[blindkid] was Signs NOW Different

Carrie Gilmer carrie.gilmer at gmail.com
Wed Feb 27 05:36:22 UTC 2013


Just a FYI  intro for those who do not know me: I have raised a blind/low vision child, no other disability who is now 22; I have "raised" a blind student from Ukraine who lived with us for a year when he was 16. For 9 years I worked professionally under the supervision of a blind boss (4 different people)....and am so now. four five years I worked at an adjustment to blindness training center and over that time intimately observed a few hundred different people adjust to blindness, over 50% my 260 facebook friends are blind people, they are not mere acquaintances. they are colleagues and very close friends I have eaten, worked, camped, cried, laughed, drank, placed my life in their hands with....there are some dozen or more blind children i knew from camp who as teens or now in college "requested me"...additionally there are a good hundred more I know also very well and we stay in contact other ways than via FB...i was highly active in the NFB for 12 years...and so have met hundreds more, and have read or communicated via email with hundreds more but have not met...and then there are the hundreds of sighted parents of, sighted spouses of, grandparents...professionals in the filed of blindness and vocational rehab, even not a few lawyers...etc ad infinitum it seems...so....i think i can say with qualification:

People who are only blind ARE different in ONE respect from sighted people. Their eyeballs either barely work, do not work at all, or do not exist for the purpose of gathering information visually. 

I recall once at the adjustment center over hearing a heated argument. It was a student verses the first director I worked for. I heard this, "I am NOT NORMAL!!!!!!".....oh but dearheart you are a normal person. And it is also not abnormal to have a certain part of the population always accessing information non-visually....

Minus the eyeball and via non-visual accumulation of knowledge thing, any "special difference" i have experienced or observed EVER had to do with lack of experience overall, overprotection, learned fear, culture, family influence, personality genetics, age, if newly blind or not...and it meant The SAME DIFFERENCES as can be found in sighted human beings...and the same human needs and cross cuts of abilities and lack of talent.  I have heard for myself some TERRIBLE singing from blind people. 

There is no "push" for some generic sameness. There is push for recognition of specific same human capability and expectation and normal experience and fear and trust....NORMAL...as if eyeballs are out of the equation except for access. And guess what?! Blind people who do not even have any eyeballs...SEE...through their other senses straight to their brains.

 Guess what, in the entire scheme and scope eyeballs are nice but they do not matter, they are completely unnecessary to live and move about and learn and conquer and love and work and play safely, normally, happily, independently, interdependently and well.

One of the most damaging ideas to a person's psych I have ever observed...and many I have observed over the course of a decade...meaning from birth to...or age 5 to...or 12 to....or newly blind at 22 to...now...is the idea that "i am special BECAUSE I am blind." With special NOT being an appropriate pride thing...but a everything I am revolves around my blindness thing. Children get raised and taught with that idea. And I can tell you it is very painful to overcome. And truly tragically sometimes not possible,That idea has ruined real lives and people's chances at being employable and in normal social relationships. Are YOU just...I mean just your eyeballs? neither are they. And good luck finding sighted people who think you are utterly normal....i.e the same. Get dressed and they think you are an inspiration. come to work and you are very curious indeed. cross a street and We worry. 

carrie


Sent from my iPad

On Feb 26, 2013, at 9:59 PM, "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com> wrote:

> What you say is true, but what is sometimes being said is that being different is being inferior.  ASince we can't see cars, we are clearly less safe and less 
> able to detect them in a timely manner.  Some of the techniques we use may well be inferior to what vision offers, but in some cases it doesn't matter and 
> in other cases they are not inferior.  I don't think the issue here is making all kids the same.  Rather it is not assuming that every difference matters, or as 
> you said, makes us inferior.  It is frustrating when some of the same observations result in opposing opinions.  <smile>
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Steve Jacobson
> 
> On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 02:36:22 +0000, empwrn at bellsouth.net wrote:
> 
>> Hello everyone,
> 
>> I would like to thank everyone who has commented for sharing your thoughts on the subject. I appreciate the different viewpoints expressed here.
> 
>> One thing has stuck out for me in the discussion. It seems that there is a very big push for sameness, as in children who are blind are the same as
> children who are not. I most respectfully declare that they are not. Children who are blind are blind. They are different than children who are sighted. 
> Different is just different. Different is not better. Different is not inferior. Different is just different. Individual children (whether sighted or blind) are different 
> from one another. Some left handed children need left handed scissors. Some left handed children do just fine with right handed scissors. It is more 
> important to me that the individual needs of my individual child are met rather than trying to fit him into a box of sameness with everyone else. 
> 
>> I believe that providing support that a child needs bolsters confidence and self-esteem much more than an attempt to insist that all children are the same.
> 
>> Marie (mother of Jack who is very different from other children in many ways other than his visual impairment and is very aware of it and still very
> confident and happy with himself)
>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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