standard set by Dr. Jacob Bolotin, Professor Barlett is showing that prejudicial barriers in medicine and other professions can and will be removed. This is in furtherance of Jacob Bolotin's mission and a compelling story of the blind doctor telling us all we can live the lives we want. Here to receive his award is Dr. Barlett.
Paul Barlett: This is like the Academy Awards. [Laughter] I want to thank the National Federation of the Blind for this award. I am truly humbled and honored. This award is not just for me, though. I work with a team of individuals to provide support and assistance to Jackie, who is Cleveland University's first visually-impaired chiropractic student.
One of the first hurdles that Dr. Bolotin had to navigate in medical school was anatomy. The same is true with Jackie; however, I am happy to say that she is doing very well in her anatomical studies, as we have developed tactiles and models for her to use. [Applause] Though other options were available to Jackie, she proved her dedication by choosing to participate in the cadaver dissection lab. With the support of her fellow students and myself, she dissects and is tested on the cadavers. She always is allowed to make the first cut by her dissection group.
In the book The Blind Doctor, Dr. Bolotin is quoted as saying, "The major problem for us is not our affliction, but the wall of ignorance, injustices, indifferences, and misconceptions that separate us from you who can see. We must break down that wall, but we cannot do it alone. We need your help." I am privileged to work with Jackie and provide her the support and help she needs to achieve her dream of becoming a chiropractor. Thank you once again.
Abigail Fuller and Sarah Ivy, $15,000
Jim Gashel: Our next award, in the amount of $15,000, goes to Abigail Fuller and Sarah Ivy, for their award-winning film Do You Dream in Color?
Now Carina, Connor, Nick, and Sarah—not Sarah Ivy, she's one of the producers, this is a different Sarah—were four teenagers wanting to live the lives they want, but not able to do so because they were being held back by the misconceptions largely of the educational professionals that they had to interact with. Through watching Do You Dream in Color?, you can tell that their motivations, drives, and activities as teenagers were definitely age-appropriate, but their ability to achieve their goals was being blocked. As film students at the University of Southern California, Abby and Sarah learned about the compelling story. They wondered whether blind people did dream in color, but then they learned that we dream essentially the same way everybody else does. We dream of futures of equality and opportunity just like everybody else does. And they learned that these blind people had in common the restrictions being imposed on them because of artificial barriers due to blindness. Do You Dream in Color? tells that story in spades. If you don't believe it, get it on iTunes, get it on Amazon, get it on Google Play, and get it on Xbox Live, too. By meeting the tell-it-like-it-is standard about blindness which was set by Dr. Jacob Bolotin, Abigail Fuller and Sarah Ivy have produced a film that is being used to kick down the walls of prejudice, ignorance, and discrimination. This is in furtherance of Jacob Bolotin's mission and the story of the blind doctor. We can live the lives we want. Here to receive their joint award are Abigail Fuller and Sarah Ivy.
Abigail Fuller: Hello. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here today, and it's really quite an honor to be recognized by the NFB in such a meaningful way as the Bolotin Award, and to be in the same category as the other award winners who we share the stage with today who are all incredible movers and shakers. I wanted to thank the extraordinary students and their families who agreed to share their very intimate and personal stories with us on film—the highs and the lows. That's an incredibly brave thing to do, so thank you to Connor, Sarah, Carina, and Nick [applause]. Also, thank you to the NFB for all the work that they are doing to promote the film and to help put it in front of as many young blind people and educators as possible and society at large to see the documentary. They really have shown that they're embodying this incredibly powerful idea to live the life that you want to live, which I believe in, myself, and I think the film hopefully shows that as well.
