Future Reflections, Convention '92
Future Reflections, Convention '92
FUTURE REFLECTIONS
Convention, 1992
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
MAGAZINE FOR PARENTS OF BLIND CHILDREN
Barbara Cheadle, Editor
Published by the
National Federation of the Blind
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 659-9314
ISSN 0883-3419
Future Reflections
Vol. 11, No. 5 Barbara Cheadle, Editor Convention 1992
Contents
A Photo Report of the 1992 NFB National Convention
Is Your Child Age-Appropriate? by Ruby Ryles
Demystifying Braille by Joseph White
Our First Convention by Myra Lesser
Some Day ... by Donovan Cooper
Meet the Scholarship Class of 1992
The Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award
Report on the 1992 Parents of Blind Children Division Annual
Meeting by Debra Smith
Mobility: Whose Responsibility Is It? by Gary Wunder
Fitting In: What Parents Can Do by Kathy Watts and Sunny Emerson
An Appropriate Education for Cody by Martin Greiser
Summary of Resolutions Adopted by the Annual Convention
of the National Federation of the Blind, July, 1992
by Ramona Walhof
Shifting Balances in the Blindness Field, an address given
by Dr. Kenneth Jernigan at the 1992 Convention
A PHOTO REPORT OF THE 1992
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
NATIONAL CONVENTION
One of the pleasures of parenthood is watching our children
mature. Sometimes the changes are dramatic and sudden: the first
step; the first day of school; the first tooth to come out; the
first overnight with a friend; the first date. But other changes
are so subtle that we hardly notice them. One day we notice that
our child is not only a little taller but a little
more--well--mature in manner and behavior; and we wonder how and
when this transformation took place.
Such a transformation has taken place in the growth and
maturity of the parents movement within the National Federation
of the Blind. This subtle new maturity was evident at the 1992
National Convention. At the parents seminar on Sunday, June 28,
Dr. Jernigan, Executive Director of the NFB, issued a challenge to
parents. He said, "If you really have planned to come here just
for the Parents Division, think again. That is shortsightedness....You
have as much interest in the problems of every adult blind person
today as you do in anything else because your child is going to
be judged by all of us who are now blind and who are adults. The
kind of opportunities your child will have tomorrow will depend on
what this outfit does today; therefore you ought to be in on it. When
we are discussing what resolutions to pass, about what policies to
set, you ought to be participating in it. What we are doing is
serious business. It is as serious as the life and destiny of
your child. What you do right now in the whole business of dealing
with blind people will determine what kind of life your child will
have.
It's that serious and that important."
This year, record numbers of parents accepted this challenge
and stayed for the entire convention. The presence of parents of
blind children was evident in almost every business meeting as
well as social activity of the convention. Everywhere--in the
Resolutions Committee meeting; National NFB Board of Directors
meeting; division meetings and seminars; Braille Workshop; Music
Division Talent Show; banquet; exhibit hall; state affiliate
caucus meetings--parents and blind kids were a visible and vital
part of the 1992 convention proceedings.
Many families chronicle the growth and maturity of their
children through family photos. The following eight pages is our
photo chronicle of the 1992 National Federation of the Blind
Convention, and of the parents and children who have become an
integral and dynamic part of this movement.
IS YOUR CHILD AGE-APPROPRIATE?
by Ruby Ryles
Parents of Blind Children Seminar
National Federation of the Blind 1992 Annual Convention
Editor's Note: Reprinted from the November, 1992, Braille Monitor.
Introduction
Barbara Pierce, Associate Editor
Braille Monitor
Among the families of blind children, those who work with
blind people, and many blind people themselves there is a polite
conspiracy of silence about the actual abilities of blind people.
As the views and philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind
have found more and more wide-spread acceptance or at least
lip-service, people in the blindness field have learned to mouth
the politically correct phrases: "My blind twelve-year-old gets
himself ready for school independently"; "We expect our blind
clients to pull their weight in the work place"; "I can travel
anywhere I want to go." All of these are perfectly rational and
appropriate statements. The trouble is that most of the people who
make them or ones like them every day don't mean or believe them.
Many blind people seem to think that pretending they are
independent is the nearest they will ever get to true
independence.
After all, they think, deep down, everybody knows that blind
parents use their sighted children as intelligent and literate
guide dogs. Family and friends had better be prepared to drop
everything to act as chauffeur to the blind person, and no one
really expects a blind employee to carry his or her full share of
the load. Above all, and most devastating, no one actually expects
blind children to keep up academically and socially with their
sighted peers. It would be, of course, a shocking breach of good
manners to say these things out loud, but many people (perhaps
most) believe them.
We who are members of the National Federation of the Blind,
however, do truly believe that blind people have the capacity to
live fully normal, contributing lives. In the beginning we may
only hope that this is the case, but in this organization we can look
around us and see blind people who are living proof that this is
indeed so. The blind children who are being raised by the members
of our Parents of Blind Children Division are perhaps the most
dramatic living proof of the power of the philosophy we espouse.
Ruby Ryles is a leader in the Parents of Blind Children
Division and the mother of a blind son. She is also a distinguished
expert in the education of blind children. She is currently
enrolled full-time in a doctoral program at the University of
Washington and is working part-time in the program for visually
impaired students that she established in the Bellingham,
Washington, School District. She was also this year's recipient of
the National Federation of the Blind Distinguished Educator of
Blind Children Award. She addressed the Parents of Blind Children
Seminar on Sunday, June 30, 1992, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Her remarks went straight to the heart of the confusion about
appropriate expectations for blind children. Her expertise is
unimpeachable, her words are clear, and her message is compelling.
Here is what she had to say:
I live in the Seattle, Washington, area; and I am a
professional in the education of blind children. I've been the
Arkansas State Vision Consultant, coordinating and developing
state-wide programs for blind and visually impaired children. My
staff and I worked out of the Arkansas School for the Blind in
conjunction with the State Department of Education of Arkansas. I
spent a number of years as an itinerant teacher for the blind in
Anchorage, Alaska.
Recently I developed and currently supervise a program for
blind and visually impaired children in the Bellingham, Washington,
School District. I also do private contracting with various
school districts in Northwest Washington to assist in meeting the needs
of their visually impaired student populations. I have a bachelor's,
a master's, a year and a half of post-master's study; and I am
currently a full-time Ph.D. student at the University of Washington
in the area of special education, doing educational research on the
blind. Are you impressed? Could I intimidate you at an IEP
meeting? I certainly must qualify as a major-league expert regarding
your blind child; don't you agree? As the kids would say, "Not!" Or,
more correctly stated, "Wrong!" Well, if a hot-dog professional,
who has read a ton of textbooks and taken and taught innumerable
classes isn't the authority on your blind child's abilities and
potentials, just who is? You are, my friends. You may not know or
use the jargon of the professionals, but you truly do have the
expertise regarding your child. Some of you parents do not quite
believe me, do you?
Well, let me run over your areas of expertise, using the
special education terminology of the day. When your blind baby
began saying, "Bye bye," did you teach her to say, "Bye bye,
Dada"? If so, then you assessed her proximal zone of linguistic
development, scaffolded, and became her first communication
development specialist. Did you hold on to your year-old baby's
fingers and walk and walk and walk barefoot across the living
room rug to encourage him to walk alone? Then you probably blatantly
defied the Domon-Delacoto theory and became your child's initial
peripatologist. Did you wrestle with your child on the bed, stack
blocks, roll balls, play on the slides and swings, and guide your
child as he or she put on socks and zipped a coat or loosened a
lid on a jar? Then you're as accomplished in small and gross motoric
guidance and ADL skills as any occupational or physical therapist
I've worked with.
Do you remember the time you used a stern, disapproving
voice and sat your child in a chair for ten minutes to settle him down
or sent him to his room because he sassed his grandmother or tore
the arm off his sister's Barbie doll or pitched a fit at Safeway? Did
you know that you were assessing his current level of behavioral,
social, and emotional functioning and applying behavior modification
techniques to ensure the appropriate attitudinal adjustment of
a non-compliant, temporarily behaviorally-disordered
child? I don't know about you, my friends, but my own service
delivery model of behavior modification when my blind son Dan was
little was expedient, efficient, and measurable, especially when
it was administered to the seat of his pants. Parents are cognition
and behavior specialists long before any psychologist ever puts
our blind child's name on paper work or assigns him a score on any
test. You are the expert.
You don't use the jargon, and my apologies for the pompous
introduction. My point is not to be silly, but to stress the fact
that education, specifically special education, is glued together
with jargon. I really think that special education would come
apart at the seams if we didn't use jargon, especially if professionals
had to say in real language who they are and what they do. Don't
be too impressed or intimidated by titles and degrees or jargon in
special education because there is no one and no test ever
devised that knows your child as well as you do. Believe in your child's
abilities. If you don't, there is no one who will. Any professional
who makes you feel less knowledgeable about your child is poorly
trained, insecure, arrogant, or all of the above.
We've established the point now that you're an expert in
your child's behavioral, emotional, physical, and social development.
Well, how about academics? You heard Fred Schroeder speak about
this earlier today. Are you just going to have to trust that the
special education department in your school district will do the
right thing? No. Listen up because after the next few minutes you
as a parent will be able to assess your child's academic progress
and design a program that will take him through his public school
years. Pay close attention now, because this information draws
the line between a real expert on blind children and someone with
only degrees and titles and pompous introductions to recommend him or
her. There are only two words. Write them down on a scratch pad
or a piece of scrap paper, but I want you to carry them in your
heart for the rest of your son's or daughter's childhood--age
appropriate. That's it, and it's a hundred percent, guaranteed,
fool-proof, sure-fire, can't-be-denied secret. The majority of
professionals in our field don't know it or practice it or, sadly
enough, believe it. But you now know the secret of success for
your blind child; and I want you to feel it and live it.
Let's talk about these two empowering words. Very simply,
"age-appropriate" just means that your child is doing the things
at the same age as he or she would have done them as a sighted
child. For instance, what is a six- or seven-month-old child doing?
Sitting up. That's one thing. Okay, there is no reason at all
that a blind child shouldn't be sitting up at six months. At twelve
months, what's the age-appropriate thing a child should be doing?
One thing is walking. There is no reason not to expect it, even
though we are told quite often by mobility instructors that blind
kids don't walk until twenty-four months. In my own experience
that's just not so--I do have a number of years of experience
with blind kids and have raised a blind son. He walked at twelve
months. A number of times I have had people point to research that
blind kids don't walk until twenty-four months. Well then, how do we
explain all the kids that do walk earlier?
At two and a half years old, sighted babies are into
everything. Our blind infants ought to be into everything too. If
they are not, you need to teach them. Teach them to get into the
cabinets and what fun it is to find the pots and pans and to bang
them together and make noise that will drive you crazy: all of
the things that we say, "No, no, no" about to a
two-and-a-half-year-old. If somebody tells you that your
two-and-a-half-year-old is such a good baby, you better get
scared, because your baby is not age-appropriate. If he is not
age-appropriate at two and a half, then when is he going to be?
When is he going to find the pots and pans and get into them?
When he is twelve? That is not age-appropriate.
Behavior--I often find that I can tell as much about kids by
their misbehavior as I can by their behavior. I think it was a
real good lesson to me as a mom to watch my own son's misbehavior at
age-appropriate levels. I had a student one time who was a third
grader and I suppose is now a tenth grader. Kids in Alaska keep
their boots in the closet, and they put on tennis shoes when they
come to school. At the end of the day you change back into your
snow boots. He was looking around for his snow boots, and
somebody stepped on his hand. That was not pleasant, and he turned
around and bit the kid. When I came in the next day, there was a big
hullabaloo about this. I said, "Randy, you are in big-time
trouble with the school for biting. If you are going to get in trouble
for misbehaving, I would prefer to see you do it like an
eight-year-old rather than a three-year-old. The next time somebody
steps on your hand in the closet and you get angry about it, haul off
and slug him; don't bite him." That's age-appropriate for an
eight-year-old. My point is that, if Randy was going to get into
trouble, how much more appropriate to do it as an eight-year-old.
I have a sadder comment to make on the lack of
age-appropriate behavior. I had a student one time--she was probably
in the eleventh grade. Somebody in class had called her a name that was
none too pleasant, and she responded as an eight-year-old; she
hit the girl. Now when I got to this high school, the counselor said
that the teachers had already handled the situation. After I
sifted through all that was happening, I found out that nobody had done
much of anything about it. I asked, "Wait, why has no one done
anything about this misbehavior? What would you do to a sighted
eleventh-grader who hit somebody in the mouth?
"We would expel her."
She was never expelled; she was never even disciplined. Two
years later, as she was transitioning into a job with the
Anchorage Power and Light Company, she slammed a door on her supervisor's
hand, not by accident, but out of anger, acting more like an
eight-year-old than an eighteen-year-old. Obviously, Anchorage
Power and Light was not real interested in retaining her
services.
Age-appropriate behavior--it's very important. If the child
is not appropriate at eight years old, when is he going to be an
eight-year-old? When he is eighteen?
Language--one thing that needs to be understood is that
blindness is in no way a cognitive handicap; it's just not. There
is no earthly reason why our kids should not be on level
developmentally. The only thing that holds them back in all these
areas, whether it is language, behavior, academics, or anything
else, is our own expectations--our own as parents and as
professionals.
I ran across some interesting research recently.
Unfortunately it was done outside the United States. Much of our
research is rather negative. Fortunately, if you go to other countries
to look for research, there is much better data on blind kids. One of the
articles I looked at was talking about language and blind kids.
The sample they studied indicated that blind kids' language acquisition
and development were right on target with that of sighted kids,
whereas the research in the United States says no such thing. I
thought that was rather interesting.
In my own experience I find that blind kids whose parents
work with them show no difference in language acquisition from sighted
kids. Echolalia is a term often used by professionals to describe
blind infants. It's parroting. If you say to your child,
"Jennifer, do you want a cookie?" and Jennifer says, "Jennifer,
do you want a cookie?" but she means, "I want a cookie," there is
nothing abnormal about that. All normally developing kids (sighted or
blind) go through an echolalic period. You don't need a speech or
language therapist; all you do is model to the child the answer
that you want her to give you. Quickly Jennifer will pick it up.
Instead of saying, "Jennifer, do you want a cookie?" when she
wants a cookie, she will say "Yes" or "Yes, please" or whatever it is
in your family--not hard.
Dressing--at twelve years old one of my students was not
washing or combing his own hair and was not clipping his nails.
Again, if he doesn't do it at twelve, at what age? How inappropriate
that at sixteen, he is just beginning to learn to wash his own hair.
If as a parent you're not sure what is age appropriate, in other
words, if you have a six-year-old and you're not sure what a
six-year-old does because it's your only child, take a look around
the neighborhood or at church. Look at other six-year-olds, and see
what they are doing. There have to be other six-year-olds in your
family. As a last resort go out and buy a book: Dr. Spock. Don't buy
a book on blindness; buy one on standard development in children.
Eating skills--we can run the whole gamut with this one. But
there is no reason in any area that your child shouldn't be doing
what she would if she were sighted. A lot of people get very poor
advice from professionals about such things as saving a fork
until the child is five or six years old. But this means that by the
time he gets to school he has had very little experience in using a
fork; and, believe me, the rest of the kids in that cafeteria
will pick up real quickly that your child is the only one consistently
bringing a sack lunch with finger foods, that he doesn't ever get
a hot lunch where he has to use a fork and a spoon and a knife.
If you don't think that doesn't isolate your child, you are wrong.
It does.
Is your child limited in getting around in any way? For
instance, mobility? This organization was at the leading edge in
insisting on mobility for preschool kids and using canes. I can
remember very vividly, five or six years ago, this organization
was already fighting very hard to get the word out that young
children need canes so they can learn what they need to know early. The
blindness field was saying, "No, we need to give them canes for a
thirty-minute mobility lesson at school and then take them away."
You can equate that with giving a pencil to a three-year-old
sighted child. Would you deny pre-schoolers pencils until they
get to school and then hand them out for thirty minutes at a writing
lesson? How good do you think they are going to be at handwriting
if that's the only experience they have with a pencil? And a
sighted person uses a pencil far less than the blind child uses
the cane.
Role models--in our family and with the kids that I teach,
we have a cardinal rule that, if you don't know how to do something,
don't go ask the professionals. You ask the real expert--the
blind person who is doing it. For instance, I had a tenth- or
eleventh-grade blind kid in Anchorage. He wanted to take a class
on small engines, working on airplane engines. I know absolutely
nothing about that. When I was in school as a girl, shop was for
boys. So the first time I stepped into a shop class, I felt like
I was in a locker room or something. I had no idea how Joe was
going to take this class--I didn't know the names of the tools. I had
no idea how they could be adapted. It would have been foolish for me
to dream up some way for him to adapt these things. So I called
the fellow who was President of the National Federation of the Blind,
and I said, "Do you know a blind mechanic?" I didn't even call
the guy myself. The President gave me the number, and the school
district paid for the call so Joe could make the call. And the
result was that Joe took the class without much help from me. He
didn't need it anymore, because he had the real expertise he
needed. He had learned from the blind mechanic about the set of
tools he needed. We then got together with the Lions Club and
bought it.
