[Blindmath] Question about having an assistant in the classroom for stem subjects

Thu Nov 12 05:07:27 UTC 2015

For example, in my linear algebra class, we would often have complex 
matrices like

1 2 5 4
4 5 0 0
5 1 0 0
4 0 0 0
and then the professor would say something like "now we will find the 
determinant of this by blablabla" and show a formula without verbalizing 
it. In that case, he had quite an accent, and a verry soft voice, which 
meant hearing him correctly even in the front row was sometimes a bit tough.
In many stem courses, they often would have complex rules on the board, 
such as notation that wasn't necessarily easy for an instructor to 
speak. For these kinds of classes, and for my coding classes, where lots 
of code may be shown, but not articulated perfectly syntactically 
correct, having the notetaker is essential to ensure the proper visual 
information is written down. It shouldn't make you feel lazy or like you 
are a lesser person because you aren't taking all the notes, some of 
these subjects just aren't being taught in perfectly universally 
designed ways, and it's not going to change just because there is a 
blind person in class, since instructors often aren't used to teaching 
in this style. I agree. For some classes I have been in, my instructors 
are great at adapting, but in many subjects, especially upper division 
ones, the instructor unintentionally may introduce ambiguity into the 
math or code. For example, in some random math class, my professor often 
may say "x alpha plus phi of x plus 1 times the quantity x minus mu" 
when she meant "x superscript alpha baseline plus ..." and not getting 
those things down properly results in me thinking I have a subscript 
when I should be raising something to a power. In some of my classes the 
notetaker isn't an assistant, but just a random student who volunteered 
to take notes, (the university compensates them usually in some way I 
think). One of my friends who has been doing notetaking for a while for 
coding classes I am in just places them into a google doc. She basically 
gives me her copy of notes. In some of the classes like data structures, 
is wasn't all that necessary, but in algorithms, many of the algorithms 
had long proofs that had value in understanding. In short, she found it 
useful to still give the notes to me because it helped her study for the 
test by writing the notes again. If you don't find it necessary to have 
an assistant, I would encourage you to let your disability services 
office know, but I wouldn't close that door completely, because you may 
very well need help in a complex course like linear algebra or 
differential equations in the future, which is a perfectly reasonable 
thing to request.
I hope this helps,.

On 11/11/2015 3:21 PM, Sabra Ewing via Blindmath wrote:
> I am having trouble understanding the concept of using an assistant in the classroom for lecture style stem subjects as it relates to blindness. It is getting to the point where it is becoming a problem in my interactions with people who believe that blind people should have assistance for these subjects. I understand that if you are paralyzed, you would use an assistant in lecture to take notes for you because you can't write with a pencil and maybe you can't use an alternative device to take notes on a computer. I understand that if you are deaf, you would use an assistant to translate everything from English to sign language, you could have a condition that would make you run around for no reason or not be able to stay on task in an assistant would help with that. However, none of those apply to me. Let's say A blind student is in a lecture. It could be anything like math, science, or programming. If that person had an assistant in the classroom, what with the assistant do? If the assistant is supposed to be taking notes, why can the student not take their own notes and why has an assistant been chosen instead of removing excess ability barriers? I am just really trying to understand this, and I'm not going to go into details, but I am in a situation where I need a rational explanation for why I did not have an assistant in one of my stem classes. After fourth grade, I never really had an assistant in the classroom. If you are saying to just think about why I had an assistant in the fourth grade and before, I tried that, but I can't remember why. In the future if I am offered an assistant for class, should I just take it even if I don't know why so the professor can't blame any problems that occur in the class on the lack of an assistant? It would seem wrong to have an assistant just for that though. I had an assistant and my ceramics class who helped me find things in the room and know how to use the tools and glaze and keep track of my pieces, but I did not do any of those activities in a stem class. I have really tried to think very hard about it even though it doesn't seem like it, but I just get more confused.
>
> Sabra Ewing
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