[blindkid] Leaving classes early

Sun Jan 25 18:49:51 UTC 2009

It is really difficult to answer questions like this in a way that fits everybody.  The original questioner wanted to know if it 
should be assumed, by and O&M instructor, that a blind child should have extra time.  I don't personally think that this 
should be an assumption, but a question looked at carefully and constantly reevaluated.  Rather than deciding remotely 
what should be done in every case, particularly when there may be circumstances of which I am not aware, I'd rather try 
to place all of this into some sort of perspective.

While a child is in school, including college, reasonable accommodation allows the granting of extra time for various 
things.  Unfortunately, this does not apply to employment, at least not in the same way.  While there are certainly 
accommodations to which one is generally entitled on the job, they are not universal.  In the end, there is no 
accommodation that requires employers to accept that a blind employee will take extra time to do the same job at the 
same rate of pay.  In reality, it does take extra time for us sometimes, but generally, we handle this by doing some of our 
work outside of normal work hours.  

Therefore, it is my opinion that we must constantly be working toward reducing the extra time that our blind kids need.  
This can mean working on travel skills, being more organized than the average kid, and even looking at what 
technology is best suited to a given situation.  This means things like considering the size and the weight of laptops, 
how one might take advantage of menus and shortcut keys to open textbooks, whether multiple textbooks can be 
opened in advance, being careful to analyze how effective CCTV's are for a given student and watching for new 
technology that makes such devices smaller, and so on.  As a parent of blind kids and having been a blind kid myself at 
one time, I realize all too well that one has to pick one's battles and that one cannot address all aspects of growing up, 
including blindness, with equal energy at all times.  However, I have also seen too many blind kids come out of college 
without the self-management skills they need to be successfully employed because such skills were not truly required in 
school.  If they are lucky, they end up with an employer who will tolerate their learning on the job, but school is the time 
when we can best be refining these skills, where experimenting doesn't mean getting fired.

I do not mean for this to sound unduly harsh, and I must add that sighted kids are sometimes not prepared for 
employment either.  I am also not saying that we should never bend the rules because there can always be individual 
circumstances.  What I am trying to convey, though, is that bending the rules should always be viewed as temporary 
with an eye toward not making the "bending" permanent.  I know this isn't easy, and I don't claim to have a perfect 
record on this myself.  We do the best we can keeping the final goal in mind, that of achieving independence and self-
sufficiency.  However, our kids will have a much more difficult time getting jobs if there is a general assumption that they 
must leave classes early.  We must remind ourselves and teach our kids that in the end, we are responsible for knowing 
how to deal with our blindness, and the better we are at doing that, the more successful we will be.  For our kids, this 
has to be part of the learning process.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:09:51 -0800 (PST), Kim Cunningham wrote:

>Well....I guess that I may be the only parent on the list serv who sees the need for my daughter to leave class 5 
minutes early. I thought about not posting, but I'm open for critism this morning! Don't be too harsh with me....
>My daughter is in the 11th grade and has left her class 5 minutes early since 7th grade. She wears a watch and begins 
packing up her laptop, books, etc and heads out at the appropriate time (no reminders from the teacher). There are 
quite a few "sighted" kids who are in the hallway at the same time for various reasons due to injuries, etc. My daughter 
carries a very heavy backpack with a laptop, books, technology, and binders while using her cane. She is rather small 
and must lean forward for balance. The school is 2 story and she is constantly up and down stairs. The school is dealing 
with a huge influx in population due to rezoning with around 3000 kids. My daughter's sighted friends complain about 
getting to and from classes while carrying one book and a binder. There are times when she hasn't left 5 minutes early 
and gets caught in the traffic. She has found that she has a hard time getting to her locker as the other kids are 
blocking her access
> while they get their belongings and they also gather in groups outside of classrooms to chat causing the hallways to be 
blocked. At these times, she ends up being frustrated and rushed, sometimes arriving just seconds before the bell. Then 
she is rushed about getting her laptop set up and loaded for the begining of class (Some of the programs and textbooks 
take a while to load). There is no time to visit with friends when this happens.  When she leaves 5 minutes early, she 
goes to her locker and arrives at class early enough to still talk with her friends and have her technology ready to start. 
During this time she is also able to talk with her teacher and get clarification about what is needed for the day and will 
prepare for it with the appropriate technology. I believe that my daughter should act and be treated equally as a blind 
person, but what about taking into consideration all the "extras" that our kids must handle as a blind person. Do we
> expect our children to go above and beyond what we expect for their peers? Most all of our kids attend the same 
class schedule as the other kids, but must also have O&M lessons, TBS services, braille instruction, etc. There are only 
so many hours in a day to get something accomplished and if leaving class 5 minutes early helps to alleviate some 
stress, then I'm OK with it, as is my daughter. 
>Just my two cents.
>Kim Cunningham

>--- On Sat, 1/24/09, Barbara.Mathews at sce.com <Barbara.Mathews at sce.com> wrote:

>From: Barbara.Mathews at sce.com <Barbara.Mathews at sce.com>
>Subject: Re: [blindkid] Leaving classes early
>To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009, 4:26 PM

>My advice is to just say "No thank you.". My daughter attended a large
>middle school.  She is totally blind and her orientation skill isn't that
>great, but she got herself from class to class just fine. We did include in her
>IEP an accommodation that she would not be penalized for being tardy to a class
>if it was due to orientation problems, but this was intended primarily for the
>beginning of the year when she was still learning the routes or if there was a
>change in schedule or something that meant she wouldn't follow the usual
>route.  We wanted to make sure she would handle those situations independently
>without undue stress about being late.  We also told the teachers that the
>accommodation didn't apply if she was goofing off between classes.

>I asked her about this 5 minutes early idea, and she thought it was silly.  She
>also said you would miss less if you got to class a little late because it
>usually takes a while for class to settle down.

>I also wonder who would tell your son it's time to leave 5 minutes before
>the bell rings.  Kyra's teachers wouldn't have interrupted what they
>were doing for that.  If some other adult would come into the room for that
>reason, how embarrassing for a middle school kid! For an otherwise typical blind
>kid, not a good idea.

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Andy & Sally Thomas" [andysally at comcast.net]
>Sent: 01/24/2009 07:38 AM CST
>To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>Subject: [blindkid] Leaving classes early

>My son's O&M instructor has told him that next year in junior high he
>will be dismissed from classes 5 minutes early in order to get a head start into
>the halls to make it to his next class. I'm wondering if most of the blind
>kids out there get this "accommodation."  I personally think it is an
>opportunity to miss some afterthought the teacher has and to be singled out and
>isolated in the classroom. Walking to classes with friends is one of the few
>times kids have for private conversations.  Would you share your experiences
>with this?

>Sally Thomas
>_______________________________________________
>blindkid mailing list
>blindkid at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blindkid:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/barbara.mathews%40sce.com

>_______________________________________________
>blindkid mailing list
>blindkid at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blindkid:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/kim%40gulfimagesphoto.com
>_______________________________________________
>blindkid mailing list
>blindkid at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blindkid:
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/steve.jacobson%40visi.com