When my son was eleven or twelve, he wanted to do a paper
route. Despite all of my professional expertise and wisdom, I had
no idea how he could do one. At the time Jim Gashel was in our
city. It really took a lot of courage on my part as a parent, but
I swallowed my pride, went up to him, and said, "Mr. Gashel, I
understand that you had a paper route when you were a boy, and I
want to know how you did it. My son wants to have a paper route.
Did you go on your mother's arm?" (I thought he was going to gag
on that idea.) He said, "Well, no, but I don't remember how I did
it. Does your son know how to use landmarks with his cane?"
"I don't know."
He asked, "How does he get home from school?"
"He gets off the bus and walks about a block and a half to
the house."
He said, "Then he has to be able to use landmarks." I still
can't tell you how Dan did that paper route. This was in Alaska
with snow up to your knees. We just started out one morning as
you would with a sighted child. I had the route list. If you have
ever had a sighted kid with a paper route, you know that as a mom you
normally begin the route with the kid. You say, "Okay, 2113,
that's the brown house on the right over there. Let's see, 2115, that's
the house next to it. 2116, oh, that's across the street. And
normally you go over the list with the kid for a few days. You
know, that's all I did with Dan, and within six or seven days he
was doing it alone. However he figured it out with his cane, he
was doing the route on his own.
That is the way he has always made his spending money. He
delivers papers for the Seattle Times still. He handles his own
records. We never have to do anything to help him. In fact, he
had to train two substitutes to take his route so that he could be
here at the convention. We went to the Federation; we went to the real
experts. The people that I work with professionally were kind of
upset that we didn't make mobility lessons out of learning how to
do a paper route. But look at the message that would have given
Dan: You have to have a series of lessons in being normal.
When he was in the tenth grade, Dan wanted to be in the
marching band at school. Again I had no idea how to help. This is
a good marching band. Our high school has won state awards, and
they are not about to let anybody in who will mess up their
precision drills. I had no idea how he could do it, because he
uses his cane all the time, and you can't use the cane during drills.
Before I could think of contriving some kind of an adaptation,
Dan got on the phone, called the National Center for the Blind, and
said, "Let me speak to anybody who's blind and who has been in a
marching band." He happened to get hooked up with Pat Maurer. The
next thing I knew--and I didn't have anything to do with this at
all--he talked to the band director, and the two of them worked
it out to the point where the last time I went to one of his
football games where the band was marching at half time, I videotaped it.
When I got home, I was informed that the kid that I had the
camera on was not even Dan. You couldn't find him. Dan was very pleased
with that because he didn't stand out, and I was irritated
because I wanted a tape of his marching.
Staying on the topic of school--kindergarten. You need to
learn about the kindergarten curriculum. They're called specific
learning objectives (SLO's), and every school district has them
for each grade. These are the things that we expect the kids to know
when they come out of each grade. Kindergarten is pretty basic,
pretty easy. Children need to know the alphabet. Your child needs
to know it in Braille; that's all there is to it. Numbers,
children need to be able to count. Normally in kindergarten they are
supposed to be able to count at least to a hundred. Your child
needs to be able to do it too. You should be able to demand it;
you must demand it from your school district. I don't care how it's
done, whether they use Mangold, whether they do it with Patterns.
Because I taught first grade for about nine years before I
got into this field, I like to use basal readers. I take a basal
reader and adapt my own method. It doesn't matter how it's done, as long
as the child is on level from kindergarten through high school.
In kindergarten the kids need to know colors. Blind kids need to
know colors too. Totally blind children need to know dogs are not
blue, hair is not green unless someone's making a statement.
Animals--how inappropriate for a fourteen-year-old not to
know about animals! It's very embarrassing for students at fourteen
and fifteen and sixteen. Sometimes, after they begin to feel
comfortable with me, my students say things that let me know that
they have no concept of a bird, different wingspans, a bird's
feet. We talk about animals' feet. We look at the difference between a
cat's feet, goat's feet, bird's feet, cow's feet. How about tails
on animals? Will your child ever have a good concept of a
giraffe? You say, "Oh my, of course not." Well sure he will if you
describe it by analogy. He's got to know something about what a giraffe's
feet are like. Are they more like a goat's, a cow's, or a horse's
feet? But first he's got to have a good concept of the animals
that you can let him have hands-on experiences with. Do this at an
age-appropriate time--three, four, and five years old--so that
you can talk to him about animals. A giraffe has a tail that's much
like a cow's tail, but how will he know if he doesn't know what a
cow's tail is like, if you have not taken him to a fair?
We are city people, so when a fair came around, I used to
grab the opportunity. If you go into the animal barns, the people
always want to let your kid pet the animals. That's not going to give
the child much of a concept of what that animal is like. I always say
we need to get into the animal. I take the child's hands and
together we feel the back leg of a dog or a cat or a cow to know
what the animal's legs are like and how they differ from the
front legs and how the legs bend. So when I talk about the legs on a
giraffe, the child will have a concept of that. But it is much
harder to do this when the child is twelve than it is when he is
five.
Remember, when your child is in first grade (Fred Schroeder
mentioned this earlier, and it can't be emphasized too much),
your child is not learning Braille; your child is learning to read in
Braille. It boils down to this: when your child is leaving first
grade, he needs to be reading at a beginning second grade reading
level, or he is behind. It is like dominoes. He's behind in first
grade. That throws second grade behind. He's behind in second
grade, and that gap gets wider and wider and wider. Don't kid
yourself: your child is not going to catch up. You need to be
sure now that your child is on level in first grade.
At three years old every child should be using a spoon;
don't wait until your child is six. Don't let somebody tell you that
it's normal for a blind child not to do something until later. That's
not so! Beware of the word "realistic." Anybody that tells you to
be realistic about your child, you know what that really means?
Lower your expectations. It means don't expect so much, accept
less. That's what it means, and you should get your back up.
Second grade is the time for teaching keyboarding--I don't
like that term; it's still typing to me. A child needs to learn
to type. All vision-impaired kids (low-vision and Braille-reading
kids) need to learn to type because they are going to be
communicating with print-reading teachers.
I've been criticized sometimes for waiting too long, but
third grade is normally the grade that I introduce slate and stylus. I
would wait no longer than that. Writing with the slate and stylus
is one of the easiest things under the sun to introduce to a
child. I wait till third grade simply because by this time normally
they've got a pretty good grasp of Braille, and it takes about
six weeks from introduction to the time when they're just about fast
enough to keep up with the spelling tests. I like to say, "Okay,
spelling is the first subject in which we are going to use the
slate and stylus. You are expected to do your spelling totally
with slate and stylus." I have to prime the teacher first to let her
know that she is not to slow down in dictating the Wednesday
preliminary spelling test for this child. He may be used to
making A's in spelling. He may make an F or so in spelling because he is
not keeping up, but the teacher is not to slow down. There is
nothing that will make that child speed up faster than a poor
grade on his spelling test because he couldn't keep up. As a parent you
need to get onto your child at home and say, "Hey, what happened
to this spelling?" even though you know. If you accept the low score
on the grounds that, well he was using the slate and stylus, so
he's going to be a little slower at this, what message does that
send to your child? It's okay if I'm not up to snuff in writing
and spelling.
I would say, be very wary of putting an aide in a classroom
with your child because an aide takes away independence. Think
about it. If you've got an aide in the classroom with your child,
at what point are you going to say, "Okay, no more aides in that
classroom?" At sixth grade, fifth grade, when? Are you planning
for it now? If your child has an aide in kindergarten or first grade,
are you planning that next year we are going to say, no aide: she
is going to do it on her own.
Dan hasn't even had an IEP since he was in seventh grade. He
graduated from high school two weeks ago today. It has not been
real easy along the way. The hardest thing I think has been for
me to sit on my hands and not go to that school and wring some
people's necks. I had to teach Dan to do his own advocating with
the teachers. The science teacher, for instance, gave Dan a C,
and in looking at the final report I noticed that they had included a
computer printout record of the stuff the kids had done. Dan had
done twenty-five percent of what the rest of the kids had done
that quarter. I said, "Dan, do you realize you've done twenty-five
percent, and the teacher is giving you a C? The teacher had
written at the bottom that it was too visual. They had been doing a unit
on astronomy, and they were computing distances between stars and
that sort of stuff. It was beyond me, to be honest with you.
Anyway, I impressed on Dan that next year builds on this.
You have twenty-five percent of the knowledge out of this science
class that you are going to need for next year. Are you really
satisfied with that? He went back to the teacher and said he wanted the
extra work. He wanted the seventy-five percent that he had missed. He
got it; he also got a lower grade on his behavior. I think his
teacher thought he was a smart aleck, coming back and asking for the
extra work. But he did the work and it taught him a lesson: he should
not be letting his teacher make these decisions for him.
Often our kids have assignments cut for them. We are told
that they work too slowly, for instance. It takes so much longer for
them to get the assignment done. But what does this say to our
kids? For one thing, they are being permissioned out of an
education. Many times especially kids who are partially sighted
and who don't know Braille are excused right into incompetence. If
your child is partially sighted, there is no getting around it: he
needs to learn Braille, which he can learn along with print. I would
not advocate that he read only Braille, but he needs to learn to use
print when it is efficient and Braille when it is efficient. It
is far, far easier for your child to be taught Braille when he is
six rather than twelve, because once kids get to about third grade,
they are going to fight anything that is different. It is normal
that they do. But I don't think that I have ever had a child,
partially sighted or blind, below the third grade level who has
ever resisted learning Braille.
Extra time--often our kids are given extended time limits,
and the only reason they have extra time, whether they're Braille or
low vision kids who haven't learned Braille, is that we haven't
expected enough of them. If they are low vision and they need
extra time, they need Braille. If they are Braille kids and they need
extra time, they're not reading fast enough. That's all there is
to it. And we need to step up their Braille reading instruction to
be sure that they learn to read fast enough. There is no reason for
our kids to need extra time.
Extra time in getting to class, extra time in getting to
lunch--this should not be happening. As Fred said earlier about
the kids who left five minutes early to get to the swings at recess,
the message that policy sends to the child is very harmful.
How do you know if your child will benefit from reading
Braille? If your child has low vision, There are some red flags
that you can think about. If your child has low vision, does he
enjoy reading? Does he pick up a library book and read it for
pleasure? Normally not--low-vision kids avoid reading. As a
partially sighted adult once said to me, "Reading print is just
not pleasurable." There is no such thing as pleasure reading for
these kids. Does your child use tapes a lot because print is so tiring?
Does he need to have someone read the printed material to him?
Your child is not going to learn reading skills if he doesn't read. He
has to read a large amount of material. Somewhere, in some of the
readings that I have done in the last year or so, I have read
that the average fifth-grade child runs across a million words a year.
Do you think your partially sighted child using tapes is going to
see that number? To be able to be literate, our children must
physically read the same amount of material as sighted kids. For
instance, is your partially-sighted child spelling as well as she
should be? How is her reading speed? If it is not up to snuff,
you need to be looking at Braille.
Does a child use tapes for book reports? Teachers assign
book reports because they want the child to have the experience of
reading books, and tapes don't provide the full experience. Kids
can't learn to spell words off tapes. For instance, one of the
students I had recently was a junior in high school, and she had
just learned Braille. She was reading and saw a phrase in the
text. She said, "This morning--I didn't know that was two words." If
you get your information from tapes, there is no way that you could
catch such a simple thing as that, let alone being able to spell
a word like "Chicago." There is no way unless you have read the
word "Chicago" enough times that you would know that it is not spelled
with a "S-h-i-k." Be sure that your child is reading a lot.
Written expression is another big red flag with
partially-sighted kids. Punctuation, paragraphing, syntax: all
suffer greatly if the child doesn't read. Kids who don't read
can't write. Braille is the answer.
Handwriting--can your child read his own handwriting after
it gets cold? For instance, after a couple of weeks could you pull
out notes from your partially sighted seventh-grader's notebook and
say, "Read this back to me." If he can't read it, seriously
consider Braille, because your child could benefit from learning
it.
When I am called to assess a child in junior high, I know
what I am going to find. The school personnel will say they want me to
come look at a child that is visually impaired. Probably the
student is in a resource room, some kind of a self-contained
setting for at least one period a day. An aide or someone else is
helping the child, more or less pulling her through
assignments--reading the material, helping with spelling. These
kids are not getting through school on their own. They are not
getting the literacy skills that they need at all. Most of them
are permissioned out of a lot of basic courses, such as foreign
language, geometry, and higher math, because teachers believe
these courses are too visual for kids with limited sight. Braille kids
aren't denied such opportunities. For instance, last year my son
Dan took trigonometry and chemistry. He needed no aides to take
these classes. It's not that Dan or my other students are
brilliant. It's just that they learned Braille from early on, and
they took it for granted that they were expected to do higher
math. They were expected to take trigonometry and geometry and two
years of Spanish or French or German. Good Braille readers can do that.
Those who struggle through with print can't. Such students are
not normally good enough readers to handle complex material.
I lost my glasses earlier this week, and with my university
courses, I've got to do a lot of reading. I got migraine
headaches Monday and Tuesday. I'm taking a statistics class right now, and
the eye strain gave me migraine headaches. I finally told my
husband I couldn't go on. I was either going to have to start
using Braille or go get some glasses. That experience gave me real
empathy with a lot of the kids I have taught and am thankful for,
the low-vision kids to whom I have taught Braille. Reading print
is just not pleasurable for them, and they don't do enough of it to
be very literate. Your kids won't be either, if they are partially
sighted. Teach them Braille.
One definition of literacy is the ability to read and write
at grade level. If your child is a Braille reader and she is in
third grade and you don't know whether she is reading on level, how do
you tell? Ask to borrow a third-grade textbook in your child's
class. If it's not in Braille, there is somebody in your
community who knows Braille well enough to Braille a story in the middle.
Hand it to your child and listen to how she reads. See if she is
fluent with it. If she is, ask her some questions about what she
has just read. How is her comprehension? You can tell whether she
is stumbling all over herself in answering your questions. If she
has no idea what she has read, she is not on grade level. I don't
care what that IEP says, what the assessment says; you do your
own assessment of your child. It's not that hard.
I will finish by saying that in the Federation we believe
that blindness can be reduced to the level of a nuisance if you've got
the skills and opportunity. Can blindness really be reduced to
the level of a nuisance? You bet it can, but only if your kid has
good skills, a positive attitude about blindness, and a chance. One
day soon, parents, you will find yourself in my shoes. Your child
will be taller than you are, standing on the threshold of adulthood.
I'll tell you from experience, it will be here in the blink of an
eye. It seems like yesterday that Dan was a little one in my
arms, and he is starting at Washington State University this fall. I
can't believe the time is here. Time is a vindictive, relentless
thief, and the cruelest theft of all is the theft of our kids'
confidence in themselves. Don't let another day go by before you
see that your child has the skills to ensure that he can become a
confident, independent adult. You do that by seeing that he is a
confident, independent child. See that he's age-appropriate in
every way.
DEMYSTIFYING BRAILLE
by Joseph White
From the Editor: The Parents of Blind Children Division
sponsored a three-hour Braille Workshop on Wednesday evening of
the Convention.It was a basic skills workship aimed at sighted
parents of blind children. Even though it was primarily for parents, many
teachers and blind adults asked to sit in as observers so they
could get some pointers on teaching the slate. The demand for the
workshop was so high (it was limited to 25 persons) that some of
the parents with more Braille experience gave up their seats so
inexperienced parents could attend. POBC owes a special thanks to
Claudell Stocker and Linda Bobo, who volunteered to teach the
workshop. Their skill as instructors and their contageous love
for Braille made the workshop an outstanding experience for many
parents. Here is what one father, Joseph White of Maryland, has
to report about his reaction to the Braille Workshop.
One of the highlights of the 1992 National Convention for
many parents of blind children was the Braille Seminar. It was an
opportunity for us to get some hands-on instruction in reading
and writing Braille. It was also a very powerful reminder of why
sighted parents of blind children should know Braille. Without
this knowledge, my wife and I had to rely on the vision teacher's word
that Braille was hard to learn, difficult to use, and more often
than not, simply out of reach for the multi-handicapped child.
Now, we know enough about Braille to say, resoundingly, Malarkey!
Claudelle Stocker, (who was at that time the Head of Braille
Development at the National Library services for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped) was our instructor. Her vivacious and
witty personality along with her personal approach kept us all at ease,
but still attentive and eager to learn. By her very teaching
style and the ease with which she presented the material, it was
obvious that she was very well founded in Braille. She was assisted by
Linda Bobo, who also works at the Library of Congress and is
blind.
She began by teaching us the history of Braille and the
condition of the blind during the time of Louis Braille. We were
then taught the reason for the Braille cell size and dot spacing.
Instead of focusing on dot positions 1 through 6, she emphasized
that the Braille cell has a first side and second side, and that
each side has a top, middle, and bottom dot. She introduced
several letters and we practiced reading printed Braille dots, proceeding
from left to right. Then we read Braille words formed from the
letters we had just learned. It was very rewarding and motivating
to be reading words so quickly!
