[blindkid] Advice needed about school incident
Barbara Hammel
poetlori8 at msn.com
Thu Nov 5 18:35:57 UTC 2009
Oh, on the other hand, this reminds me of a funny thing that happened when I
used to work with one-year-olds at a day-care center.
I was sitting in the wide space that divided two of the rooms so the
children would stay in our room when a wise little boy closed his eyes and
tried to scamper past. The other teacher and I had a good laugh. He
figured that if he couldn't see me, I couldn't see him. Very few of the
children I had really figured out that I couldn't see.
Barbara
The Hawkeyes are 9 and 0! Let's go Iowa Hawkeyes!
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 9:59 AM
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Advice needed about school incident
> Carol,
>
> Your comments are reassuring, thanks. Even as we try and build the
> knowledge base that will hopefully allow Kendra to develop a more
> reasonable understanding of a vision concept I am forever finding "holes"
> in what I think we have built.
>
> When my (sighted) teenaged daughter was quite young, I remember once
> telling her not to roll her eyes at me in a conversation. She was
> completely taken aback that I had "caught" her doing this, as she was on
> the other end of the telephone and clearly WELL out of sight. (What a
> glorious moment that was BTW as she then became CERTAIN that her Dad
> ALWAYS knew what she was doing, LOL...)
>
> I get the impression that our blind children all too often get that same
> sort of impression in daily life from a great many sources-- "How do all
> these people know what I am doing when I cannot tell what THEY are
> doing-- how exactly does this vision thing work?!!" I don't think that
> Kendra thinks it is inferior to do things without sight, but she wants to
> understand the idea of vision and I sometimes feel like I give sub-par
> information when I try and explain it.
>
> As with so many kids, our younger two children have generally reserved
> locations in our car. Kendra sits right behind me as I drive, primarily
> so I can keep by best watch on her little brother-- (a typical boy in
> most every sense of that description, always in motion and often on the
> edge of mischief when he's in the car). (My son rides behind the front
> passenger seat). The other day, Kendra was asking me to look at something
> and as she was getting a little bit agitated, I realized that something
> was up. I looked behind me a little when I was stopped at a light and
> realized that she was shaking something towards me and getting mad that I
> didn't see what she was "showing me". So the light bulb goes on for me,
> and I start trying to explain that unlike sound or smell, sight is just
> in front of a sighted person's eyes and that we have to turn our head to
> see. Then I try to explain that there is so much that I have to watch in
> FRONT of me as I drive that I can only look at her when we are stopped
> somewhere.
>
> Then she wants to know WHY that is-- that eyes only see in one direction.
> Ugh! "Well, that's just they way it is--" It is a poor explanation, but I
> really have no decent answer that doesn't involve a discussion of light
> waves and collection and focus-- somewhat beyond the scope of this
> discussion, I'm thinking, ESPECIALLY while I am still driving in heavy
> traffic.
>
> Another really interesting thing to try and explain is solid but
> transparent objects. If I can see through a closed window, why can't I
> see though a wall? And yet at times, say with a crack in a wall or more
> commonly between fence planks, one CAN seemingly see through a "solid"
> thing", or OVER something solid that is too high to feel the top of...
>
> If sound is stopped by closing a window why is it that light is not? I
> want to explain all I can about these things, but it just takes a long
> time to really begin to construct a solid base of understanding in these
> matters. Still, I know we'll get there.
>
> Anyhow, thanks for the feedback. It all helps to build MY knowledge base!
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:11 AM, Carol Castellano wrote:
>
>> I think the reason it seems so hard or so unclear is that the offense
>> may indeed have involved the fact that Kendra is blind and we parents
>> have very good reasons to shield our kids from difficult and complex
>> issues when they are young.