Sarah Ivy: Hi, you-all. Thanks for having us, I just made a few notes. First, I think the most important thing is—and I know Abby already said this, but I'll say it again—thank you so much to Carina, Nick, Connor, and Sarah and their families for sharing their stories with us. Because honestly, without these amazing, inspiring, and wonderful human beings, we're just a bunch of film nerds with cameras running around just kicking it. There wouldn't be an amazing story without them; they're the real inspiration. Sorry, I'm really nervous in front of big groups of people. Originally I wanted to say I didn't know how I actually felt about being a sighted person receiving this award. I was incredibly nervous about it; I was excited, but then I questioned whether or not it was something I should be receiving. Then Chris Danielsen told me something on the phone when we were having a conversation. He said, "If the NFB would have made a movie about teenagers who are blind, this is the movie we wish we would have made." I can't tell you a greater compliment I have received about this film. I know Jim mentioned that the film was about overcoming obstacles, but what Chris's comment touched on which I think—at least for me as a filmmaker—this film was really about how we as a community, as a people, are more alike than we are different. And we should recognize and celebrate that [applause]. I was really inspired by Dr. Bolotin's story, and his pursuit of education and knowledge really did feel in line with the goals of our film, and I hope that you guys get the chance to watch it. I'd like to really thank the NFB for coming on to support the film and getting it out for the world to see (they already made that lovely statement.) Another person I would like to thank is Michelle Bruns Miller, she was one of the first advocates who teamed up with us; she had Society for the Blind in Sacramento partner with us, and we wouldn't be here without her. Thank you so much; it's an honor. Have a great day. [Applause]
HURRICANE RELIEF
https://nfb.org/donate
Attn: Hurricane Relief
200 E. Wells St.
Baltimore, MD 21230
In the recent disastrous hurricanes, many blind persons lost their homes and property, including adaptive equipment and cherished collections of Braille books. Federationists and friends are welcome to send contributions to the National Federation of the Blind marked as "Hurricane Relief." The NFB will work with our affiliates in Puerto Rico, Florida, and Texas to ensure that funds reach families that need help.
SCHOLARSHIPS
National Federation of the Blind 2018 Scholarship Program
https://nfb.org/scholarships
Application Deadline: March 31, 2018
To recognize achievement by blind scholars, the National Federation of the Blind annually offers blind college students in the United States and Puerto Rico the opportunity to win one of thirty merit-based, national-level scholarships worth from $3,000 to $12,000. All scholarships are awarded based on academic excellence, community service, and leadership.
INTERNSHIPS
NASA Internships
http://intern.nasa.gov
Application Deadline: March 1, 2018
NASA is looking to increase the number of students with disabilities pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers through its regular internship programs. This is not a separate program for students with disabilities. Internships are a good way for students to get real-world experience. NASA will begin extending offers to students in January and will continue until all positions have been filled, so get your application in as soon as possible! Most opportunities are posted in mid to late December.
AWARDS
2018 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award Program
https://nfb.org/bolotin
Contact: Jim Gashel, (720) 878-4248
[email protected]
Application Deadline: April 15, 2018
The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards recognize individuals and organizations working in the field of blindness that have demonstrated exemplary leadership and extraordinary accomplishments toward achieving the full integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality. Named for a pioneering blind physician who practiced in the early twentieth century, the awards are made possible through the generosity of Dr. Bolotin's late nephew and niece. Their bequest, the Alfred and Rosalind Perlman Trust, allows the National Federation of the Blind to provide direct financial support to people and organizations that are improving the lives of the blind throughout the United States.
COLLEGE READINESS
College Success at Perkins
[email protected]
Contact: (617) 972-7573
College Success at Perkins is a nine-month, residential, postsecondary program to help blind students develop the skills and confidence they need for a smooth transition to college. The program provides real-world opportunities for students to learn necessary skills for college success, such as mastering independent living, exploring city and campus communities, and using public transportation. The program is open to students who have completed high school and have applied or are in the process of applying to college. Students will be accepted on a rolling basis.
SPORTS AND RECREATION
Eleventh Annual Winter Ski Festival
https://usaba.org/index.php/sports/calendar/p3
Contact: Tom Alcorn, (802) 353-7584
[email protected]
Dates: February 9-12, 2018
Application Deadline: January 9, 2018
Location: Killington, VT
USABA (US Association of Blind Athletes) is partnering with Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sport to host the eleventh annual Vermont Winter Ski Festival at Pico Mountain in Killington, Vermont. Participants of all ages will have the opportunity to learn or practice skills in Alpine skiing or snowboarding and Nordic skiing.
ART BY TOUCH
Tactile Art Kit
https://actionfund.org/tactile-art-program
The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults has launched a pilot program to develop opportunities with art for blind and low-vision children between the ages of two and eight. The Tactile Art Program provides, free of charge, a tactile art kit containing tools with which young children can experience many different tactile formats. The tactile art page includes a series of videos to help parents and children create projects with the items contained in the kit. Once an application for the kit has been made, parents will receive a link to a pre-use survey. Parents are strongly encouraged to complete a two-month survey about their experiences with the kit. These surveys will help the Action Fund grow and improve the program.