Next we got out our slates and styluses. Here again, we had
the advantage of a teacher of superlative skill and extensive
background in the reasons for the shape of the slate and stylus
and the manner of manipulation of same. Using the practical, hands-on
approach, we began Brailling the letters we had just learned to
sight read. We began writing right to left, but the rest was the
same. The "a" was still the top dot in the first row we came to,
and "g" was still the top and middle dots of the first and second
rows, and so on.
Pretty soon, not only could we read Braille letters and
words, but we could write them as well. The mystery and hocus-pocus of
reading forward and writing backward, and how much more difficult
Braille is than print had been exposed for the fallacy that it
is. Watching Claudelle Stocker and her colleague teaching and using
Braille, I realized that my daughter could also use this tool to
achieve anything she set her sights on in life.
Plainly and simply, Mrs. Stocker and her colleague taught
us, as parents of a blind child, how to provide our child with one of
the most important tools of success. Just as a sighted child
needs to learn the alphabet and then spelling and handwriting, so does
our daughter. She merely uses different tools and a different
shape to her alphabet. As her parents, we need to be able to help her
with homework and also be able to fight, if need be, to get her
the proper services and education. Lack of Braille proficiency on the
teacher's part is not going to be accepted by society as a valid
reason for our child's illiteracy when she is grown. It is our
job as parents to assure that she is literate when she becomes an
adult. If we know some Braille, we are better prepared to assure
that literacy and to help her achieve her goals in life. Without
Braille, we encourage underachievement and, possibly, failure
throughout her life.
OUR FIRST CONVENTION
by Myra Lesser
July, 1992--Alex and I finally made it to our first NFB
Convention! For three years I had been thinking about it, and
each year there was some reason why we couldn't go: too busy, too
expensive, too far (I hate to fly). Well, this time it was in
North Carolina, only a one-day drive from our home in Pennsylvania, and
I was able to get some financial help from my affiliate, the
National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania. So even though
we were still busy, off we went.
The twelve-hour drive there gave me lots of time to think:
Why am I doing this? It's such a long drive. I guess it's because I
want to meet other parents of blind children, blind children
themselves, and blind adults. I also want Alex to know there are
many other blind people in the world and to have successful role
models. After all, the NFB had already influenced our lives so
much: because of articles I read in Future Reflections and the
Braille Monitor, Alex has been using a cane since he was three
years old; we all have healthy attitudes about blindness; I have
been much more assertive and prepared for IEP meetings; and
through our state NFB affiliate we already felt a sense of belonging and
support. Was it really necessary to drive for twelve hours and be
away for five days?
When we arrived in Charlotte on Saturday evening we walked
into the hotel and immediately met Paul Bartlett, father of
Ellen, who is just about the same age as Alex and also uses a cane and a
Perkins Brailler. What a nice beginning! After the next five days
of riding shuttle buses between hotels and the convention center,
attending various group sessions, and swimming in three different
hotel pools,--many, many of the conventioneers also came to know
Alex and Alex's mom.
But on Sunday morning--before we really knew anyone--with
great trepidation I took Alex to the room where the children were
gathering to go to the Charlotte Science Center. My concern (and
his) was not that he was going off with a group of blind people,
but that he was going off with a group of strangers. Neither of
us knew anyone in the group. I just kept thinking about the articles
I had read in the Braille Monitor about previous conventions and
how happy the children looked in the photos. Well, it turned out
that Alex found a very special adult named Ollie Cantos who
helped him and the other kids have a great day.
While Alex attended the children's activities I attended the
day-long parents' meeting where I got to meet and listen to many
of the people whose articles I have been reading for three years in
Future Reflections. I also heard presentations by other parents
of blind children, educators, blind adults, and blind youth. I was
particularly impressed by the five blind youth who were so poised
and articulate as they delivered their talks from the Braille
notes. (Texts of their talks appeared in Future Reflections, Fall
1992). I realized that some of these youngsters were only a few
years older than Alex. Wow! What great models for me--and for
some of the other youth in the audience--to see. At the large session
I asked a question about rural mobility that was answered by the
speaker (Fred Schroeder,) and then at the break I was thrilled to
have five other people come over to me to share their personal
experiences and offer other resources related to my question.
On other days I attended workshops on technology, parental
concerns, and Braille. At the Technology Workshop I was pleased
to hear that many of the other parents had children about Alex's age
and that they seemed to be as new to the world of computers as I
am. Tom Balek, the workshop leader, has a wealth of knowledge and
experience, but even he couldn't give us the simple answers we
were looking for about our future with technology. The range of what
is available is so complex and always changing. I felt overwhelmed,
but I also felt that when we are really ready to enter this world
that Tom and some of the other parents (and kids) will be
valuable resources to consult.
I attended the Parental Concerns meeting not realizing the
focus was on concerns of blind parents. At first I felt like it
wasn't going to pertain to me, but of course, very quickly I
remembered that most concerns of parents are universal and apply
whether the parent is blind or sighted. I think it was also
helpful for the blind parents to be reminded of this, too. It was also
quite educational for me to hear about the unique concerns of
blind parents and to remember that some day Alex may be a blind parent
and face some of these same concerns.
Even though the material covered in the Braille Workshop was
already familiar to me, it was exciting to be with 25 other
parents who wanted to know more about Braille in order to help their
children.
While I attended these workshops, Alex went to day care (or
as he called it, his "kids meeting"), where he was watched by
volunteers and got to play with lots of other kids, both blind
and sighted. Alex and I both visited the exhibit hall many times and
bought a talking watch, talking calculator, abacus, Federation
cane, Braille Readers are Leaders tee shirt, and picked up lots
of information on technology and free literature from the NFB table.
Alex really enjoyed visiting the Sensory Safari Exhibit with
stuffed lions and tigers and leopards and many other animals. He
also enjoyed swimming in the pools at three of the hotels with
his many new friends. He loved riding on the shuttle buses, which at
first I viewed as a bother and a waste of time, but I quickly
realized that some of my best interactions with people took place
on the bus or while waiting for the bus--like with the two
teenage girls I met who shared their experiences growing up with a blind
father. They talked about the ignorance of the general public as
when people asked them how they could leave their fathers home
alone? What if he had to go to the bathroom? When they were asked
in a survey about growing up with a blind parent if that parent
ever embarrassed them, they responded as many other teenage girls
might respond, that it was actually their sighted mothers who
sometimes embarrassed them, not their blind fathers. It was
evident to me how their lives had been enhanced by their family's
involvement with the NFB.
Attending this convention was an important event in my life
and in Alex's. The support and sharing and caring expressed by so
many people was overwhelming and continued in every session, on
shuttle bus rides, and even around the pool. Where else could a
sighted child feel "left out" because he was one of the few
children there who didn't have a cane? At the Parents of Blind
Children Division Annual Meeting I was elected to serve on the
National Board. I am really happy to do this, and Alex and I both
look forward to next year's convention in Dallas.
*In order to make the NFB Convention experience even more
enjoyable and meaningful to parents with small children, the POBC
board decided to locate inexpensive toys appropriate to display
and sell at our POBC table in the exhibit hall next year. If your
blind child has really liked a certain toy, especially if it's
something you don't see in every store, I'd really appreciate hearing about
it. I'd also like to hear from you if you are a blind child or
adult with a suggestion about toys. I will also take donations of
toys like See'n Says, music boxes, jack-in-the-boxes, push toys,
etc. for the day care area next year. Write to: Myra Adler
Lesser, RD #3, Box 913, Chicora, Pennsylvania 16025.
SOME DAY. . .
by Donovan Cooper
From the Editor: The experience recounted below by Donovan
Cooper, a long-time Federationist and leader in the NFB Diabetic
Division, is not unique or extraordinary. In fact, such episodes
are downright common whenever blind children are given the
opportunity to mingle with blind adults at Federation functions.
And that is why it is worthy of our notice. Children's dreams of
what they can be and do when they grow up are grounded in the
very ordinary interactions with the adults around them. As you read
this article, ask yourself these questions: Could a blind child ever
learn from a sighted adult what this child learned in just
seconds from an incidental meeting with a competent blind adult? How many
times has my blind son or daughter had such a moment with a blind
adult? This chance encounter happened at a National NFB
Convention, but it could just as easily have happened at a NFB State
Convention; or chapter meeting; or NFB parent seminar; or a local
NFB picnic or holiday party; or any other NFB event which brings
blind people together. There are many reasons why parents of
blind children should get involved with the National Federation of the
Blind, and this is as good a reason as any of them. Here, now, is
Donovan Cooper's story.
I have not had the pleasure of fatherhood. I was the younger
of two male children in my family and I have seldom had the
opportunity to act as a "big brother" to a boy. So, when that
chance comes my way, and the interaction between me and the boy
works well, I really appreciate it. At the July 1992 National
Federation of the Blind Convention, I had one of these rewarding
experiences.
My hotel room was on the fifth floor of the Radisson Hotel
in Charlotte, North Carolina. One night I was returning to my room
when I met a boy and his mother in the fifth-floor hallway. I
didn't get the mother's name, and I regret this because I would
like to congratulate her on the fine job she was doing in
teaching the young boy to use his cane to find their room. At the moment,
however, it didn't seem appropriate because, if I were to do
something to help the situation, that help would have to be
directed to the boy and not his mother.
Although Mom was doing everything right, her son was whining
(as children will sometimes do) and resisting using his cane.
Again, Mom was doing a great job, but it seemed that the boy
needed a good male role model. What a great opportunity for me to try
and be that role model! So I gave it my best shot. As I said, I don't
remember his name but for purposes of this article, let's call
him Andy.
"Hi. Who do we have here?"
"This is Andy."
"Andy, you're such a big boy and that's such a big cane."
Andy paused and looked up at me.
"Andy, come here. Look at my cane."
Andy timidly walked the few feet to where I stood and
reached out his hand to look at my cane. He touched it and began
following the shaft of the cane upward until he could nearly reach the
handle.
"Andy, some day your cane will be as big as mine."
Andy didn't say a word. He didn't whine. He didn't ask
questions. He just turned and placed his own cane on the floor
and walked directly to his room. It was clear that Andy liked the
idea of his cane getting big. And it was clear that he associated the
big cane of a blind adult with his own growing up and the use of
his own cane.
Although I was not a blind child and therefore did not
relate to canes as a child, I remember similar associations from my own
childhood and how much they meant to me. I remember the men who
were positive influences on my life and how much I wanted to
emulate their use of tools. My father, after all, was a
carpenter, and as a boy I thought that the time spent with a hammer in my
hand was time well spent.
The lesson to be learned here is that our blind children
need blind adults as role models. That boy's mother was doing two
wonderful things. She was taking the time to teach her young son
cane travel and giving him much encouragement in the process. But
she was also doing something else of extreme value to the boy.
She had taken him to a National Federation of the Blind Convention,
where chance encounters with confident and skillful blind role
models are commonplace. I was one of the lucky ones who got to be
one of those role models in Charlotte. Andy was one of the lucky
ones who experienced such an encounter as a child. I have never
had a moment's interaction with a child mean more to me, and I am
sure that it meant a lot to Andy. His reflections on such experiences
as he grows will help him to understand that it is respectable to be
blind.
This is the Federation at work in ways that cannot be
accomplished by any other organization. I am so happy that we do
what we do. Bring your children to our conventions and help them
to interact with us in every way you can. After all, some day their
canes will be as big as ours.
NOTE: If you would like to get involved with the National
Federation of the Blind in your state and community, check your
local telephone book for a listing. We have affiliates in every
state plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, and chapters in most large
communities. If you need help locating an affiliate near you,
call the NFB National Office for information: (410) 659-9314; or call
Mrs. Barbara Cheadle, President, Parents of Blind Children
Division, National Federation of the Blind: (410) 747-3358.
MEET THE SCHOLARSHIP CLASS OF 1992
Every year the National Federation of the Blind awards an
impressive array of scholarships to an equally impressive array
of blind post-secondary students. The task of selecting the winners
is never easy. First, the members of the National Federation of the
Blind Scholarship Committee, chaired by Peggy Pinder of Iowa,
must pore over hundreds of scholarship applications to select the 26
winners who will attend the convention (expenses paid by the NFB)
to compete for the various scholarships. Then during convention
week Committee members must find the time to get to know each of
the winners in order to make the final judgments in the
competition for the cash awards which range from $2,000 to $10,000. The
scholarship winners are introduced early in the convention at the
Board of Directors meeting, where they get a few seconds to tell
a little bit about themselves. The scholarship awards are made
later in the week at the annual convention banquet.
Here are the 1992 winners as they were introduced at the
convention Board of Directors meeting. After the name of the
student is the name of the state from which the winner comes and
then the sate in which he or she will be a student in the fall of
1992. Following the transcript of the comments the scholarship
recipient made as each was introduced is the scholarship award he
or she received later in the week at the convention banquet.
Shelly Berger, Colorado, Colorado: "Hello. I am a junior at
Colorado State University. I am hoping to get into veterinary
school. I just wanted to let Dr. Jernigan know that I have been
taking my NFB vitamins for the past years, and it has really been
a help. Thank you." **$2,000 NFB Merit Scholarship
Katharine Bond, Virginia, Massachusetts: "I'm very honored.
I am going to be studying art history this fall at Williams
College. I have worked in the art museum field for the last five years as
an assistant art curator at the State Archives in Maryland and as a
full staff member at a small museum as a collections manager. I
have an undergraduate degree from St. John's College, and I'm
delighted to represent blind people in this field." **$4,000 NFB
Scholarship
Ann Marie Bovaird, Ohio, Kentucky: "It's a great honor to be
here. Last December I graduated with a bachelor's degree in
international studies from Miami University of Ohio. Beginning in
August I will start pursuing a master's degree in international
affairs from the Paterson School of Diplomacy and International
Commerce at the University of Kentucky. Thank you very much."
**$2,500 Frank Walton Horn Memorial Scholarship
Dennis Bowling, Illinois, Illinois: "Hi. I'm Dennis Bowling,
and I'm very glad to be here. I will be starting my third year of
doctoral studies at Loyola University of Chicago this fall, but
in many, many respects--perhaps in the most important respect--my
education began here on Sunday night at 5 o'clock." **$2,000 NFB
Merit Scholarship
Heather Certner, Maryland, Maryland: "Hi. My name again is
Heather Certner. I'm completing a master's in victimology, going
on to the University of Maryland to start a J.D. and a Ph.D. I just
want to thank you all for letting me have the opportunity to be
here. I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible and
learning from all of you as well." **$2,500 NFB Scholarship
Richard Chen, New Jersey, Massachusetts: "Hi. My name is
Richard Chen. I go to Harvard University. I'm currently a
sophomore, studying government, international relations; and I
hope to become an international lawyer or a corporate lawyer. So I
appreciate talking to any lawyers any time. I am currently going
to Harvard summer school and working as a law intern." **$2,000 NFB
Merit Scholarship
Lora Felty, Kentucky, Kentucky: "Hi. First of all I just
want to say that I am really, really honored to be here. I graduated
from Northern Kentucky University with a degree in English and
secondary education last December, and I am starting this summer
to work on a master's degree in special education/vision impairment
from the University of Louisville. Thanks." **$2,000 NFB Merit
Scholarship
Jim Hamon, California, California: "I would like to say
greetings to the most cantankerous, contentious group of citizens
that have ever stood up and looked every gift horse in the
mouth--not afraid to kick out the teeth if they need to either. I
am really impressed. I study democratic process as a social
institution. I am in the graduate Sociology Department at UC
Berkeley." **$2,000 Ellen Setterfield Memorial Scholarship
Mark Heaphy, Virginia, Connecticut: "Good morning. My name
is Mark Heaphy. I did my undergraduate work at the College of
William and Mary in international relations and philosophy. I am
currently a second-year graduate student at Yale University, studying
international security programs." **$2,500 NFB Humanities
Scholarship
Jean Janicke, Texas, Belgium, and Massachusetts: "Thank you
very much. I'm Jean Janicke. I'm thrilled and delighted to be the
imported scholarship recipient this year. I am currently working
in Brussels, Belgium, and in September I will be starting a master's
degree in public policy at Harvard University." **$2,000 Hermione
Grant Calhoun Scholarship
Kristen Jocums, Utah, Utah: "Good morning. I am currently a
third-year law student at the University of Utah. I am also
chapter president of the Salt Lake City Chapter of the NFB of Utah, also
a treasurer of the newly-formed student chapter of the NFB of Utah.
I would like to thank all of you for making this opportunity
possible. It's through each of us that we as blind people can
become successful. Thank you." **$2,500 NFB Scholarship
Heather Kirkwood, Germany, Kansas: "Hello. I will be a
sophomore in the fall. I'm majoring in political science and
minoring in journalism. I've been a member of the Federation for
about a year now. I love this group because it's a strong group,
a united group, and a caring group." **$2,500 NFB Scholarship
Kristen Knouse, New Jersey, Illinois: "Good morning. I'm
going into my second year of graduate study at Northwestern University.
I'm studying speech and language pathology. I work with patients
with communications disorders such as stroke, head injury, and
voice problems. I also enjoy horseback riding in what spare time
I have. It's a real honor for me to be here with the National
Federation of the Blind because there are only a few blind people
in the field of speech pathology, and I may be the first. So
thank you for allowing me to be one of the openers in the field."
