An Old Fable and a Modern Tale

An Old Fable and a Modern Tale

Future Reflections Winter 1986, Vol. 5 No. 1
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AN OLD FABLE AND A MODERN TALE
by Mary Ellen Reihing
An Old Fable: Long ago there lived a
man who had three sons. The man was a
farmer who had, through hard work and
crafty management, accumulated a nice
bit of property. The farm, if left
intact, would provide a comfortable
living for all three sons. However, if
the property were divided or some of it
sold off, the sons would soon end up in
poverty and all the father's long years
of hard labor would be for naught.
These three sons, however, were constantly
quarreling. They complained
that they had nothing in common with
each other, and each insisted going his
own way.
One day, the father grew seriously
ill. he had lived a full life and was
at peace, except for one thing. He was
worried about his sons. He knew that
without him, his sons would have a
falling out, loose the farm, and soon
sink into poverty and want.
The father loved his sons and did not want this to happen to them. He thought
and thought. Finally, he called a servant
and instructed the servant to gather
together three large bundles of
sticks and to tie each bundle securely
with a good strong rope. He then called
his three sons to his side.
The father ordered the sons to each
take up a bundle of sticks. He then
commanded the sons to break the bundle
with their hands. The brothers grunted
and groaned as they strove and struggled
to carry out their father's command.
But try as they might, the bundles would
not break.
The father then bade the sons to untie
the bundles. They did so, and the
sticks were one by one soon broken with
ease.
"My sons," said the father, "you are
like these sticks. If you refuse to see
your common interests and are divided by
petty differences, you will be weak and
easy prey for those stronger than you.
However, if you band together and do not
let yourselves be divided, you will
always be strong and you will all
prosper."
The father died soon after. The sons,
having learned the lesson of the bundle
of sticks, did indeed prosper and became
the most wealthy and powerful men in the
land.
A Modern Tale: When I was a small
girl, my parents joined with others in
our town to fight for the establishment
of a class for blind children in the
local school district. After much political
maneuvering, the "Braille class"
became a reality.
Parents had to contend with administrators
who physically evicted them from
the Superintendent's office and told
them that blind children were lucky to
have a special school and they did not
belong in class with sighted students.
It is not surprising that positions
hardened and emotions ran high. My
parents felt that making it possible for
me to be educated locally was a test of
their ability to provide for my future.
The battle was finally won with emotional
appeals. "There is no substitute
for a mother's love."
When I was four or five I met another
blind child my age. She lived in a
small town sixty miles west of us and
she came to spend a few days with our
family. I overheard our parents talking.
It seemed that she lived in a
place that was too small for a special
class. Therefore, she "had to go" to
the school for the blind. I remember
feeling sorry for her. I could stay
home with my family. She had to leave
hers. I could go to school with "normal"
children. She would be in classes
with other blind children, who were not
"normal." Her parents had no choice.
It was not their fault.
Later I met children who could have
attended the same classes I did but
whose parents chose instead to send them
to the school for the blind. I felt
even more sorry for them. Unfortunately,
I never discussed the situation with
my parents. They would have been
shocked and horrified at my childish
reasoning. I assumed that, since my
parents kept me home because they loved
me, parents who sent their children to a school for the blind must not care about
their kids.
I believed I was getting a superior
education because the other kids in my
class were not blind. I was "making it
in the real world." The kids at the
school for the blind were being
"sheltered."
In high school I got to know some
kids who attended the school for the
blind. I was astonished when they refused
to acknowledge my obvious superiority.
They saw things differently.
Some of them even went so far as to say
that they were receiving the better
education because blind kids in public
school were "babied" by teachers and
parents. Because students at the school
for the blind were taught by teachers
who did not feel sorry for them, they
got grades that were a better barometer
of their achievements. They also took
physical education, wood working, home
economics and other courses designed to
teach them skills that simply were not
taught to blind students in the public
schools. They felt sorry for me because
their parents loved them enough to make
the sacrifice of sending them to the
school for the blind. My parents were
obviously selfish and overprotective.