SURVEYS
Universal Design in Online Courses
https://educttu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eG10U06gtayoZpz
Contact: Mohanna Almohanna, (703) 870-8052
[email protected]
Mohanna Almohanna is a PhD candidate in special education at Texas Tech University. She is conducting a study that examines the implementation and efficacy of universal design for learning (UDL) for students who are blind or visually impaired. Participants must be blind or visually impaired and must be taking or have taken a university course using a screen reader.
Spirituality and Coping Responses
https://uark.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d0gx8ZRa4HMJCw5
Sandra Bullins, a doctoral candidate at the University of Arkansas/Fayetteville is conducting a research study to investigate the relationship between spirituality and coping responses in individuals who have a visual impairment. All guidelines for the study have been approved by the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB), and all responses will remain confidential. No identifiable personal information will be collected.
BRAILLE BOOKS
Seedlings Braille Books for Children
http://www.seedlings.org
Contact: (800) 777-8552
[email protected]
The Seedlings Braille Books for Children 2018 catalog is now available. You can find it online or place an order by phone or email. The catalog features more than 1,300 classic and contemporary books for children from toddlers to teens, including more than 370 titles in UEB.
TECHNOLOGY
Tech Vision
www.yourtechvision.com
Contact: Denise Robinson, (423) 573-6413
[email protected]
This website includes hundreds of informative articles and lessons on PC Office, Mac, iPad and more, all done with keystrokes. The website has recently been redesigned to make it easier for you to find the information you need.
Fix the Web
www.fixtheweb.net
Fix the Web is a UK-based global campaign by Citizens Online whose goal is to find and fix accessibility issues through the power of crowdsourcing. Web users can report accessibility issues they encounter, and Fix the Web volunteers will contact the website owner and support team. In many instances, reported issues have been fixed as a result.
EMPLOYMENT
Business Ideas for People with Disabilities
https://www.commercialcapitaltraining.com/business-resources/business-ideas/business-ideas-people-disabilities
Transition-age students may find this website to be a valuable resource. It provides basic information about start-ups and franchises, business plans, equipment, and more, and includes links to a host of additional resources.
SERVICE DOGS
National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU)
Contact: Marion Gwizdala, (813) 626-2789
[email protected]
In 2014 NAGDU, a division of the National Federation of the Blind, launched a mobile app for iOS devices that compiled all of the relevant state and federal animal laws in the United States to help businesses and users of service animals understand their rights and responsibilities.
NAGDU has now released Version 2.0 of the mobile app. The new version is available free of charge for both iOS and Android devices, and can be downloaded at the App Store. It includes information on each state statute, the laws for each of the Canadian provinces, specific guidance for industries of concern to service dog users, a direct email button for more specific guidance, and a direct telephone connection to reach a trained advocate.
SPORTS AND RECREATION
Future Aids, The Braille Superstore
www.braillebookstore.com/sporting-goods
Contact: (800) 987-1231
The Braille Superstore offers numerous balls that emit sounds, allowing blind people to participate in a variety of sports and games. Among them are the bell soccer ball, rattle soccer ball, beeping softball, bell volleyball, bell football, bell tennis ball, and beeping frisbee. This site is also a source for board games, cooking and sewing products, and much more.
HandiLifeSport
http://handilifesport.com/en/sound-balls-audible-balls-bell-balls
[email protected]
This site, based in Denmark, emphasizes the idea that sound-emitting balls are great for both blind and sighted players. It sells audible balls for football, goalball, and basketball, and a jumbo ball for general use.
American Printing House for the Blind (APH)
www.aph.org/physical-education/equipment
Contact: (800) 223-1839
In addition to APH products, this website offers an extensive list of resources from other companies pertaining to sports and recreational activities, from darts to competitive swimming.
FORTUNE COOKIES
Lucky Touch Fortune Cookies
Contact: Judith Lesner, (510) 459-4396
[email protected]
The California School for the Blind Lucky Touch Braille Fortune Cookie Company sells delicious cookies containing fortunes in Braille. Plain and chocolate-dipped cookies are available. Fortunes can be provided in contracted or uncontracted Braille. Customized fortunes can be available for a small surcharge.
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