**$4,000 Anne Pekar Memorial Scholarship
Christopher Kuczynski, Pennsylvania, Connecticut: "Fellow
Federationists, good morning. I am a 1986 graduate of Villanova
University, from which I received my B.A. in English literature.
I received my law degree from Temple University Law School in
Philadelphia in 1989. After three years in private practice, I've
decided to pursue a career in law teaching and, to that end, will
be attending Yale University Law School's Masters of Laws program
beginning in September. This is my seventh national convention,
my sixth in a row, and I'm honored and delighted to be at this one
as a national scholarship winner." **$2,500 Howard Brown Rickard
Scholarship
Jana Littrell, California, California: "Hi. I'm glad to be
here. Conventions are my favorite places to be. This is my sixth
one. I would like to work with blind children, so I'm currently
attending San Francisco State University. I will receive teaching
credentials, one in special education, working with blind
children, another in social studies, and a master's degree in special
education." **$4,000 NFB Scholarship
Charles Marston, Florida, Florida: "Hello. I just graduated
from Miami Senior High in the City of Miami. I graduated number
eleven from a class of 700 students. I'm going to the honors
program at Miami Dade Community College and then transfer to
Florida International University. I would like to become a lawyer
and work in the civil rights field. Thanks." **$2,000 NFB Merit
Scholarship
Brad Martin, Alabama, Alabama: "Hello. I graduated sixth in
a class of about 260 at the age of seventeen. I will be pursuing a
degree at Springhill College in communication arts, going in as a
freshmore, meaning that I will start with thirty hours of college
credit for work completed in my high school career. Thank you."
**$2,500 NFB Scholarship
Tonya McCluskey, Montana, Wyoming: "I'm going to go to
Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, in the fall. I'm going to
major in equine studies, and I'm going to have a minor in
agri-business. I want to some day own my own working horse and
cattle ranch." **$2,000 NFB Merit Scholarship
Marla Medford, North Carolina, South Carolina: "Hello. I'm
pleased to be here, and thank you for the opportunity to be at my
first convention. I am originally from North Carolina, the
mountains near Waynesville. I received a B.S. in mathematics from
Western Carolina University, an M.S. in mathematics from Clemson
University, and am currently working on a Ph.D. in mathematics
from Clemson, where I am a teaching assistant. Thank you." **$2,500
NFB Educator of Tomorrow Award
Peggy Pinder: "You should all be sure to congratulate Marla,
too, on her upcoming marriage in about a week and a half."
Chad Newcomb, Wisconsin, Minnesota: "Hi. Good morning to all
of you. Next year I will be attending Winona State University,
where I will be majoring in composite materials engineering and
pursuing a minor or perhaps second major in English. And while I
am up here, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you
because you have really opened up a world of opportunities to us as
scholarship recipients. You have made it so much easier for all
of us. Thanks." **$3,000 Melva T. Owen Memorial Scholarship
Ali Nizamuddin, Illinois, New York: "Good morning everyone.
I am a second-year Ph.D. student at Columbia University, pursuing
political science. Within political science my specialization is
international relations. Within IR my focus is on Japan. Within
Japan I am studying Japanese securities issues. Anyway, I have
been in the Federation for the past five years, and I joined in 1987.
I went to the Phoenix convention primarily because I wanted a
vacation. I have stayed and will continue to do so, because I
have never been involved in an organization or society or a group
whose members love each other as much as the members of this
organization do. Thank you very much. I am delighted to be here."
**$2,000 NFB Merit Scholarship
T.V. Raman, New York, New York: "Hi. My name is Raman and
first let me say how happy I am to be here at the convention.
This is the first time I am getting in contact with the NFB, and it's
been a great experience so far, and I think it will continue to
be the same during the convention and hereafter. As I said, my name
is Raman, and I'm a graduate student at Cornell, working on my Ph.D.
in applied math and computer science. Thank you." **$2,000
Kuchler-Killian Memorial Scholarship
Gary Scott, California, Pennsylvania: "Thank you, Peggy, and
all the members of the Committee, the Board, and the membership
for allowing me the opportunity to come and experience this
convention. My experience so far has been highly inspirational,
illuminating, and empowering. It's quite an event. I am finishing my
doctorate this year at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in philosophy,
where my main areas of concentration will be medical and business
ethics, political philosophy, and theories of perception. Thank you."
**$2,000 NFB Merit Scholarship
Carlos Servan, New Mexico, New Mexico: "Good morning. My
name is Carlos Servan. Next semester I'm going to be a senior at the
University of New Mexico, majoring in political science and
international programs. After that I'm going to law school to
study international business law. I'm very glad to win a scholarship. I
also went to Puerto Rico to organize a chapter over there. I am
the current president of the Student Division in New Mexico. I'm in
the honors program at the University of New Mexico. I was elected
senator of the University of New Mexico three months ago. Thank
you." **$10,000 Ezra B. Davis Memorial Scholarship
Corinna Trujillo, Colorado, Colorado: "Good morning. I'm
Corinna Trujillo. I'm a professional dancer and choreographer,
and I'm a student of the humanities at the University of Colorado.
I'd like to use my last fifteen seconds in sharing my favorite quote
with you. This is by an unknown author, but I'm sure it's a
thought that's shared by all of us: `There is no chance, no fate, no
destiny that can circumvent, hinder, or control the firm resolve
of a determined soul.'" **$2,000 NFB Merit Scholarship
Ramon Vela, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts: "Good morning. My
name is Ramon Vela. I am from Puerto Rico, as Peggy said. So it's a
special honor for me to be a scholarship winner at the same year
and the same convention that my affiliate has been accepted. I
will begin studying in the graduate program at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology this fall, working on a Ph.D. in
political science, and some day I hope that I can put that training to good
use and help the Federation teach uppity Congressional staff
people a lesson or two about blind people." **$2,500 NFB Scholarship
Peggy Pinder: "And there, Mr. President and members of the
National Federation of the Blind, are the twenty-six scholarship
winners this year." [applause]
THE DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR OF BLIND CHILDREN AWARD
Editor's Note: Reprinted from the August-September, 1992,
Braille Monitor.
Sharon Maneki, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of Maryland and Chair of the Distinguished Educator of
Blind Children Selection Committee, presented this award at the 1992
Convention banquet. She said:
The Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award is a very
important award that we in the National Federation of the Blind
have established because of our belief and hopes for our
children. The most precious gift we have is to improve the future for
our children.
This evening we recognize a woman who is known to many of us
because she rings the bell for freedom at every convention she
attends by working with parents, be it in the Parents Division,
at the IEP workshop, or just sitting down to talk. This woman became
involved in special education because of her son Dan. She stayed
involved because she cares about the blind children of America.
Mrs. Ruby Ryles, will you join me at the podium here? [Applause]
Mrs. Ruby Ryles was an itinerant teacher in Anchorage,
Alaska. She has been a vision consultant at the Arkansas State Department
of Education. And when there was no program in the Bellingham
School District, she created one in typical Federation spirit.
Mrs. Ruby Ryles, the Supervisor of the Bellingham School Vision
Program, this evening we present you with a check for $500. [Applause.]
And we also present you with a plaque to express our appreciation and
recognition of your efforts for our children. Let me read the
plaque:
Distinguished Educator of Blind Children
The National Federation of the Blind
honors
Ruby Ryles
Distinguished Educator of Blind Children
For your skill in teaching Braille
and the use of the white cane,
for generously devoting extra time to meet
the needs of your students,
for inspiring your students to perform
beyond their expectations,
and for sharing your wisdom
with your colleagues and parents
across the nation.
July 3, 1992
Mrs. Ruby Ryles in a few short years will be Dr. Ruby Ryles,
and I'm sure that we will be hearing more from this fine lady.
[Applause.]
After Mrs. Ryles accepted her plaque, she said:
What words can I possibly use to express my gratitude for
the greatest honor a teacher could receive? I did not learn to teach
blind children from the universities or the professionals, but
from the real experts--from you. You taught me the value of sleep
shades, early cane use, slate and stylus; and in your
characteristic way you cut through the fat of the professional
debates in my field and showed me how really simple it is to
determine which children need Braille instruction. There is no
debate, you taught me. If I am thought of as knowledgeable in the
field of education of blind children, it is due to the countless
numbers of Federationists who instructed and supported me and
became my friends. Mackenstadts, Omvigs, and other NFB faithfuls
forever changed the way I taught about and, more important,
thought about blindness. My mother used to say, "Choose your friends
wisely because you are a little part of each of your friends." I say to
you tonight that each of you--every single one of you in the
National Federation of the Blind--is not only a part of me, but a
part of every child, every family, every professional, and every
class I teach. I thank you for taking me in and teaching me how
to be an effective teacher. But most of all, I thank you for being
my friends. Were she here today, I know my mother would say in the
best of her Southern mothering styles, "Ruby Nell, you certainly
did choose your friends well, and I told you so." Thank you,
friends. [Applause.]
REPORT ON THE 1992 PARENTS OF BLIND CHILDREN DIVISION
ANNUAL MEETING
by Debra Smith
"What a great meeting! Even the elections were fun!" This
was just one of the many enthusiastic comments made following one of
the most lively and productive annual meetings ever held by the
POBC in our nine-year history.
The meeting began at 1:00 and was conducted at a brisk clip
so we could adjourn at 3:00. President Cheadle took advantage of the
increased amount of meeting room space our convention
arrangements gave us this year, and scheduled five concurrent
workshops from 3:00 to 5:00. Somehow, Mrs. Cheadle managed to cram a
presidential report; elections; state division and committee reports; a
presentation from our Educator of Blind Children award winner;
and a presentation from Student Division representative, Melissa
LaGroue into two hours.
One of the highlights of the meeting was a presentation from
our 1992 NFB Educator of Blind Children award winner. This award
was created by the National Federation of the Blind four years
agoin order to emphasize our organization's commitment to excellence
in the education of blind children. The 1992 winner is an
educator who is especially well known to parents who attend our national
conventions. Ever since she attended her first Federation
convention, Ruby has made it a point to make herself available to
any parent or teacher attending the convention. Over breakfast,
lunch, or dinner; between meetings and sessions; and late at
night, Ruby fills her time listening, teaching, encouraging, and sharing
her vast knowledge with parents and teachers. She regularly
participates in the annual parents seminar and helps conduct
various workshops for parents. 1992 was no different. She gave an
outstanding presentation at the parents seminar on Sunday (see
page 10 in this issue) and conducted one of the finest IEP workshops
POBC has ever sponsored. Mrs. Ryle's award was well earned, and
we know that she will continue to earn it by giving outstanding
service to children she serves directly, and by indirectly
improving the lives of other children though her volunteer
activities in the Federation.
Melissa LaGroue, a recent college graduate, a former NFB
Scholarship winner, and an active leader in the NFB Student
Division, talked about what our blind sons or daughters will
encounter when they become eligible to take the PSAT and SAT
tests. Some of the rules regarding taking the tests in adapted formats
are reasonable, some are troublesome. President Cheadle said she had
asked Scott LaBarre, president of the Student Division, to
provide us a speaker on this topic because parents and students should
join forces in addressing the issues related to national testing
services. Parents were definitely interested in the topic, and
there were more questions than could be addressed in the time we
had. However we will be hearing more about the issue in the year
to come and at next year's parents seminar or annual meeting.
Various state and regional POBC divisions and chapters also
gave brief reports on their activities in the past year.
President Cheadle first called on Maryland--her own state--to give a
report. The POBC of Maryland has been very active indeed. President
Loretta White reported that the NFB of Maryland finally prevailed in our
fight for Braille with the passage of a Braille Literacy bill.
Naturally, parents had played an important role throughout the
months leading up to this victory. The POBC/MD sponsored their
usual projects and activities--a trip to the farm, a Christmas
party, booths at conferences, fairs, etc.; an open house at the
National Center for the Blind. New projects included: a $1,300
grant from a private foundation to send parents to national
convention; a grant from a local Lions club to fund a White Cane
Bank for blind children in the state; and a liaison between the
POBC/MD and the nursing and social work departments at the Johns
Hopkins world renowned Wilmer Eye Clinic.
One of our newest POBC divisions, New Jersey, gave a report
which indicates it is well on the way to becoming one of our
largest and most active POBC divisions in the country. President
Carol Castellano and Elizabeth Klunek did an outstanding job of
organizing the new POBC division. The division meets monthly,
publishes a newsletter, and is beginning plans to conduct a
parents seminar this coming Fall.
The POBC of Colorado, headed by Julie Hunter, reported on
what was perhaps the largest and most ambitious projects yet taken on
by a state POBC division. With funding from a local church, the NFB
and POBC of Colorado sponsored a regional two-day conference for
parents of blind children in December, 1991. The conference drew
parents from Wyoming, Kansas, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. Running
concurrently with the parents conference were two special
workshops for blind children and youth who were invited to attend with
their parents. College students and students from the NFB Colorado
Center for the Blind also participated in the workshops. Nationally
known speakers on the agenda included Ruby Ryles (the 1992 Educator of
Blind Children award winner), Fred Schroeder (Director of the New
Mexico Commission for the Blind and one of the top Braille
experts in the country), and President Barbara Cheadle, who gave the
keynote speech at the conference.
We also heard reports from a good many other state POBC
divisions, regional chapters, and NFB affiliates which have had
activities for parents and children in the past year. (Although
we do not have an organized parent division in every state, most NFB
affiliates have committees or projects concerning blind children,
their parents, and the education of blind children.) 1991-1992
has been a great year for the NFB Parents Division all around the
country.
Finally, the meeting was wrapped up with elections. Because
of our growth, the POBC board had sought--and was granted--approval
from the NFB board to expand our board by two positions. We now
have five officers and four board members, for a total of nine on
the POBC board. Officers are elected for two-year terms, and
board positions are one-year terms. This year, all positions were up
for re-election. Barbara Cheadle was re-elected president by
acclamation and received a standing ovation. Also receiving a
resounding unanimous vote of approval were first vice president,
Ruby Ryles, Washington; second vice president, Carol Castellano,
New Jersey; secretary, Marty Greiser, Montana; and treasurer,
Debra Smith, Iowa. The elections for board positions took a little more
time since there was some lively, but friendly, competition.
Board members who were elected for the coming year are: Kathy Watts,
Arkansas; Sunny Emerson, Michigan; Julie Hunter, Colorado; and
Myra Lesser, Pennsylvania.
Following adjournment, members were given the choice of
attending one of five workshops. The workshops were: IEP
Workshop, chaired by Ruby Ryles; Introduction to the NFB, chaired by
Denise Mackenstadt; Technology and Blind Children, Tom Balek; Tactile
Pictures for the Blind, Dr. Morton Heller and Dr. Paul Gabias;
and Organizing and Strengthening NFB Parent Divisions, chaired by
Sharon Maneki with panel members Loretta White, Carol Castellano,
Dorothy Cofone, and Elizabeth Klunek.
MOBILITY: WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT?
by Gary Wunder
From the Editor: Gary Wunder is an articulate man of greater
than average sensitivity and insight into the human condition. He
is also a father and husband; a member of the National Federation
of the Blind National Board; president of the NFB of Missouri;
and he has been blind since birth. With those characteristics and
credentials, it is no surprise that Gary has often been asked to
speak at our National Parents of Blind Children Seminar. This
year, at the North Carolina 1992 seminar, he was one of two presenter's
speaking on the topic of mobility. Priscilla Ferris, who is
president of the NFB of Massachusetts, spoke first. Since she is
a dog guide user, she talked largely of the myths and
misunderstandings which surround the use of the dog; but she also
urged parents to get their kids white canes and cane instruction
early in life. Mr. Wunder then began his presentation. Even
though the agenda title of the two-member panel was "Mobility and
Integration," Mr. Wunder's speech clearly suggests another,
perhaps even more appropriate, theme: "Mobility: Whose Responsibility is
It?" Here is the edited speech of what Gary had to say about that
question in relationship to his own childhood and current status
as blind adult and father.
Well, Priscilla said most of what I had to say. Are there
any questions? (laughter)
Priscilla was talking about people misunderstanding what
dogs do. It strikes me that there is a theme in this which translates
also to the cane user which is: Any time you--the blind
person--are with somebody who is sighted, your mobility is necessarily the
sighted person's responsibility. This poses a problem when you
are, as I am, the blind parent of a sighted child. My daughter was
four years old when we were out walking one day. Now, there have been
times when my daughter knew that I knew everything and times when
my daughter was sure I knew nothing. We were going through one of
those "I don't think he knows very much" stages. Whether that
happened because of something that somebody at preschool said to
her about having a blind father, or because it just happens in
the development of children, I don't know. So, we were out walking
one day. I've always walked with a cane and I've always taken care of
Missy--never had one accident whatsoever. But when we came up to
the curb, she said, "Stop, Daddy, stop!"
I was surprised and I said "Missy, I know to stop."
"How do you know?" said Missy.
"My cane falls off the curb," I said.
"Oh, Yeah. Well, don't go Daddy, don't go."
"Missy, I'm not going to go."
"Well, you can't see the light!"
"No, I can't see the light, but I can tell when to go by the
traffic. Do you know what I mean?"
"Huh, uh."
