A Parent Speaks About the Education of Blind Children in Maine

A Parent Speaks About the Education of Blind Children in Maine

Braille MonitorMarch 1986
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A Parent Speaks About the Education of Blind Children in Maine

Michelle Swift is a sighted woman.
She has two daughters--one sighted, the
other blind. She is sensitive and
caring.
Recently she became a member of the
National Federation of the Blind.
Naturally it made a difference in her
life and helDed focus her outlook. To
some this would mean that she has been
corrupted--that she has become unreasonably,
"pushy," militant, and overly
aggressive. To those who believe that
the blind are normal people with the
same capabilities and rights as others,
it would mean something else.
Michelle Swift knows that if her blind
child is to lead a full and successful
life, she must have the right kind of
training and opportunity not some day
but now. The National Federation of the
Blind is the vehicle to get it done.
Here is a letter which she recently
wrote to the head of Maine's education
system:
Lewiston, Maine

December 17, 1985
Dear Joyce:
I am writing you in regard to the
proposed standards for teachers of the
blind and visually impaired. As a
parent of a pre-schooler who is blind
and who will be going into the school
system in the very near future, I have
gone over the provisional certification
requirements with much interest and
concern--one being the Grade II Braille
and special Braille notation. I cannot
stress enough how strongly I feel that
my daughter be taught properly how to
read and write Braille.
As she writes Braille, I do want her
to be taught the proper use of a slate
and stylus. Since my daughter's birth I
have had the opportunity to meet a number
of blind children and adults. Many
of them have gone, or are going, through
the Maine school system and have never
been taught to use the slate and stylus.
Somehow through our educational system,
children and adults who are blind have
been told, perhaps not in words but by
attitudes, that learning to read or
rather write with a slate and stylus is
a difficult and ineffective means of
doing Braille. It seems to me that we
are doing a great disservice to our
blind hcildren if they are in fact coming
out of our school system illiterate.
If we look at this problem in a practical
way, we would see that going from
a Braille writer to a slate and stylus
for a blind child is no more difficult
than a sighted child's going from print
to cursive, or simple math to algebra.
Without this skill how will our children
take notes in class, make grocery lists,
take down phone numbers--things that we
as sighted people take for granted? A
slate and stylus to a blind person is
like a pad and pencil is to us. How
heavily we rely on jotting things down.

My six-year-old daughter, with great
pride and joy in her ability to sound
out words, is learning to read, and with
this new skill and knowledge a whole new
world is opening up to her. There is no
limit to where this world can take her--while my four-year-old blind daughter
talks about going to school and learning
to read Braille with her fingers. Like
her sister, her world should have no
unnecessary and artificial limits. The
joy and pride I feel as her mother
watching my children grow and learn is
hard to put into words. Needless to
say, I hold the highest expectations for
both my children as I teach them to have
for themselves.

I do not want to see my daughter leave
Maine school system only to learn that
she wasn't taught the basic skills every
blind person needs to be equal in a
sighted world.
I say with great sadness that many of
our blind people were never taught that
it is respectable to be blind or encouraged
to read and write Braille, and so
they grew up with poor self-esteem. We
must properly educate our blind children
and give them the opportunities and
skills they need so they can grow up to
be productive, responsible adults.
I think we should look at the whole
Eye Care educational system for our
blind children and ask ourselves is a
blind child living in rural Maine,
seeing an itinerant teacher two or three
times a week for a few hours, being
properly taught needed skills? If not,
how are these children keeping up in the
classroom? If Maine has only two
resource rooms for blind children, how
is a conditionally certified teacher
going to complete their nine-month
supervised experience training? Where
we do not have certification standards
to date, do we have a certified teacher
in our school system? These are among
many of the concerns I have as a parent
and a member of the National Federation
of the Blind of Maine.
We must work together to be assured
that Maine's blind people look at themselves
with respect and pride for all
that they can achieve.
Sincerely,

Michelle Swift
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