It is hard for me to recapture my
fervor in defense of the public schools
and the viciousness of my attacks on the
school for the blind. Now I cannot tell
which school a blind friend attended
without asking and I rarely think to
ask. Some of the people who attended
schools for the blind came from homes
where parents did not care. Some of the
people who attended public schools were
not expected to compete on equal terms
with the sighted children. Sometimes
the stereotypes were reversed and the
students from the school for the blind
were allowed to slide by while the blind
public school students lived in homes
where no one cared for them. Of course,
students from both places often grew
into competent adults whose families
cared deeply about them and who had
expected them to pull their own weight.
The deciding factor was not the location
or style of their education. It was the
attitudes of parents and teachers and
the attitude the blind person ultimately
adopted.
I started school in a self-contained
class for blind children. It was called
the "Braille class" because everyone in
it read and wrote Braille. As soon as
we were proficient in the basics of
Braille, we were sent to class with
sighted children. We called it going to
"out class." We gained status in direct
proportion to the amount of time we
spent in "out class."
Somewhere over on the other side of
town was a class called "sight-saving."
This was the euphemistic and inaccurate
term for the class where blind children
with a little vision learned to read
large print. The "sight-saving class"
was on the east side and the "Braille
class" was on the west side. Rarely did
the twain meet. Once in a while a
"sight-saving kid" would lose more
vision and be transferred to our class.
Sometimes a "Braille kid" with a little
vision would be switched to the other
school. If these students had moved to
another planet, they could not have
become more remote.
When I was in junior high school there
was a move to combine the classes for
the two groups. My parents fought against
the idea vigorously. They were
afraid that blind students who read Braille would become subordinate to the
large print readers who outnumbered us.
Though we were segregated in class, we
sometimes attended social activities
organized by the .local society for the
blind. My parents had observed that
totally blind children were permitted to
do more when children with a little more
vision were not around. Unfortunately,
whenever something needed to be done
that required moving around independently,
the child with the most vision
was asked to do it. Since we were segregated
in school and there were no
"partials" around, totally blind students
had a chance. My parents were
afraid that combining classes would
limit my opportunities.
The parents of children in the "sight
saving class" did not care for the idea
of combined classes either. These
parents knew that their children were "a
little hard of seeing," but they were
certainly not blind. Except when they
were hunched over a large print book
with a magnifying glass, "sight-saving
kids" could "pass" for sighted. They
believed that putting them in a class
with totally blind' students would stigmatize
them unnecessarily.
Now that I am an adult I have discovered
that the average employer, and
even the average person on the street,
sees through our petty distinctions and
self-deceptions. Blind people with some
sight have as much trouble finding work
as their totally blind colleagues.
Since they have often been deprived of
the chance to learn alternative techniques
of blindness, they are often less
efficient than they could be. Once
again, it is not the amount of sight but
the attitudes and skills of the individual
that make the difference.
If there is one question I am asked
most about my blindness, it is whether I
was born blind or lost my sight as an
adult. People cannot tell. Yet, when I
was growing up, I thought that the age
at which a person became blind defined
his or her personality.
Until I was in my teens, I knew only
one man who became blind as an adult.
His blindness was due to the complications
of diabetes. He had a playroom in
his basement with a lot of neat toys,
but I did not think he was very neat.
He didn't do much for himself. His wife
had a job and he stayed home. She liked
kids but he would not play with us at
all. Sometimes he was downright
grouchy. I knew sighted adults who were
sometimes grouchy and did not like kids,
But I attributed this man's behavior to
the fact that he became blind as an
adult. Somehow I got the idea that
people who became blind when they were
older were necessarily weird and maladjusted.
Because they had seen at one
time and later lost their vision, I
thought they could not avoid being emotional
wrecks. I did not want to be
like that, so I avoided blind adults.
Much later I learned that the man I met
when I was small was slowly dying of
kidney failure. It was no wonder that
he had little energy for playing with
children. It was no wonder that he did
not work or that his wife took care of
him.
It is also no wonder that I deliberately
excluded all but a few blind
people from my life. After all, there
really are not all that many people who
were born totally blind and attended
public schools. My notions were silly
and destructive, but I clung to them
tenaciously for years. At the bottom of
it all, I wanted to avoid the responsibility
which comes with recognizing the
blind--all of the blind--as colleagues
who share my problems, hopes and aspirations.
It was far easier to define my
interests so narrowly that I could avoid
any inconvenient obligations. But it
was also less useful, less interesting,
and much less fun.
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