"Well, when the traffic parallel to me is going, it's safe
to go. When the traffic perpendicular is going, it's not safe. Do
you know what I mean?"
"No, what's perpendicular?"
So I explained to her that parallel is that traffic moving
on my right and perpendicular are those cars sitting out here in
front of me. We waited a while, and Missy says, "Go, Daddy, go." I
said, "Missy, the traffic in front of me is still going. It's not
safe."
She said, "I know. I just wanted to see did you know."
(laughter) (applause)
So we cross the street when the light (and the traffic)
changes. And no sooner do we get across than this woman bends
down and gives my daughter a hug, and she said "Oh, you do such a good
job with him." (much laughter) So, again, it's the public
misperception that it's the dog--or the child--with the blind
person who knows everything, and it's the blind person who is
necessarily dependent in travel; and that's wrong.
I can't overemphasize the importance of independence when it
comes to having a positive self-concept. Whether that
independence is used to go down to the store to get a loaf of bread
or whether it's to do something that seems as trivial as being able to
get up and walk off in a huff when you're having an argument, the
ability to be mobile is terribly important. The difficult thing for blind
people is that you learn dependence at a very early age. The
problem with this is that we don't grow out of it like other
people. Children at a year and a half or two years old are all
dependent whether they are blind or sighted. Parents hold their
hand every place they go. The trouble is that at six and eight
years of age, we're still doing that for many of our blind
children. And while on the one hand blind children sort of resent
that and wish for freedom, on the other hand they have come to
think that this abnormal dependency is a pretty normal thing--for
blind kids.
When I was growing up you didn't get a cane when you were
six or four or three years old. The cane was a thing that my parents
put off for as long as they could, and they did it with support
of educators. For them the cane was, in a sense, a symbol. The cane
was the thing which transformed me from being their blind
son--which was okay--to somebody who might grow up to be a blind
man. That wasn't okay. So, I didn't see a cane until I was about
eleven years old.
When I was in elementary school I was taught that I could
read and write efficiently, but my mobility was something else. I was
one of the kids who formed a giant human train whenever we went
anywhere. We all got into a big line, a line which was led by a
sighted teacher. We all followed along. Because blind people were
necessarily less mobile than everybody else, we got to go to
lunch early. We were the first in the line; the first out to recess;
and the first in from recess. We were always in the train.
Your blind children don't have to do that today because more
and more people are accepting the fact that if you give a blind
child a cane he or she can learn to get around on his own. I
thought it was a big deal when I invented a technique that would
let me walk around the block. It was called "slide one foot along
the curb." I understand now that I am not the first person who
invented it, but at the time I thought about marketing it to
other blind people. It seemed like a really good idea to me. It was a
lot more fun than being hooked up to somebody all the time.
I remember in high school playing lots of gimmicks and
tricks because I didn't have mobility skills. I remember being told that
if you had to use a cane at all, you used it only when you were
outside. If you used it inside, you'd trip your classmates. That
would be a terrible thing to do. It was irresponsible. Besides,
who wanted to look any blinder than they had to? That was the line I
got. So I remember in high school figuring out how long each
period was and trying to arrange it such that I would strike up a
conversation with a fellow student just before the bell would
ring--especially if the student with whom I struck up the
conversation happened to be going to the same class as I. Now,
it's fine to have interesting, stimulating conversations with fellow
students, but it's not fine to believe that that's what you have
to do to get from one class to the next. Again, the reason I did it
was that it wasn't considered acceptable to use a cane inside. A
cane was an outside thing.
I think at first I carried the cane with a certain growl;
believing--like most people around me--that my mobility was
really someone else's responsibility. I could hang on to somebody. The
cane was only there when I couldn't force that responsibility off
onto somebody else. I got lots of support for this attitude.
As I said earlier, for a long time my family resisted
letting me get and use the cane. They always guided me from one place to
another. It wasn't easy to change this when I got to be eleven
and was finally introduced to a cane. My brothers and sisters just
assumed that somebody in the family ought to have a hold on
me--if not one of them, then my mother or my father was supposed to hold
onto me. I think we were taught that mobility was a very complex
and highly scientific thing that had to be taught by the mobility
professionals. If there were no mobility professionals around,
well of course you had to hang on to somebody.
What's worse is that we were taught that the only thing you
could really be taught as a blind person in terms of independent
travel was how to "route" travel. That is, how to go from point A
to point B. If ever you were to introduce points C and D into
that route, you needed to call your mobility specialist at least two
or three weeks before you needed to know this "new" route. It didn't
sound too exciting to me.
I learned many things about mobility when I started meeting
blind people who were independent travelers. I learned some of my
best mobility from a blind guy who asked me at midnight if I knew
how to get from building A to building B on the college campus. I
said, no I didn't, and the mobility instructor wasn't coming
until next Thursday. My blind friend said that he thought he could
teach me how to get there now, and so we went out and learned it. He
showed me how to use things like trash cans and telephone poles
as landmarks. (The mobility professionals had always taught me to
avoid those things). What amazed me most, however, about this
experience was that I was being taught by someone who was blind.
And he--my blind friend--was teaching me that it wasn't so
important to learn this slick routine to get from A to B, but
that I learn general skills that would let me travel safely.
There's a tremendous difference between route travel and
truly independent travel. It's strange that it took somebody who was
blind to teach me that. But, I'm glad, too, because I knew that
the guy who was blind didn't have professional certification. He was
just a blind man who was looking for something to do at midnight
and figured he could help out another guy. That was wonderful
because at that time in my life, I didn't think that blind people
could teach other blind people. Again, I thought mobility was a
highly technical skill--and it isn't.
I remember when I went for my first job interview. I wanted
a summer job, so I went to the Kansas City Association for the
Blind, which is a sheltered workshop. That summer I put together pins
and put washers on bolts and did all kinds of things that made me a
good little stash of money for a college student. My parents had
never seen me travel without the benefit of a travel instructor,
so my mother decided she was going to have me followed (just like
one of the parents out in the audience.) She figured that I would
catch her if she did it, (I'm not sure how she thought this) so she
asked my cousin to follow me. My cousin at the time was probably about
eighteen years old and rather scatterbrained. She was a nice
enough kid but couldn't keep on task (that's the term we use for it
now). So I got on the city bus and rode from South Kansas City to
Downtown Kansas City, and while she wasn't looking, I got up and
got off the bus. It wasn't until two or three blocks later that
she realized I wasn't there anymore. She got off the bus and--not
knowing where I was traveling to, only that it had something to
do with the blind--went to a phone book. The first thing she saw was
the Bureau for the Blind. She went over to the Bureau for the
Blind where she and a counselor discussed what a wonderful kid I was
while I continued on my way--unaccompanied--to the Kansas City
Association for the Blind. So, it didn't do my folks a lot of
good to have me followed; but they tried.
It took me a long time to come to see my cane as a symbol of
independence. I regarded it as something that I used only when I
couldn't foist my mobility off onto somebody else. I want to tell
you the story about how I got broke of that attitude. I started
dating hot and heavy when I went to college. I enjoyed dating
immensely. One night I went out to dinner with a woman. Because
my date was sighted, I left my cane at home and went sighted guide.
(I thought this was the way that the world worked if you were
blind.) We had liver and onions that night and as I was cutting my liver
and engaging this woman in conversation (I was showing her how
witty I was), the plate moved closer and closer to the edge of
the table and suddenly plopped off into my lap. Well, I was in
something of a bind, and I was terribly embarrassed. When this
woman asked if I wanted her to walk me home so I could change my
clothes, I felt bad enough without also accepting the humiliation
of having somebody--my date!--walk me home, so I said "No, I'll
be fine." I had to walk six blocks home without a cane. There were
several four-lane, lighted street crossings, and I didn't like
that very much.
After this experience, it seemed to me that carrying a cane
was probably a very good thing. (I also learned to be a little
more careful in cutting my liver.) For the first time I realized that
I was responsible for my own mobility. I don't know why that was
such a hard concept to understand. I guess after years of being taken
care of by people--parents, sisters, brothers, friends, teachers,
etc.--who had assumed that my mobility was their responsibility,
I had come to consider that approach just normal.
Priscilla talked a lot about guide dogs and canes. I used a
guide dog for a time when I went to college. I enjoyed using my
guide dog, so I don't have a thing to say against using guide
dogs. However, I want to give you a couple of precautions which I think
Priscilla would go along with. When I got my guide dog I got it
because I had some trouble with orientation. I thought, somewhere
deep down inside, that I would be able to give a dog a command
that said I wanted 3402 West 52nd Street, and the dog would figure out
for me how many blocks south and how many blocks west I wanted to
go. This didn't happen. In fact, I would say that sometimes a dog
aggravated my problems with orientation because I couldn't look
for the landmarks which were so obvious to me with a cane. I had to
know in my head where we were. The dog didn't let me get close to
the trash cans or the telephone poles because he knew that was
the surest way to get leash correction, but with a cane I could use
these landmarks. With a dog I had to know, in some respects, more
about my surroundings in order to get around.
The second thing I thought the dog would solve for me was a
certain tension I felt when traveling with a cane. It used to
bother me when I would be clipping along with my cane and the
cane would hit something. I would have only half a step to react.
Well, if you have only half a step to react, you better travel tense;
you have to be on your guard and quick to react.
It wasn't until I came to an NFB meeting and somebody said,
"Your cane is a couple of feet too short," that I realized that I
didn't have to react in half a step; that I didn't have to walk
with my elbow locked and my arm stuck our straight like--try
holding your arm like this straight out in front of you for very
long! This is what the specialists teach because they say that in
order to be a courteous blind person you have to have a short
cane that only comes up to your breast bone. Nonsense. Now I have a
cane that comes up to my shoulder. Sometimes I have a cane that comes
up to the tip of my nose. The length of a cane has nothing to do
with courtesy. It has to do with good use. I like traveling with a
cane much better now that I get a little over a step's (maybe two)
worth of warning. I don't find travel to be the ordeal that I did
before. With proper advice, I shouldn't have had to go through any of
that.
I don't know that I have a lot more to say except that I
think there are a number of mobility techniques that people can use
from time to time that are appropriate. Sometimes people tend to frame
mobility issues in terms of "I'm fer it and I'm agin it." Do you
use sighted guide or don't you use sighted guide? Do you use
diagonal cane technique or don't you? Do you use the pencil grip
or don't you? Is it good or bad? Do you use a collapsible cane or
straight rigid cane? There are times and places for all of those
things. I think the issue is to figure out when you're using a
technique because it truly is the most convenient and appropriate
for what you are trying to do, and when you're using it as a
cop-out. If I want to have a conversation with one of you, and we
are cutting through this convention crowd, it may be that I take
your arm or you take my arm--whether you're sighted or blind.
We'll do that because it is convenient and appropriate for what we want
to do--have a conversation and stay together in a crowd. So,
sometimes, yes, that may mean that with a sighted person I am
going to go sighted guide. But do I give them responsibility for my
mobility? Not anymore!
Anyway, that's about all I have to say. I'd be glad to
answer any questions that you have.
FITTING IN: WHAT PARENTS CAN DO
From the Editor: In the last issue of Future Reflections
(Fall, 1992) we published an article entitled "Fun, Friends, and
Fitting In." Readers may remember that the article was a
collection of speeches given by blind youth at the 1992 Parents
Seminar. The seminar agenda also had a panel of parents talking
about the same topic, but from the perspective of parents. The
panel consisted of:
Mike Freeman of Washington, a blind father of an adopted blind
child; Martin Greiser of Montana, father of twins (one of whom is
blind) and a POBC officer; Loretta White, president of the POBC
of Maryland and the mother of a multiply handicapped, blind child;
Julie Hunter, president of the POBC of Colorado and the mother of
a blind, hearing impaired teenage daughter; Kathy Watts of
Arkansas (formerly of North Carolina) newly elected POBC board member;
and Sunny Emerson, long-time NFB parent leader in Michigan and also a
newly elected POBC board member. There is not enough space to
reprint each speech (although all were informative and inspiring),
but here is the edited text of the presentations given by two of
the panel members, Kathy Watts and Sunny Emerson.
KATHY WATTS
Arkansas
First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Kathy
Watts. I would like to begin by saying that you have already taken one
of the most important steps in your child's future, by being here
and by joining the National Federation of the Blind.
My son Brian is eight years old and has been blind since
birth. When he was eight weeks old I took him in for a routine
check-up. The doctor said he had strabismus and wanted to admit
him to the hospital for a neurological checkup. Through the
suggestion of a friend, I took Brian to an Ophthalmologist. In a very
matter of fact way, he said, "Your son is blind, but don't worry; there
will be a lot of things he can do." At that moment I felt
overwhelmed and scared. And then a friend said to me, "You can
look at this in one of two ways, as a tragedy or as a blessing. The
choice is yours." It may sound like a simple statement, but it
really made a difference in how I perceived the situation. Back
to the topic of helping our kids fit in.
The first area I would like to talk about is education. If
your child is going to be a Braille reader, I feel it is of the
utmost importance to have a Braille certified vision teacher.
Some professionals believe a resource room teacher can receive
adequate Braille instruction to, in turn, teach your child Braille skills.
I don't want to frighten you (parents) away from Braille because
you will be able to learn it. But when it is being taught to our
children I feel it needs to be taught by an experienced teacher.
I have tried to help my child fit in by being involved in
the development of IEP's which specifically address the needs of my
child. Each IEP becomes more involved as I gain more knowledge
through workshops and seminars such as this one.
Another thing I want to talk about is the physical abilities
of our blind children. Besides games that are adapted for the
blind, why not try some games that are created for the blind,
such as goal ball and beep ball? It was an exhilarating experience,
the first time I saw a goal ball match, to see blind people coming
together in such a physical sport without adaptations. I feel by
challenging our children physically as well as emotionally, it
builds self-esteem. Try not to limit your children by your own
fears. I've tried to help Brian fit in by encouraging him to
participate in activities such as goal ball, beep ball, bowling
and, Brian's favorite, roller skating. There are various
organizations that can lead you to information regarding some of
these activities.
Something else I've tried to encourage in my child is a
sense of accomplishment. From early on we've praised him for all the
things he's tried, from walking and riding a bike to being
accepted in the academically gifted program for the upcoming school year.
I believe I helped develop this sense of achievement by becoming a
den leader and helping Brian become involved in Cub Scouts, and
then sharing his enthusiasm as he participated in Pinewood Derby
and earned badges for various achievements.
In closing I want to say something about the treatment of
your child. Don't be afraid to stand up for your child's rights.
Remember, you are your child's best advocate. By standing up for
your child's rights you teach him to stand up for himself. As far
as expectations go, expect as much from your blind child as you
would from any child. Let them experience as much as safely
possible, even though the possibility exists that they may fail.
Please give them that chance.
SUNNY EMERSON
Michigan
If you are like our family you knew next to nothing about
blindness when you were blessed with your blind child. You had
new concerns, new fears, and lots of new words.
Here you will have the opportunity to observe and meet and
learn from people who have been walking in the same shoes our
children walk in. There is no need for us to reinvent the wheel
for every situation that arises. By coming to these conventions,
reading Future Reflections, watching and speaking with blind
adults at your chapter or state meetings, and honestly accepting your
child as he really is, you will know more about what type of
education your child needs than many professionals.
This is your child. You love him more than anyone does. He
is part of your family and always will be. Don't turn him over to
any system and let them make all the decisions for you. Find out your
child's interests and talents and deficit areas (that's one of
those new words we learned) and help and encourage him.
Our son Adam began his education at the age of six months in
the early intervention visually impaired program. They told us he
was very bright and at age three they recommended a private
school in another county.
But no one told us our son was legally blind. When he was
two years old we read about it in the newspaper. We thought visually
impaired meant that you wore glasses, or had crossed eyes, or
that you had eyes that moved around a lot (nystagmus).
Now we started investigating everything about blindness we
could find. Fortunately, our other four children were grown and
we had only Adam at home, so we could do a lot of running. Again, no
one told us about the NFB. We found out about it when we read a
small announcement in our newspaper and attended our first NFB
meeting. It changed our life.
We saw blind people running a business meeting, and the
Braille users were much more efficient than those who covered
their faces and maneuvered to get in the right light while using large
print notes. We saw people getting around independently using
canes or dogs. We saw families just like ours, only some members were
blind. We also saw people who had never had the opportunity to
learn the skills of blindness or social skills. We now knew what
we wanted for our son.
So at our next IEP meeting we asked that Adam receive
Braille and cane travel instruction at the new private school. Little
did we know that we were in for more pain, humiliation, struggle, and
frustration than ever before in our lives. And we had already
raised four teenagers.
First, we had problems getting our son in the recommended
private school (they were afraid their insurance would go up).
But they did allow Adam to attend the school in a one-month trial
(but not until October so the teacher could get the other children
started). After that they said they would try one semester; then
one year. Every year it was a new battle.
His teacher let us know it wasn't fair that he sit next to
her all the time in order to see the pictures in the books she was
reading, as recommended by the teacher of the visually impaired.
Furthermore, his Visualtek (a brand name for a closed circuit
T.V. magnifier) and other equipment was taking up too much space in
her classroom. He was five years old.
