[blindkid] Leaving classes early

DrV icdx at earthlink.net
Sun Jan 25 22:02:47 UTC 2009


That was really well stated Steve.

The reality is that in college & in the workplace our kids will be expected 
to be on time. They will then be held to different, higher, expectations & 
there will likely be consequences as a result of the impressions created by 
leaving early or arriving late.

Having stated that it is important to remember that much of what we discuss 
about goals is A PROCESS - goals we work toward as our children advance 
through their schooling years.
What is posted sometimes comes across as "an absolute" way of dealing with 
situations. As involved informed parents, most of us want to feel we are 
doing "the right thing" - especially if we have struggled wth an issue for a 
while. While I will admit that some posting sometimes rub me the wrong way, 
these same comments do frequently make me think & reflect & serve as a 
reality check, thereby forcing me to reassess our situation with each of our 
boys.

In elementary school, the 5th graders started to rotate classrooms/teachers 
to begin to simulate what would be going on in middle school. O&M & speed 
are not Vejas's strongpoints. He would begin to pack up at the end of class 
& leave 2 minutes early because at the time, we as a team felt that was the 
right thing to do. This was part of the transition process.

When it came to middle school, our O&M instructor's schedule (from the 
County) started a week or so after the beginning of the first day of middle 
school. Our middle school doesn't have lockers & the braille & other 
necessary materials are heavy. The well-meaning general education staff had 
first suggested Vejas use the elevator with an aide. That suggesting was 
politely but firmly nixed that idea on the spot. After getting his class 
schedule in late August, my wife & I worked with Vejas on how to get to 
classes the week before school started. He got the route down. Once the 
campus was full of kids hurrying up and down the stairs however, there was 
talk of safety issues with the rolling backpack which he was used to. The 
discussion came up about leaving early or what to do - everyone having a 
different idea on solutions - this put Vejas in an awkward position as he 
kind of got caught in the middle of all this. Vejas, Rasa & I sat down 
together & rethought options & then bought a regular backpack. He was very 
excited & proud of this.

Parents are not allowed on campus during school hours without a special 
pass. Not many kids used busses where we live. We now drop him off from the 
car at the same drop off point the other kids use. At the beginning of the 
school year an assistant would walk with him from the office to his first 
class. After a few weeks, he shared with me that he didn't want to walk to 
the assistant anymore, but wasn't sure how to bring this up because he 
didn't want to hurt her feelings. We spoke to the school & they were fine 
with him heading off on his own to class. The bottom line is that our 
expectations for the beginning of 6th grade in a new school are different 
than those we have as the year progresses.

We will assess each year's expectations depending on the circumstances, but 
are working towards total independence goals all along the way.

Many of us (some teachers, Vejas & us parents) were resistant to folders at 
first, since the binders helped so much with organization in prior years, 
but one of the classroom teachers was insistent & we agreed to go through 
with the suggestion of a trial period, & as it turned out, the folders are 
working out well - & as a lighter option.

This is all a process. I value the discussions we have on the list-serve & 
everyone's insights for frequently they serve as stimuli to make us think 
beyond the usual routine we have gotten comfortable with to take that next 
step towards enhanced independence.

Take care,
Eric V

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 10:49
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Leaving classes early


> 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
>>_______________________________________________
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>
>
>
>
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