>>
>> A similar thing happened to Serena when she was in Girl Scouts--she was
>> probably in 3rd grade, maybe 8 or 9 at the time. There was one mean
>> girl--the Scout leader's daughter, of course!--who one night when we
>> were all out at a pizzeria after an activity, pretended to pour her soda
>> on Serena's head. I was alerted by another scout and turned to see it
>> happening. It seemed to me the other girls were sort of squirming
>> embarassedly and laughing a little. Serena, of course, didn't have a
>> clue of what was funny.
>>
>> I think I called out to the offender, "that's not nice to do" and she of
>> course stopped. Oh, did I mention her mom the troop leader was
>> oblivious?
>>
>> That evening Serena and I told Serena what the girl had done. We talked
>> about why a person might do such a thing and why trying to make fun at
>> the expense of others was wrong. It certainly would have been more
>> difficult to discuss when Serena was younger, like Kendra is now, and
>> understood less.
>>
>> We always kept our eyes on the blind adults we knew who were skilled and
>> knowledgeable--we knew that there was a way to be that as a blind
>> person, so we never felt, and of course did not want Serena to feel,
>> that she would always be vulnerable to being taken advantage of because
>> she was blind. In fact, so far in Serena's life, it seems as if she
>> brings out the best in people!
>>
>> Regarding what vision is, we got a lot of tips from Gary Wunder who
>> speaks poignantly about his own journey to understanding. Serena is
>> also completely blind without light perception. I think we began with
>> something like this: Serena, you know how your cane goes out in front
>> of you and out to the sides and you can see what's there? Well,
>> eyesight is something like that, but it can go much farther, even miles.
>> As time went by, we added details so that she would get a full
>> understanding. We always spoke (still do) about it matter-of-
>> factly--for whatever the action we were trying to explain, we'd say,
>> This is the way a grown up sighted person would accomplish this task;
>> this is the way a grown up blind person would do it, without making any
>> deal out of whether the person accomplished the task with eyes or
>> fingers or ears.
>>
>> Carol
>>
>> At 12:41 AM 11/5/2009, you wrote:
>>> For any who don't know the connection I am Kendra's dad (and
>>> Stephanie's husband). Kendra is seven, and in the first grade. This is
>>> her first year in her new school. Overall, things have been going
>>> really well both at this school as well as her last. Her previous
>>> school went through kindergarten only and this is the school to which
>>> most of her classmates from her last school typically matriculate.
>>>
>>> Kendra is the only blind child in the school, and to my knowledge the
>>> only blind child that either her regular ed or special ed teachers
>>> (this is a co-taught classroom) have ever had. Because so many things
>>> are new to this situation and especially to both of these teachers,
>>> many things are being learned and done "on-the-fly" the first time
>>> they come up. We do have an outstanding and very experienced TVI but
>>> she was not involved in this situation when it happened. Had she been
>>> there, I suspect none of this discussion would ever have come up; it
>>> would have been solved on the spot.
>>>
>>> On top of everything else, Kendra's regular ed teacher was out sick
>>> the day this happened. My suspicion is that what happened caught the
>>> teacher who first learned of this so off-guard that she was virtually
>>> stupefied. No matter if it is typical or not for kids her age and
>>> younger, we've generally only had problems with kids arguing over who
>>> gets to walk with Kendra (fighting to HAVE a turn) when they pair off
>>> in twos or trying to be the one who hands Kendra her cane as they head
>>> to the door. (Followed by an adult explaining how nice it is that they
>>> want to help but that she knows where her cane is and she can [and
>>> will] get that herself.) There are lots of IEP kids at this school (as
>>> with her previous school-- WAY more than average) so most of these
>>> kids are quite used to dealing with diversity and should "know
>>> better"...
>>>
>>> This is sort of a classic example of wanting to examine what happened
>>> in the context of what SHOULD have happened, but that is in the past.
>>> We needed to figure out the value of telling her that it did happen
>>> which after some thought and discussion is what we plan to do at this
>>> point; she needs to know and she should have learned right when it
>>> happened. Now that this has come up, we can also have a strategy for
>>> the future and be on the same page with the teachers at school. Try as
>>> one may, it is hard to have a plan for everything BEFORE it happens...