We have always been able to get any equipment and aids for
Adam to use, free of charge, from our school system, including
tape recorders, typewriter, Braille writer, Braille 'n Speak and all
types of visual aids (how to get a small child to juggle all this
is another thing)--but never a slate and stylus.
One of the easiest and best things we ever did for Adam was
to teach him to type when he was four or five years old. I ran
across an article in a women's magazine on how to learn to type in a few
short lessons and used that article to teach him to type before
we would let him use our new talking computer. It wasn't hard, just
keep those fingers on home row and add a few new keys every day.
It is well worth your time and effort. Since then we have found this
book Type It, by Joan Duffy, which also teaches reading and
spelling skills while you type. I'm using it with our
grandchildren.
Adam has always been able to turn in classroom work along
with his peers because of his typing skills. He also writes longer
articles and reports then when trying to use handwriting, which
is very difficult to decipher.
At age six we were thrilled when our son got his
magnification glasses and could handle print, but we couldn't see
why the teachers certified to teach Braille refused to instruct him
in Braille. No matter how much we reasoned, begged, and cried they
refused. They insisted our legally blind child was a visual
learner. This sounded like gobbledygook to us, but not until we
invited NFB in to advocate for us at our IEP meeting were we able
to get Braille instruction for Adam. Or so we thought.
By the way, do you know what they call the students majoring
in education of the visually impaired, who graduate at the bottom
of the class? TEACHERS. Be sure they are not working with your
child.
Every year we had a new teacher/consultant for Adam because
no one wanted to teach him Braille. And every teacher let Adam know
that he would never use Braille--it was too hard, and he didn't
need it because he could see. He didn't need a cane either, but
his parents insisted. So, the mobility teacher (whom our son loved)
said he would never work with our child again. We have never been
able to quit a teacher, but they sure kept quitting us.
Our son loves learning and admires educators, so what they
tell him has a big impact on his life.
Having Braille instruction on the IEP does not mean your
child is receiving proper instruction. Sometimes it means being set up
for failure. Although Braille was on Adam's IEP since age three,
we had to wait until he was ten before we got someone who worked
with him consistently and effectively.
Only with the help of the NFB advocates were we able to get
teachers for our son that would teach him Braille and cane travel
in a positive way. Remember the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
Still, our son was set up for failure in Braille because the
intermediate school system would not allow enough time for the
Braille teacher/consultants. So we worked on Braille reading at
home, using Braille-print books from the Library of Congress.
Now we read a chapter from the Bible every day in Braille
and sometimes do spelling on the slate and stylus. I have never met a
blind child who's making it who hasn't received a lot of support
from his family.
There is more to life than school work. We must expect our
children to have the same social graces and manners as other
children, and the same limits. Love them and give them lots of
hugs and kisses but don't do everything for them. They need to learn
to do everything we know how to do around the house, and trial and
error is a good way for them to learn.
There are some things we wish we could do over. We always
let Adam listen to talking books in the car, so now he doesn't know
how he has gotten anywhere. Recently, we made him the official
navigator, but he still prefers to read. This is another time
where we will have to be firm.
And how do we know Adam can learn this skill? Well, we have
been the driver for blind adults who have told us the name of
every exit as we are traveling on the expressway to our state capital;
or given us directions to places we have never been before or have
forgotten; or who have taken us to places for dinner and told us
where the parking garage was located.
Remember, parents, be positive and use common sense.
Parenting a blind child does not need to be complicated. They need our
assurance that we can all have fun sometimes doing things a
little differently. Your attitude and those around you and your child
will make all the difference.
Stay for the entire convention. There are seminars and
division meetings for everything you or your child may be
interested in. And remember, if the people here can do it, so can
our children. We can learn from them the most effective ways to
reach our goals for our children, as well as answers to questions
and situations we have yet to encounter.
AN APPROPRIATE EDUCATION FOR CODY
by Martin Greiser
From the Editor: Martin (Marty) Greiser came to his first
NFB National Convention in 1989--four years ago. He has served two of
those years on the Parents Division board, and was elected to
serve as POBC secretary at the recent 1992 POBC annual meeting. Those
who have come to know him both like and respect him for his steadfast
and reliable ways. Marty was on a panel of parents who spoke last
year, 1991, at the annual Parents Seminar in New Orleans. He
talked then of the difficulties he and his wife were facing in getting
an appropriate education for their blind preschool son, Cody, in
their rural Montana community. Despite the odds against it, he and his
now former wife Nancy persevered and put together an unusual--but
workable--solution. However, there is a bitter side to this
story. When Marty wrote the following article, he added these comments,
"As one parent to others who may read this, Cody's success came
at a price. That price was stress and marital neglect. In some
instances that price was anticipated and willingly incurred, and
in other instances unexpected and/or grossly underestimated....Our
twins' premature birth; Cody's extensive medical needs and
subsequent blindness; and the efforts necessary to create an
appropriate education had taken their toll at the expense of our
marriage."
Marriages may dissolve for many reasons, but how tragic, how
unnecessary when even part of the reason can be traced to the
burdens society imposes upon parents of blind children. The
promise of P.L. 94-142 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act is for many blind children and their parents nothing more than
words on paper. And the cost of even attempting to transform
those words into reality can leave permanent emotional scars on every
member of the family. As Marty also said about his story, "The
good news out of all this is that P.L. 99-457, or 94-142, can work.
The bad news is that it doesn't necessarily work easily or well."
But there is hope. As we have so often said in the
Federation, the real problem of blindness is not the physical fact of
blindness itself, but in society's response to it. We cannot change the
physical fact of blindness--at least, not for our children--but
we can, through determined, concerted action change the laws,
regulations, and yes--attitudes--which guide society's reaction
to blindness. We can respond to the bitter side of Marty Greiser's
story--and hundreds of others like it--with resignation and
sympathy; or with determination and love. The National Federation
of the Blind long ago chose the path of determination and love.
Here, now, is the sweeter side of Marty Greiser's
bittersweet story of his family's struggles to get an appropriate education
for Cody.
After Cody's first year of preschool my former wife, Nancy,
and I saw very clearly the difficult task which lay before us.
Cody would have yet another year of preschool before he entered
kindergarten. We felt Cody could not afford, nor would we
tolerate, another year of preschool like the one just finished.
With all due respect to the efforts and good intentions of
this private preschool, we felt that our son's needs were not
being met in almost every respect. None of the teachers had any
experience in the education of the blind or knowledge of the
skills used by blind people. The teachers were to receive some training
during the year, but this never materialized, and hindsight
reveals it probably would have been too little too late to benefit Cody.
We have come to realize that educational programs, curriculums, and
knowledgeable teachers must be in place when the child walks
through the doors on the first day of school.
Having attended three National Federation of the Blind
Conventions where we talked with blind adults, teachers of the
blind, and other parents, we felt reasonably informed as to what
constitutes an appropriate education for a blind child and we
felt we knew Cody better than anyone. We also believed we understood
our legal rights in the special education process and the procedure
to see that those rights are secured.
However, the fact that one recognizes the educational needs
of his or her child and where the legal responsibilities lie doesn't
necessarily mean those needs will be met. In our case, Cody is
the first blind child ever to enter our local public school. The
administrators and staff had no experience with the education of
the blind and were at a loss, both in defining Cody's needs and
in planning to meet those needs. And quite frankly we didn't know
how Cody's needs would be met either.
So this is a brief background description of how we entered
into our I.E.P meeting to define what was appropriate for Cody's
second year of preschool.
At that I.E.P. meeting we successfully defined Cody's need
for Braille, cane travel instruction, and inclusion in a mainstream
kindergarten class. Of equal importance, we were able to define
as an appropriate need that an instructor of Braille and cane travel
be proficient in those skills.
In an attempt to find an instructor for Cody, our school
district advertised for about six weeks in area papers for a
classroom aide capable of working with the visually impaired.
While there were many applicants, not one knew Braille or had any
experience with the blind.
It soon became obvious that without a teacher proficient in
and knowledgeable of blind skills, Cody's needs, as defined in
the I.E.P., would not be met. We perceived this as leaving us with
three options. One option was to initiate due process
proceedings; another to relocate; and still another was to find the teacher
that the school was unable to find. With regard to due process, we had
documented our meetings with the school administrators over the
past two and one half years. We had an appropriate I.E.P., and we
had contacted our state office of public instruction for
instructions on the initial steps in requesting a due process
hearing. Now, in the event that our efforts at due process were
unsuccessful, or if the stress or timeliness of due process
became intolerably excessive, we had to prepare to relocate.
I was very fortunate to have an employer who was willing and
able to relocate us to several areas around the country. We
eventually found a place in Oswego, New York, where I could be
placed. After talking with school officials and the parent of a
blind mainstreamed kindergartner, we decided this was the place
to go if we needed to exercise this option. We contacted area
realtors, reserved a U-Haul truck, and listed our house for sale.
We were prepared to relocate.
However, neither due process nor relocating had much appeal,
so we next focused our efforts on helping our local school create
an appropriate program. At this point I called the N.F.B.,
explained to Mrs. Cheadle our problem, and asked for any help or
advice she might have. She, I understand, called Miss Rovig,
Director of the Job Opportunities for the Blind (JOB) program; a
joint effort of the NFB and the United States Department of
Labor.
In about ten days, we received the proverbial phone call
from heaven. It was from Kim Hoffman, a woman from South Dakota who
would be graduating from college in the spring with a degree in
elementary education. She said that she was blind and that she
had heard there was a position open here that she might be able to
fill. She wondered if we would be interested in having her as
Cody's Braille teacher. Our first question was if she considered
herself to be proficient in reading and writing Braille? To which
she laughed and replied matter-of-factly "Why yes, I have been
doing it most of my life." Nancy and I knew immediately that this
was the person we wanted to teach our son. The subsequent phone
conversations over the next months further strengthened our
belief that she was the right person for the job.
Kim then had an encouraging phone conversation with the
school administrators and was told she would be sent a job application.
About two months later, despite three reminders to school
officials from us, Kim had yet to receive that application. We then wrote a
letter to the local school board requesting their assistance in
the matter and for time at the next public meeting to present our
concerns. This letter was hand-delivered to the chairman three
days prior to the meeting, with corresponding copies to the school
administrators. The day after the school board meeting, Kim had
the application in her hand. The school then put together an
intimidating six-member interviewing team of administrators,
teachers, and related professionals.
To get Kim here for the interview, Nancy drove to South
Dakota, picked her up and brought her back to Montana, where she
spent a week with us. This gave us an opportunity to get to know
one another better before we took her back home. Kim was the last
applicant to be interviewed, and she was offered the position on
the spot and allowed several days to decide.
After accepting the aide position, there was another problem
which needed to be solved. That is how and where was she going to
find a place to live. Since the aide position was only a
twenty-hour-per-week job, how could she afford to come to
Montana? This was not a new or unanticipated problem; we had been
discussing it for several months. After pursuing several options without
success, the best we could do was to offer her our home as a
place to live at no cost to her. After considerable communication, this
was agreed upon, although, she later (understandably so) insisted
on contributing approximately one-third of her wages toward her
support. At this point, I must make it clear that our offer to
Kim was based entirely on meeting the needs of our son and in no way
reflects on her ability to live independently. She had more
lucrative job opportunities closer to home. So why would she
accept this occupational arrangement? She says that she is acutely aware
of and sensitive to the educational problems encountered by blind
children and that she wanted to be part of the solution to those
problems even if it meant dealing with them one child at a time.
So, this was the setting for the pad from which our son's public
school educational experience would be launched.
Kim arrived in the fall of 1991, and we began what would
conclude a year later as a very successful experience for our
son, and a year filled with learning for all the adults involved in
his education.
To try and describe and account for all that transpired
during the year would fill a book. So, I'll just touch on some of the
significant events and accomplishments in role modeling,
socialization skills, academic achievement, and family matters.
Just as an appropriate education is measured by more than
academic achievement, we knew Kim had more to offer than just her
impeccable academic skills. Her perspective as a blind person and
her knowledge of, and access to, resources are unmatched by a
sighted person. With Kim living in our house we had a very
concentrated, up-close and personal view of the powerful effects
of role modeling.
About a week after school started Cody asked me if Kim was
blind. I answered "Yes," to which he replied, "No, she isn't,"
and I said again, "Oh, yes she is." And that was the end of the
conversation. But for several minutes I could see the little
wheels turning as he was obviously deep in thought.
Because of the limited space in our house, Kim would keep
her Brailler under her bed. When Cody found this out, he started
keeping his Brailler under his bed. Then there was the time when
I went past his room and he was sitting on the floor in front of
his Brailler, in which he had loaded paper, just pounding randomly on
the keys as fast as he could. I inquired of him (in somewhat of
an admonishing tone) as to what he thought he was doing? He answered
that he was writing as fast as Kim. And we all know where he got
the idea to ask Santa Claus for a talking alarm clock.
These are some of the immediately obvious effects of role
modeling. It is much more difficult to recognize and identify the
long-term emotional and psychological effects which I believe to
be no less present. Kim's positive attitudes, her confidence in her
abilities, her gregariousness, and her position as an adult in
the classroom can't help having a dramatic positive influence on
Cody's own self-esteem and feelings about his own blindness.
I believe socialization skills develop primarily by
inclusion and association with mainstream activities. But this doesn't mean
that they can't be directed, molded, or enhanced by deliberate
efforts. Much of the success in this area has to be attributed to
Kelly Samson, the classroom teacher. Without her sensitivity,
receptiveness, flexibility, and efforts such a successful year
would not have been possible.
At the beginning of the day Cody hangs up his coat and
backpack in the same fashion as the other children and joins in
play at the various activity centers around the room before class
starts. During class Cody participates in all activities with
assistance from Kim and/or Kelly when necessary. Lessons and
materials are prepared and adapted in advance in appropriate and
meaningful formats--whether tactual, auditory, or Braille--to
enable Cody to learn alongside the mainstream kids.
Another success during the year was a marked reduction in
Cody's mannerism of eye pressing (or poking). Kim and Kelly
started a reward program of giving Cody a sticker for every day that he
didn't press his eye or in which he corrected himself without
being reminded. Three stickers and he was allowed to go up to the
teachers lounge and get a can of pop (soda) or a candy bar. He
certainly enjoyed his reward and frequently voiced his pride in
his accomplishment.
After a two-and-one-half-hour kindergarten class, Cody
spends one hour a day working one-on-one with Kim on Braille and/or cane
travel. Her main instructional materials are the Patterns Program
which she supplements with The Mangold Developmental Program of
Tactile Perception and Braille Letter Recognition, and Braille
Instructional Materials a Phonetic Approach, and Listen and Think
tapes. Both Kelly and Kim rely heavily on their print and Braille
copies of the Handbook for Itinerant and Resource Teachers of
Blind and Visually Impaired Students (published by the National
Federation of the Blind) for information, guidance, and creative
suggestions. Each month Kim prepares and distributes to Kelly,
us, and Cody's I.E.P. case manager a progress report in which she
describes the subject areas worked on, Cody's strengths and
weaknesses, pages covered in each program during the period,
suggestions for home activities, and other appropriate comments.
The last progress report of the year indicated that Cody has a
40-word reading vocabulary, can read and write all the letters of
the alphabet, can read numbers 1 through 20, and can
independently write numbers 1 through 10. He knows common cane
skills for walking, stairs, doorways, etc. and uses them correctly when
reminded.
It is at this developmental level that Cody will officially
start kindergarten in the Fall of 1992. We all believe he is very
well prepared, and that repeating kindergarten brings with it a
unique set of challenges and opportunities. Kim will be back in
the Fall again as Cody's aide and have her own apartment. Kelly will
again be the classroom teacher, and the I.E.P. calls for more of
the same, with only the goals adjusted.
As parents, we feel Cody is receiving more than just an
appropriate education. He is benefiting immeasurably from normal
involvement in family and community life while at the same time
realizing academic achievement and independent travel. There is
also a well-educated, talented, independent adult in his life who
happens to be blind.
Our experience has taught us that the problems of educating
blind children in the mainstream lie not in the cognitive
capabilities of the children, but rather with the skills,
knowledge, and attitudes of the adults who surround the child's
educational life.
SUMMARY OF RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE ANNUAL CONVENTION
OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
JULY, 1992
by Ramona Walhof
Editor's Note: The following summary of the 1992 resolutions
is taken from an article in the August-September, 1992, issue of
the Braille Monitor. The Monitor article is more comprehensive;
it reprints the full text of each resolution passed by the
convention. Free copies of the resolutions are available from: National
Federation of the Blind, Materials Center, 1800 Johnson Street,
Baltimore, Maryland 21230.
Resolutions adopted by the National Federation of the Blind
are written policy statements of the organization. Each
resolution is presented to the convention for discussion and a vote. Prior
to coming before the convention, resolutions are ordinarily
presented to the Resolutions Committee for discussion and a recommendation.
The committee may not block a resolution from coming to the
floor; it can only recommend "pass" or "not pass." The committee may
recommend changes and revisions, but these must be acceptable to
the presenter if they are to be incorporated in the text of the
document. Any NFB member may present a resolution to the
Resolutions Committee and, through it, to the NFB convention. If
the presenter chooses to withdraw a resolution based on committee
discussion or for some other reason, this is also possible.
