[blindkid] Advice needed about school incident

Thu Nov 5 18:31:14 UTC 2009

You mean chocolate milk doesn't come from cows milked in the dark either? 
And the white milk doesn't come from those milked during the day? LOL!!!!
Barbara

The Hawkeyes are 9 and 0!  Let's go Iowa Hawkeyes!

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From: "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 9:20 AM
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Advice needed about school incident

> I appreciate your feedback--
>
> Your story is interesting, in particular the notion that a blind child 
> would possibly think that one grows into having vision, and especially  so 
> since I have heard virtually the exact same thing from other adults  who 
> were blind since birth. There is definitely a tale of caution  there. One 
> never knows what a child (vision notwithstanding) is going  to assume. For 
> the longest time (as a sighted young child) I had  reached the seemingly 
> obvious conclusion that "white milk" came from  the predominantly white 
> cows and chocolate milk from the brown or  black ones. It made total sense 
> to me. I think I had even worked out  that cows with a good mixture of 
> light and dark patches would dispense  both kinds, depending on the 
> "spigot" used. I never really asked  anyone, I just intuitively "knew" 
> this. Fortunately for me, there was  no longstanding impact from my 
> misguided assumption in this case.
>
> We never try to withhold information of that nature and we don't  withhold 
> much of anything at all. In fact I can only recall  withholding things 
> that seem not to be age appropriate except in that  we all (I would 
> assume) sometimes try to give out information only as  quickly as our kids 
> can process and deal with it at times-- For me,  this is generally related 
> to knowing how things work-- Kendra wants a  full and complete 
> understanding and sometimes it takes a while to  build enough foundation 
> to get to the particulars of how a certain  machine might work, for 
> example. Kendra would, I think, like to  understand a lot more about how 
> and why electricity works sometimes  (especially as related to audio 
> recording), but I have yet to work up  to a clear explanation of 
> electrical theory for ANY first graders, so  that really has little to do 
> with blindness-- How do I "adapt"  something that does not exist to begin 
> with?
>
> Thinking of not discussing the stolen food is the only thing I believe  we 
> have given serious thought to avoiding and that was, again, mainly 
> because it was hard to see the benefit of her learning so far away  from 
> the actual event. Besides, it is my nature to try and protect  anyone I 
> know (child or adult) from hurtful things that are sometimes  said or done 
> in life; something I have never quite worked out in life  in general.
>
> Kendra absolutely knows it is respectable to be blind, though I guess  I 
> tend to use the words "fine" or "okay" more. She understands that  some 
> kids can see with their eyes and some cannot and the same is true  for 
> adults and that is fine, just like some kids cannot hear with  their ears 
> or walk with their legs. In fact one thing we have really  liked about her 
> current and previous school is that some kids there  use walkers or wheel 
> chairs-- things that Kendra can notice without  any intervention so SHE 
> can initiate a question like why a classmate  us in a wheelchair.
>
> I have not tended to focus on the ratio, but she knows for example  that 
> she is the only child who cannot see with her eyes at school but  that at 
> other places like the Center for the Visually Impaired, many  people there 
> are blind an she sees sighted and blind kids away from  those places at 
> times also. We remind her to use her cane "like Anil"  when she is not 
> touching her cane back-and-forth as she knows Anil  Lewis quite well and 
> that he is also blind. She is aware of the  distinctive sound that he as 
> an NFB cane user makes as he travels so  it is a great reminder for her. 
> (Sometimes her cane tends to "hover" a  few inches off the ground 
> otherwise...)
>
> We absolutely want Kendra to know not only that it is respectable to  be 
> blind, but to grow up knowing successful blind adults that she  encounters 
> just like any other "grown-ups" from time to time.
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:09 AM, trising wrote:
>
>> I had similar things happen as the only blind high school student. 
>> Someone took food, ate part of it, and had the whole table laughing  when 
>> they put the french fry back on my tray and I ate it, not  knowing it had 
>> been bitten off of. This was a painful experience for  me, as I was the 
>> social outcast that no one would eat with at  school. After the incident 
>> I described, I was almost relieved to eat  alone. As to being told I was 
>> totally blind and others had vision, I  think at age six I thought adults 
>> could see, because my parents  could. This meant they could drive, read 
>> using eyes instead of  hands, know colors and read my temperature on a 
>> glass rod when I was  sick. I thought kids read Braille and went on a 
>> small bus to school.  I got told in no uncertain terms by another little 
>> girl that I was  wrong. She rode on a bigg bus, rode a bike with two 
>> wheels, had 26  kids in her class and was learning to read with her eyes. 
>> The way  she said it made me feel inferior. It took until I was out of 
>> school  and found the Federation and my husband who is also a part of the 
>> Federation before I realized that it was respectable to be blind. It  was 
>> sure grand to realize our techniques were not inferior, but just 
>> different!
>>
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>
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