>>>
>>> I think the real problem is that once the ideal response didn't happen
>>> as it should have, now it is much harder to know the exact proper
>>> approach; we are no longer "in the heat of battle". Kendra is really
>>> only just learning to try to understand what it means that others can
>>> "see", so the notion that others can see and use this magical power to
>>> steal from her is a concept that I was not really wanting to try and
>>> teach just yet, but we have to adjust the plan as the game is played...
>>>
>>> Having no light perception at all, I think that the entire notion of
>>> sight is still a bit baffling to Kendra. We're not trying to keep the
>>> concept of sight a secret obviously, but we're still very much trying
>>> to help the concept of "vision" make some reasonable sense to her. In
>>> fact, I wonder if there are any no-light-perception-since-birth people
>>> on this listserv who can offer any suggestions to sighted adults
>>> trying to convey the concept of vision to a child who has never had
>>> any. Not what vision is for or what it does so much, as what it "is".
>>> I really can't understand how one would do that well for any
>>> completely absent sense. Any thoughts? What has worked for other
>>> parents who's kids have been totally blind since birth?
>>>
>>> I can sort of imagine telling someone with really low vision, or even
>>> just light perception that some people can get a lot more information
>>> than a general shape (or just light and dark etc.) but where do you
>>> start with the explanation, again, given the experience of even a very
>>> bright seven year old in a way that is useful?
>>>
>>> When it comes down to it, I guess the actual incident is not that big
>>> of a deal-- that one child took part of another's lunch. And if you
>>> were one typical kid grabbing another sighted kid's food, you would no
>>> doubt want to do that when that kid wasn't looking as well, so I
>>> cannot really put my finger on just how or why this seems so terrible,
>>> yet it still does... I mean on the one hand, we want to say everyone
>>> is the same and equal, but on the other, there is a weakness here (for
>>> lack of a better term) and somehow, right or wrong, it does seem to be
>>> a good deal more inappropriate (at least to me) to grab a blind kid's
>>> food than it does to sneak it from a sighted kid when he or she is not
>>> looking.
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 4, 2009, at 3:30 PM, Susan Harper wrote:
>>>
>>>> It happened at school. The school should be responsible for talking
>>>> with
>>>> her and then the students involved should tell her what they did and
>>>> apologize, if and only if you think your daughter is mature enough
>>>> to deal
>>>> with this. You may want to be the one to prep your daughter ahead
>>>> of time
>>>> and be with her at school as a support. School needs to be
>>>> responsible for
>>>> school. I don't know the age of your daughter, so this is my best
>>>> guess
>>>> from the gut advice. Let us know how it goes.
>>>> Blessings
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Kieszak, Stephanie (CDC/CCEHIP/ NCEH)
>>>> <
>>>> sek7 at cdc.gov> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I received this e-mail from my daughter's teacher this morning and
>>>>> don't
>>>>> really know how to respond. Any suggestions? My gut reaction is that
>>>>> telling her now doesn't really serve a purpose. Kendra is in first
>>>>> grade.
>>>>> Thank you.
>>>>> Stephanie
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> Ms. Kieszak,
>>>>>
>>>>> Upon my return to school this week, I was informed that on Monday
>>>>> (11/2),
>>>>> two students from our class took some of Kendra's food during lunch
>>>>> without her knowing. The two students received consequences for their
>>>>> behavior on the day of the incident and further consequences when I
>>>>> returned. Mrs. XX, our Assistant Principal, also spoke with them. I
>>>>> wanted to let you know about the situation and to ask for your
>>>>> advice.
>>>>>
>>>>> Do you think we should tell Kendra what happened? If so, what do you
>>>>> think
>>>>> is a good approach to letting her know and by whom (i.e. one of us
>>>>> here
>>>>> at
>>>>> school or at home)?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>> Mrs. YY
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>
>>
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