At the 1992 convention the Resolutions Committee consisted
of fifty-two Federationists, who considered thirty resolutions.
Twenty-five were brought to the floor of the convention. All of
them passed. Printed below is a summary of these resolutions.
Five resolutions were withdrawn by their authors.
Resolution 92-01 opposes the establishment of the Study
Commission on Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and
Visually Impaired.
Background: At the time of the convention a proposal to
establish such a commission had been made in the Committee on
Education and Labor in the House of Representatives. Members
worked throughout the convention to help Congress understand the
problems which this commission would cause.
Resolution 92-02 supports statutory linkage between the
earnings exemptions for blind people and for retirees under
Social Security.
Background: For some years benefits for blind people
receiving Social Security Disability Insurance have been paid
according to the same formula as the one used for computing
benefits for retirees who are sixty-five or older. The NFB has
worked to maintain these similar benefits.
Resolution 92-03 calls upon Secretary of Education Lamar
Alexander to terminate his Department's inclusion of the National
Accreditation Council on the Department of Education's list of
approved accrediting bodies.
Resolution 92-04 commends Congressman William Jefferson of
Louisiana for sponsoring legislation to strengthen the right of
choice for individuals receiving Vocational Rehabilitation
Services, and it encourages other Congressmen and Senators to
join with Mr. Jefferson in this effort.
Resolution 92-05 calls upon employers and software
developers to help make Graphical User Interfaces (GUI's)
accessible to the blind.
Resolution 92-06 is an updated statement of NFB policy
regarding audible traffic signals.
Background: Audible traffic signals have been installed in
some cities, purportedly to assist blind individuals at street
crossings. The National Federation of the Blind is on record
opposing audible traffic signals. For the most part this position
has not changed. However, it is important, under the Americans
with Disabilities Act, that representatives of the National Federation
of the Blind be consulted by city and county governments
considering the installation of audible traffic signals. Further,
newly developed audible traffic signals which can be activated by
pedestrians and used only when they choose to do so may require
study and testing.
Resolution 92-07 opposes research on detectable warnings for
the blind in architecture, on sidewalks, etc.
Background: The Architectural and Transportation Barriers
Compliance Board adopted regulations implementing the Americans
with Disabilities Act, requiring installation of truncated domed
tiles as a warning to the blind of the proximity of certain
allegedly dangerous areas. For example, a strip could be used
between a sidewalk and a parking lot if there is no curb. The
blind have argued that bumpy tiles are more dangerous than helpful and
tend to lead others to the false conclusion that the blind are
incapable of gathering information.
Resolution 92-08 calls upon rehabilitation agencies to
provide instruction for blind clients in the use of city buses and trains
even if special Dial-A-Ride services for the handicapped are
available.
Resolution 92-09 calls upon officials in the Department of
Justice to support the arbitration process provided for by the
Randolph-Sheppard Act.
Resolution 92-10 seeks to avoid competition between
Randolph-Sheppard vending facilities and the Committee for
Purchase from the Blind and Other Severely Handicapped.
Resolution 92-11 opposes North Carolina legislation
regarding vending facilities.
Background: A piece of legislation was introduced in the
North Carolina Legislature which seriously damages opportunities for
vendors in that state. At the time of the convention in
Charlotte, this bill was being debated.
Resolution 92-12 calls upon the National Library Service for
the Blind and Physically Handicapped to offer all its tests for
blind proofreaders in Braille.
Resolution 92-13 calls upon the Small Business
Administration to award contracts to the disabled and to define
disability as a presumed social and economic disadvantage.
Resolution 92-14 joins the voice of the Federation with that
of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in
requesting that federal agencies eliminate special awards for the
disabled.
Background: Many federal agencies have long had the practice
of presenting disabled employees with awards which are different
from--and often in addition to--awards presented to their other
employees. If these awards were ever desirable, there seems to be
general agreement among the disabled that time has passed.
Resolution 92-15 calls upon the Social Security
Administration to develop improved reporting procedures for
disabled persons who are working.
Resolution 92-16 calls upon the Health and Human Services
Office of Civil Rights to treat blind applicants for child care
certification in the same way as it treats sighted applicants.
Resolution 92-17 declares that parents should have primary
decision-making responsibility about whether a blind child should
attend a residential school or a public school and calls upon
school officials to furnish parents with relevant information.
Resolution 92-18 takes the position that guide dog schools
do not have the right to stipulate the kinds of employment in which
their graduates may engage.
Background: The National Federation of the Blind has worked
hard to reduce the number of blind persons who engage in begging.
The image of the blind beggar is one of the most destructive
stereotypes which puts us down and keeps us out. We have worked
to improve training and job opportunities and to broaden public
understanding of blindness. We have also fought to increase
welfare and Social Security benefits for the blind. Further, the NFB has
gone on record repeatedly as believing that demeaning activities
(such as begging) carried on by some blind individuals reflect
poorly on all members of the blind community. Nevertheless, the
convention took the position that no guide dog school should have
the power to deny any blind person appropriate training and a dog
on the basis of the individual's occupation.
Resolutions 92-19 and 92-20 were withdrawn by their authors.
Resolution 92-21 calls upon all guide dog schools to
transfer ownership of dogs to the blind people who use them.
Resolutions 92-22 and 92-23 were withdrawn by their authors.
Resolution 92-24 calls upon those exploring the installation
of audible traffic signals to consider the problems these signals
may cause for deaf-blind people and to consult them when
considering such installations.
Resolution 92-25 requests exploration of the purchase and
circulation in this country of Braille books produced in Great
Britain.
Resolution 92-26 calls upon the Association for Handicapped
Students Services Programs in Postsecondary Education to consult
with the NFB to develop a policy on blindness that does not lump
blind students with all other disabled students.
Resolution 92-27 demands that the Educational Testing
Service comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Resolution 92-28 calls upon the General Services
Administration to amend its rules so as to exempt blind federal
employees from mandatory special requirements regarding building
evacuations.
Resolution 92-29 calls upon the Internal Revenue Service to
do local hiring and training of blind people.
Resolution 92-30 was withdrawn by its author.
SHIFTING BALANCES IN THE BLINDNESS FIELD
An Address Delivered by Kenneth Jernigan
Executive Director
National Federation of the Blind
At the Annual Convention
Charlotte, North Carolina
July 2, 1992
On Thursday morning, July 2, 1992, delegates to the annual
convention of the National Federation of the Blind listened
attentively to a panel presentation devoted to an examination of
the present and future structure of the blindness field.
Participants were Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, Executive Director of the
National Federation of the Blind; Mr. Carl Augusto, President and
Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind; and
Mr. Ritchie Geisel, President of Recording for the Blind. The
texts of all three addresses as well as a summary of some of the
discussion which followed the speeches, is published in the
September-October, 1992 issue of the Braille Monitor. Here are
Dr.Jernigan's remarks as he delivered them on July 2:
The German scientist Max Planck said: "A new truth usually
doesn't triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see
the light but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new
generation grows up that is familiar with it." In more prosaic
language I say that those who base their actions on yesterday's
perceived truths (whether real or imagined) are poorly equipped
to deal with today's realities and are likely to have much time for
reflection in tomorrow's leisure of unemployment.
Today we are talking about the future of services for the
blind. The fact that we are, along with the popularity and
recurrence of the theme, means that there is a felt need and that
there are problems. But we are talking about something more. We
are talking about the shifting balances in the blindness system of
this country. We are talking about the governmental and private
agencies, blind consumers, and the relationship between consumers
and professionals. In a broader sense we are talking about the
very survival of the blindness field as we have known it.
The most notable thing about the blindness field is how
different it is today from what it was twenty or thirty years
ago. From the 1920's to the 1960's the unquestioned leader among the
governmental and private agencies doing work with the blind in
this country was the American Foundation for the Blind, and there was
a reasonable amount of coherence and unity. As to the organized
blind movement, the National Federation of the Blind didn't even exist
until 1940, and it didn't become a major factor in the field for
quite a few years after that. Today everything has changed. If
what I am about to say is to do any good at all, it is absolutely
essential that we deal with facts, not just wishes or claims or
fantasies.
Let me begin with the American Foundation for the Blind. It
was established in 1921, and its mission was fairly clear. It was
to coordinate the efforts of the professionals in the blindness
field throughout the country, help create and guide new agencies,
do research, serve as a mechanism for resources and referrals,
and generally act as a focal point for agency activities.
Realistically viewed, most of those functions no longer exist as prime
objectives.
In the 1920's the Foundation was instrumental in
establishing and providing initial guidance to quite a number of state
agencies. In Iowa, for instance, where I was formerly director, the
American Foundation for the Blind worked in 1926 and 1927 with the state
legislature and the school for the blind to establish the Iowa
Commission for the Blind. It sent staff members to help get
programs started and to find and train personnel. The same was
true in a number of other states. That mission no longer exists. Today
the state agencies are well established, and they don't now
generally look to the Foundation for guidance; nor do they feel
any particular loyalty to it. Rather, they look to their
state-federal relationships, their own national organizations and
committees, mechanisms within their state borders, and alliances with
consumer organizations. This is not to criticize but simply to state
facts.
In the twenties and thirties the American Foundation for the
Blind, if not alone in the work, was certainly the principal
leader in developing specialized tools and appliances for the blind:
Braille watches, measuring devices, household aids, and the like.
The Foundation also took the lead in developing the talking book
machine, and for a time it was virtually the only organization
producing talking book records. All of that has now changed. The
Foundation is a relatively minor participant in the production
and sale of specialized tools, aids, and appliances. It does not even
sell or ship these from its own premises but relies on a catalog
fulfillment company to do the work. If the Foundation were to go
completely out of the specialized tools and appliances business
today, there would scarcely be a ripple. The Foundation is, by no
means, the principal manufacturer or distributor. That part of
its original mission is now largely (and in the main, successfully)
finished.
As to the production of talking book records, the Foundation
still does it, but there would be no great problem to anybody but
the Foundation if it ceased the activity. Others have now taken
the lead in the field. Again, this is no criticism. In fact, quite
the contrary. It emphasizes the success of the Foundation's
pioneering effort.
The Foundation played a key role in helping design and pass
some of the principal legislation which determined the direction
of the blindness field and which still underpins many of the
opportunities that we as blind people enjoy, but that was decades
ago. The golden age of the Foundation's influence in shaping
federal legislative and administrative policy was probably the
1930's and the early '40's when the Books for the Blind program
of the Library of Congress was established, Title X (the Public
Assistance for the Blind section of the Social Security Act) was
adopted, the Randolph-Sheppard Act was passed, the Rehabilitation
Act (Barden-La Follette, 1943) was amended to include the blind,
and a whole new spate of other legislative and administrative
policies came into being. Indeed, the Foundation did not
singlehandedly make these achievements, having at times to
compromise with others in the field and even now and again
failing altogether to get its own way--but few would argue that the
Foundation was not at the center of the action or the dominant
force.
That, however, was more than fifty years ago, and the 1990's
bear little resemblance to the 1930's and '40's. Certainly the
Foundation is no longer a controlling factor in legislative or
executive decisions concerning the blind. We who are blind now
speak for ourselves through our own organization, the National
Federation of the Blind, and we are the most powerful force in
such matters in Washington and the state capitals today. Of course,
the governmental and private agencies for the blind still have a
major presence in legislative and executive decisions concerning
blindness, but they speak with many voices--and certainly with no
dominance or central influence on the part of the Foundation.
Again, I cannot emphasize too strongly that what I am saying is
not meant as criticism but only as a recognition of fact.
The Second World War and the period immediately following
brought a shift in emphasis for the Foundation. Because of the
thousands of children who developed retrolental fibroplasia
(today we would call it retinopathy of prematurity), there was a crisis
in education. In California, for instance, where I was living at the
time, there were in the early 1950's more than 1,200 young RLF
children who were blind--and the residential school could handle
only about 200. What was to be done? RLF had largely been
conquered, and when the wave of hundreds of blind children had
passed through the population, there was every reason to believe
the number would return to normal. It made neither economic nor
political sense for the state of California to build five or six
new residential schools for the blind. It was simply not in the
cards. At the same time the parents were not going to permit
their blind children to stay at home and not have an education. The
answer was obvious. They would have to be placed in the public
schools in their local areas--which, incidentally, made the
endless arguments (arguments often stimulated by the Foundation) about
which environment is better for the education of a blind child,
the residential or the public school, not only pointless but
downright harmful and diversionary. Regardless of the quality of the
training or the competence of the teachers, most of these children were
necessarily going to be trained in the public schools in their
home communities.
To its credit, the American Foundation for the Blind stepped
into the breach. It had a major new mission, the establishment of
university programs to train teachers of blind children, the
recruitment of the teachers, the finding of teachers to teach the
teachers, and the development of educational materials to make
the process possible. Important as that mission was (and it was
extremely important), it has long since passed. The university
programs to train special education teachers for the blind are
now completely mature. They demonstrate no special loyalty to the
Foundation nor any evidence of following its leadership or asking
it to coordinate their efforts. In fact, as adult children are
wont to do, they often find themselves competing with the Foundation
for money and leadership. Whatever else may be said for the loose
national confederacy to which most of the university programs
belong--that is, the Association for Education and Rehabilitation
of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER)--the organization is not
now controlled or dominated by the American Foundation for the
Blind. This is true despite the fact that the Foundation was
instrumental in establishing many of the university programs and
that in the 1970's it gave sizable amounts of money to the AER,
which at the time was using another name.
As a natural concomitant of its work with the university
programs, the Foundation began to organize and give direction to
parents of blind children. In fact, a few years ago the
Foundation was instrumental in organizing NAPVI (the National Association
for Parents of the Visually Impaired). It provided a staff member to
the organization, gave direction and leadership to it, and helped
it set policy. Recently, however, the Hilton Foundation gave the
Perkins School for the Blind a $15,000,000 grant, running over a
five-year period; and Perkins effectively took control of NAPVI,
giving it many tens of thousands of dollars, much more than the
Foundation could possibly muster. The Foundation competed for the
Hilton grant, but it lost--another sign of the shifting balances
in the blindness field.
With respect to those shifting balances, there is still
another factor. The Parents of Blind Children Division of the
National Federation of the Blind is now probably the major force
in the field. Certainly its magazine, Future Reflections, is the
largest circulation publication for parents and educators of the
blind, as well as the most influential. In any case the
Foundation (to the extent that it has any part left to play in
organizing and directing the activities of parents of blind children)
is now only a minor participant.
Once more I repeat that I am not being critical. The
American Foundation for the Blind filled a need with respect to the
education of blind children and the counseling of their parents
which could not have been filled by anybody else at the time and
which absolutely demanded attention. It is simply that this part
of the Foundation's mission has now been largely accomplished. There
are those who would argue (in fact, I am one of them) that some
of the Foundation's advice to the parents and many of its policy
guidelines to the universities were custodial in nature, overly
defensive about what was called professionalism, and more
involved with complexity and prestige than common sense and the good
of the child--but these criticisms must be viewed in context. When
considered from the distance of the years and the magnitude of
the task undertaken, the criticisms soften and take perspective.
There was no viable alternative, and the Foundation did what it could
with the knowledge it had and the resources it possessed. It
deserves our appreciation, not our spleen.
The Second World War brought other changes besides those
affecting the education of blind children. It moved the United
States to the center of the stage in world affairs. Among other
things, this meant that our country would take the leading role
in helping other nations develop programs for the blind. The
American Foundation for the Blind was the natural leader and coordinator.
It played a principal part in establishing the World Council
for the Welfare of the Blind, and in November of 1945 it took
control of the American Braille Press for War and Civilian Blind
and renamed it the AFOB (the American Foundation for Overseas
Blind). The AFOB was technically a separate organization, but its
board was almost identical to that of the Foundation. Throughout
the world in the forties and fifties the Foundation was generally
recognized as the leading force in the blindness field in the
United States and as our chief spokesman in overseas matters.
All of that has now changed. In the late sixties and early
seventies the AFOB went through an alteration. It changed its
name to Helen Keller International, began to acquire a different board
from that of the Foundation, and ultimately broke the ties almost
completely. Then, in the changing climate of public opinion about
overseas projects, Helen Keller International very nearly went
bankrupt. It is now largely financed (and, therefore, in reality
substantially controlled) by the U.S. government and spends the
major part of its money (a sizable budget) in prevention of
blindness projects in other countries. Meanwhile the American
Foundation for the Blind no longer has preeminence in overseas
activities.
In 1984 the International Federation of the Blind and the
World Council for the Welfare of the Blind (the two major world
organizations in the field) merged to become the World Blind
Union. The North America/Caribbean Region of the World Blind Union
consists of organizations of and for the blind in Canada, the
English-speaking nations of the Caribbean, and the United States,
and is generally recognized by other countries as the principal
mechanism for action affecting the blind in this part of the
world--particularly, regarding overseas matters. The Foundation
is a member of the regional structure, but it is certainly not
dominant.
