American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Convention 2017 NOPBC BOARD MEETING
Bigger, Better, Brighter
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.
Media Share