I have already alluded to the $15,000,000 grant which the
Perkins School received from the Hilton Foundation. Some of this
money is being spent inside the United States, but much of it is
being used to develop projects and give aid overseas. With
respect to dollars spent in overseas aid, Perkins is now a major
factor--and with money goes influence. I think it is fair to say
that (with the exception of providing a certain amount of
professional literature) the American Foundation for the Blind
does not today have any significant commitment, influence, or mission
beyond the borders of this country. This is in no way to belittle
or take away from the work which the Foundation did in this area
in the past or the work which it may do in the future. It is simply
to state facts as I believe them to be at present.
Let me turn next to NAC (the National Accreditation Council
for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped). In the
1960's the American Foundation for the Blind created COMSTAC (the
Commission on Standards and Accreditation). It financed COMSTAC
and provided it with an executive director. The objective was to
establish for agencies in the blindness field a system of
accreditation, which the Foundation hoped would come to be
universally accepted, bringing influence to the Foundation and
harmony to the field. The exact opposite occurred. After a brief
existence, COMSTAC established NAC, which confidently announced
that it would be completely self-supporting in no more than five
or six years and that it would encompass most of the agencies.
What followed is a study in failure. NAC was never accepted
by even as many as twenty percent of those that it wanted to
accredit. Through the sixties, the seventies, and the eighties it
bled the Foundation financially and politically, a black hole of
controversy and cost. NAC has been the Foundation's Vietnam--and (as with
America's Vietnam) disentanglement, admission of mistakes, and
loss of face have been bitter medicine to swallow. My conversations
with Foundation officials indicate that the Foundation has spent more
than $9,000,000 on NAC. It has now stopped the expenditures, and
NAC is in its death throes. Even so, the Foundation understandably
finds it difficult to make a clean break and a public statement
that the chapter of its Vietnam must be closed and left in the
past.
In a number of discussions during the past few months, Carl
Augusto (the recently appointed president and chief executive of
the Foundation) has talked with me quite frankly about the
condition and future of his organization. I gather from him that
the Foundation's assets have dropped from a worth of about forty
million dollars four or five years ago to a present value of
something over twenty-four million and that the hemorrhaging
(though slowing) continues. I also understand that the Foundation
eliminated some twenty percent of its staff positions during
1991, making massive layoffs. In my opinion this does not mean that the
Foundation will go bankrupt or cease to be a major participant in
the affairs of the blind, nor do I think it would serve the best
interests of the blind if such were the case. Rather, I think it
means that the Foundation must redefine its mission, free itself
from its Vietnam, and accept the realities of the present day.
As to redefining its mission, the Foundation has recently
been working on the matter. Under date of January 15, 1992, Mr.
Augusto sent me a letter concerning extensive planning sessions the
Foundation conducted during 1990 and 1991, and along with the
letter he enclosed a statement entitled the "AFB Mission." Here
it is:
The mission of AFB is to enable persons who are blind or
visually impaired to achieve equality of access and opportunity
that will ensure freedom of choice in their lives. AFB
accomplishes this mission by taking a national leadership role in the
development and implementation of public policy and legislation,
informational and educational programs, diversified products and
quality services.
To advance this mission, AFB works to: develop and disseminate
knowledge, programs, and products that can be used by professionals
providing service to persons who are blind or visually impaired,
by educational institutions, by legislators, by employers, and by
others in a position to widen and improve equal access; to
initiate or join with coalitions of other organizations, when appropriate,
to accomplish specific goals or objectives; to promote the
positive image of persons who are blind or visually impaired in the media
and the community, and to provide a diversified and stable
funding base for the organization to ensure ongoing support for the
strategies and activities required.
The mission statement [the document continues] calls for AFB
to move toward a more selective national leadership role in
effecting the fundamental changes required to achieve equality of
access and opportunity for persons who are blind or visually
impaired. It defines AFB's national leadership role as an
information broker, an agent of change, a leader, and innovator.
That is what Mr. Augusto sent me as the Foundation's new
mission statement, and I can only say that I find it somewhat
disappointing. It seems to me that it is too much couched in
generalities and does not contain enough that is different from
yesterday's largely finished activities. It announces almost no
new initiatives, no specifics, and no clear direction for the future.
Perhaps the Foundation will go back to the drawing board and
further define its role and how it intends to achieve it. I hope
that it will, for the blind and the blindness field need the
Foundation--not a Foundation looking back to the past but the
kind of creative organization of the formative years--vital,
resilient, determined, and innovative.
It is a positive sign that the Foundation and the Federation
have been working together with increasing closeness during the
past decade. Bill Gallagher and I have become warm personal
friends, and Carl Augusto shows an interest in continuing to
strengthen the ties. He was at last year's convention and
indicated a positive desire to speak on this year's program. These
things would not have been possible twenty years ago.
In this discussion of shifting balances in the blindness
field, why have I spent so much time on the American Foundation
for the Blind? The answer is simple. The Foundation has played such a
major part in the development of the blindness system in this
country during the past seventy years that any meaningful
discussion of where we are and where we are going must take it
into account and give it significant emphasis.
But there are other forces to be considered. One of them is
the AER (the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the
Blind and Visually Impaired). The AER resulted from a merger
between the AAIB (American Association of Instructors for the
Blind, which later changed its name to the Association for
Education of the Visually Handicapped) and the AAWB (the American
Association of Workers for the Blind). The AAIB was established
in the middle of the last century, and the AAWB came into being in
1905. The merged organization (AER) was meant to encompass most
of the professionals in work with the blind in both Canada and the
United States. It has a large membership on paper and is
potentially the leading force among the agency professionals--but
the potential has never been realized, and there seems little
likelihood that it will. The problem is that AER has almost no
central authority. It is so loosely knit that in many ways it is
an organization in name only. Its constituents show no prime loyalty
to it and no ability to act in concert on tough questions and
meaningful issues. It has many members but little influence, and
it is likely to stay that way.
Let me illustrate. In the summer of 1988 at an AER
convention in Montreal a number of us decided to try to see if we
could pull the blindness field in Canada and the United States
together for concerted action. Accordingly, the Committee on Joint
Organizational Effort (JOE) was established. Those invited to
attend as initial members (it was thought we might later expand
the membership) were the Canadian National Institute for the Blind,
the Canadian Council of the Blind, the AER, the American Foundation
for the Blind, the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped, the American Council of the Blind, the
Blinded Veterans Association, and the National Federation of the
Blind. The first JOE meeting was held in March of 1989 at the
National Center for the Blind in Baltimore and was hosted by the
National Federation of the Blind. All who were invited attended
except the American Council of the Blind, which thereby emphasized
and increased its growing isolation from the main stream of the
blindness field.
Although the first JOE meeting spent much of its time
smoothing tensions and establishing relationships, it dealt with
substantive issues as well. One of these involved Braille
literacy. After much discussion we unanimously agreed upon the
language of a statement. Present as representatives of AER were its
immediate past president, its then current president, and its
president-elect--presumably the top leaders of the organization.
Most of us left that meeting feeling that we had achieved a
binding agreement. Yet, the AER board agonized, wanted to water
down the statement, and ultimately rejected it.
At the second meeting of the Committee on Joint
Organizational Effort, which was held at the Canadian National
Institute for the Blind in Toronto in November of 1990, the need to
find a way to increase Braille literacy was further discussed. At
the third JOE meeting, held at the American Foundation for the Blind
in New York in January of this year, Braille literacy was again
considered. Once more, AER was represented by its immediate past
president, its current president, and its president-elect. After
much discussion and refinement of language we unanimously agreed upon
the following statement:
Recognizing that ongoing assessment and due process are
requirements of the law, the members of the Committee on Joint
Organizational Effort endorse the principle that in planning the
educational program for a blind or visually impaired child, these
guidelines be followed:
- If reading and writing are to be taught and if the parent
or parents and the decision makers for the school want the child to
be taught Braille, this should be done.
- If reading and writing are to be taught and if the parent
or parents and the decision makers for the school want print to be
taught, this should be done.
- If the parent or parents and the decision makers for the
school cannot agree, then both Braille and print should be
taught.
This was the statement we agreed upon, and if it had been
any milder, it would have been worthless. Also, remember that it had
been discussed over a three-year period at three succeeding
meetings and that top AER officials had participated throughout
the process. Yet, under date of April 12, 1992, Dr. William Wiener,
president of AER, sent a memorandum to the members of the
Committee on Joint Organizational Effort entitled "Recent JOE
Agreements." Here is what he said:
As you may know, because AER is a membership organization,
its Board of Directors requires that major policy decisions of the
Association be reviewed by its duly elected representatives. Based
on this policy, the officers of the Association that attended the
last JOE meeting presented our agreements for confirmation by the
Board of Directors. It is the purpose of this memorandum to
report the decisions that were made.
In general the Board is supportive of the efforts of the JOE
to discuss issues that affect blind people. Because our
differences are sometimes great, it should not be viewed as negative
when consensus is not reached. It is felt by the Board that honest
discussions will result in an increased ability to understand
each other and that agreement is not a required outcome.
The Board was appreciative of our efforts to reach consensus
on the issue of Braille Literacy. After a lengthy discussion,
however, the Board voted not to support our concluding agreement.
The Board felt that the wording of the agreement left the
statement open to different interpretations. A statement that can
be viewed differently by different groups serves no useful purpose.
The Board did, however, endorse that AER supports the goal that no child
should ever find the implementation of legislation an obstacle to
his or her best educational process. The JOE discussions on this
issue have been useful as they have inspired the Board of AER to
move ahead to define its own position on Braille Bills. As
President, I have appointed an Ad Hoc Board Committee chaired by
Toni Heinze to develop a statement that clearly defines our
beliefs. It will not be "model legislation" but rather important
points to be considered in formulating a position on any
particular version of the Braille Bills. I believe this will be a useful
tool as we move forward to insure that blind children and adults
receive the best possible education and rehabilitation.
It is our goal to complete this task by our biennial meeting
in Los Angeles. I will be sure to share this information with the
Committee on JOE as soon as it has been approved by the AER
Board.
There you have the AER memorandum--and there you also have,
in AER's own language, the reason why it is not, and cannot be, the
leader of the governmental and private agencies in this country
or, for that matter, even a strong force in their conduct. The AER
totally rejected the actions of its top leaders on what should
have been almost a non-controversial issue, and even if the Board had
approved, there is no reason to believe that the individual
agencies and members of AER would have paid any attention or
altered their policies in the slightest. Again I remind you that
I am not criticizing. I am only stating facts as I see them and
suggesting that those in the blindness field (all of us) must
either avoid the world of fantasy and face reality or risk
destruction.
Let me next turn to the ACB (the American Council of the
Blind). It was formed in 1961 at the end of the NFB's civil war,
partly from people who were expelled from our organization and
partly from those who quit. It, too, has an identity crisis and a
problem of mission. At first its goal seemed simple--hate the
National Federation of the Blind and get revenge. But that was
over thirty years ago, and a new generation has risen. Hate and
negativism are poor materials for long-term building, and
thoughts of revenge are mostly the dream of the weak and the
solace of the dispossessed. At our conventions you will observe
that the American Council of the Blind is rarely thought of or
mentioned, but at their meetings the circumstances are different.
We are frequently the topic of discussion and the subject of snide
allusion.
As to mission, the Council has a growing problem. In the
sixties and seventies, when the American Foundation for the Blind
and some of the other agencies were in bitter conflict with us,
the ACB was used as a buffer. When there was a hotly contested issue,
the agencies could trot the Council out and say: "The Federation
does not represent the blind. Here is another consumer
organization, which agrees with us." In short, the Council served
as a company union. But that was before the 1980's when the
Federation and an increasing number of the agencies started
drawing closer and working in partnership. As the process continues and
accelerates today, the Council not only ceases to be an asset to
the agencies as a company union but actually becomes an
embarrassment and a liability. It does, that is, unless it is
willing to change its stance and join with the rest of us in
trying to build a new basis for positive partnership in the field. At a
minimum this would mean stopping the pretense that it is the
largest organization of the blind in the country (a claim which
nobody, including its own members, takes seriously anyway) and
ceasing the hate campaigns--in short, leaving fantasy and facing
reality. The American Council of the Blind can be a real force
for constructive action if it will, and we will gladly work with it
if it takes that road.
There are, of course, numerous other organizations and
agencies in the blindness field, but many of these have not taken
a significant role in the politics of it. The Blinded Veterans
Association, for instance, falls into this category.
Comparatively small and generally respected, it has traditionally
limited its activities to matters concerning veterans. The National
Council of State Agencies for the Blind, the organization of residential
schools, the organization of state vision consultants, the
National Council of Private Agencies for the Blind, and a number of other
such groups have been loosely associated and have generally not
attempted to exert much influence outside their particular
specialties--and even in those areas of specialty, they have
largely been forums for discussion and exchange of information
rather than rallying points for broad-based, united action.
Obviously all of this can change, and there is a good deal of
evidence that in some instances it will. The balances are
shifting.
In addition to the groups I have mentioned, there are
individual agencies which have a national constituency and scope
of operation that potentially give them influence far beyond what
they have ever developed or chosen to use. I think of the Hadley
School for the Blind, Recording for the Blind, and the American Printing
House for the Blind as prime examples. All three of these agencies
are reaching out to play broader roles than they have ever attempted
before, and their presence is being felt.
The Rehabilitation Services Administration and the National
Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the
Library of Congress are also factors in the equation. They have
broad constituencies and will necessarily play key roles in
determining the nature and effectiveness of the blindness system
in the years ahead. They will influence and be influenced by the
coalitions which are built and the philosophies which are
developed. With the leadership that they currently have, it seems
clear that they will make positive contributions.
Then, there are the vendors of technology. They, too, are
becoming an important part of the mix. Thirty years ago they did
not exist, and such technology as we had came almost exclusively
from the American Foundation for the Blind and the American
Printing House for the Blind. Today the situation is totally
different. There are an increasing number of commercial and
nonprofit producers and distributors of both high and low tech
items, and their influence is growing. Their products affect our
lives, and their sales representatives and service personnel
mingle with us on a continuing basis. Whether they want to or not (and,
for that matter, whether either they or we like it or not), they
will necessarily be a significant factor in the discussions and
alliances that are shaping the future of the blindness system.
Of course, technology has brought major changes in the lives
of the sighted just as it has in the lives of the blind, but
there is a significant difference. When the sighted moved from
medievalism to the industrial revolution, then to the automobile,
the airplane, and later to the electronic age, they had 200 years
to do it, and there was time for adjustment and acclimatization--but
not so with us. Our move from medievalism to electronics has happened
in less than thirty years, with all of the upheaval such compression
brings. Yes, technology is changing our lives--and there are political
as well as technological implications.
So the vendors and distributors of technology will play an
important part in determining the course of the blindness system,
and there are also others who will. Some of the agencies in New
York and other parts of the country, for instance, now have
financial resources (more than one of them with upwards of fifty
million dollars) which far exceed those of the American Foundation
for the Blind or the others I have mentioned. Will they choose to
become factors in the national mix? They could--and some of them
may. Perkins, for instance, (although possibly a little less
wealthy than a few of the rest) is well financed and
energetically led. Whether it will choose to raise its profile and
whether that will be good or bad will turn entirely on its motives and
actions.
Whatever all of this may prove, surely there can be no doubt
about at least one thing. The blindness field in this country is
in ferment, and the old alignments and power bases are gone, gone
forever. New forces are emerging. New balances are being struck.
Will this be good or bad, positive or negative? It depends on
what choices we make, what wisdom we show, and how responsibly we act.
So far, I have talked about others. Let me now say a few
words about us, about the National Federation of the Blind. What does
the new reality mean for the Federation? Well, for one thing, it
means that we must be careful not to get too big for our pants. We may
be (and I think we unquestionably are) the strongest force in the
affairs of the blind in this country today--but we are not the
only force. There are others, and their views must be taken into
account. If we make the mistakes of some of those who were
leaders in the blindness field in the past, if we fail to reach out in
cooperative good will, our momentum will slow. Our progress will
stop. We do not want to boss or lord it over others. We know what
that feels like. We have been treated that way too often
ourselves to want to do it to anybody else.
But let nobody misunderstand what I am saying. We are just
as determined as we always were, never again to be treated like
second-class citizens or kept from having a say in our own destiny.
We have had a bellyful of that--and we are strong enough to see
that it doesn't happen again. We still have teeth, and we know
how to use them.
The blindness system in our country today is seriously
threatened. Unless it can pull itself together in true partnership
(with all, or at least the major participants, working in mutual
respect), it may very well perish. Budgets are tightening; the
environment is deteriorating; population is rising; and resources
are dwindling. In addition, other disability groups (once
disorganized and invisible) are finding their voice and reaching
for power. They are now a growing force to be reckoned with, and
there is no turning back.
As we look ahead, the future is bright with promise. We as
an organization are stronger than we have ever been, and we are
prepared to work in partnership with any and all who are interested
in helping the blind move toward opportunity, equality, and
freedom. These are the things we want, and these are the things
we intend to have--opportunity, equality, and freedom. A measure of
our progress can be seen in the increasing number of governmental
and private agencies and members of the public who are joining
with us in common cause, but the real indicator of our progress is what
is happening within us as blind people. By the thousands and tens
of thousands we have gained confidence, determination, and
self-respect--and no force on earth can turn us back. This is the
meaning of all I have said. This is the message of the shifting
balances in the blindness field. Let us join together, and we
will make it come true!
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