[Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
Graves, Diane
dgraves at icrc.IN.gov
Fri Jun 12 12:51:32 UTC 2009
David,
I was truly impressed by your post. I commend you for having taken the
initiative to learn Braille at age 49. Most middle aged adults who lose
their vision, very sadly, don't opt to learn Braille.
You know, when I was a child growing up in Indiana in the 70s, I was not
very happy at the school for the blind, and always had these fantasies
about how much better my life would be if I could go to a public school
like "normal" kids. I too, used to tell these grandiose stories about
how I was going to have an operation which would restore my vision, and
how I really had some vision, which was untrue. This was a lot more
preposterous and difficult for me to pretend, since I was, and am
totally blind due to retinoblastoma.
However, having said all that, one thing that I gained from the school
that I have always taken for granted, and have learned that I should be
eternally grateful for is the gift of literacy. I use Braille every
single day of my life, and cannot imagine trying to muddle through
without it. How independent can you be if you can't take notes, can't
label things, can't even participate in a card game.? There just are
not words to express what a tremendous injustice is being done to
today's blind children. It's horrible!
I will say though, that even at ISB, I saw injustice being done. I saw
peers with very low vision being forced to read print because they had
the vision, when Braille would have been so much less frustrating. I
was in class with a boy who would get frustrated and throw these huge
temper tantrums because he couldn't read his own writing, and because it
took him so much longer. I remember we would be taking a spelling test
or something, and the teacher would be ready to move on and he would
always scream, "I'm not ready yet!!!
Finally when we were in about the 5th grade, they decided to teach him
Braille. I don't know if his parents advocated it or what, but they
finally got with the program and taught him Braille. The transition
was amazing. I mean, once he mastered the Braille, the temper
tantrums just stopped.
I knew others though who weren't as lucky. It was really kind of sad
that, even at the school for the blind, it seemed like vision was the be
all and end all and was highly was superior. It seemed like the more
vision you had, the more responsibility or trust you were given, and if
you had any vision at all, by George you were expected to use it. What
the totally blind gained in literacy, we often sacrificed in self
esteem. Sadly, though, maturity has taught me that this would likely
have been even worse in public school.
Anyway, I truly thank God that I did not have to fight to be literate.
Literacy is such an integral part of life. Again, I think it is
wonderful that you took it upon yourself to learn in middle age. Good
for you!
Diane Graves
Civil Rights Specialist
Indiana Civil Rights Commission
Alternative Dispute Resolutions Unit
317-232-2647
"IT is service that measures success."
George Washington Carver
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-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of David Evans
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 5:05 PM
To: Blind Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
Dear All,
There are some facts that need to be stressed here.
Back before ww-2, most blind children were sent to a residential school,
where they were educated and taught all of the skills of blindness
including
some kind of trade skills.
Regardless of the amount of vision they had, they were taught Braille as
well as print , if they had any vision at all and something like 84% of
all
blind students were literate in Braille, print or both.
After WW-2, children were mainstreamed into the Public schools, mostly
because some people felt that they would have better social skills and
because more parents wanted to keep their children closer to home
instead of
sending them off to a remote school some where.
There are always some blind children who have the need to attend a
residential school instead of getting what they can from the Public
school
system, especially Deaf-Blind and those with additional disabilities as
examples.
Since the advent of mainstreaming into the Public schools, literacy in
general and Braille literacy specifically have declined tremendously.
Today
Braille literacy is only 8 to 9% and general literacy is not as high as
it
was, even with the increase in the numbers of blind children alive
today.
Along with mainstreaming, into the Public schools, real education
declined
sharply and so has employment for the Blind. Employment has always been
difficult at best for the Blind, but the lack of teachers who could
teach
Braille and understood how to work with blind students has been
systematically eliminated and discouraged in the Public schools and in
many
of the rehab agencies because the people in charge held low expectations
of
the blind and had the attitude," they are blind and can't do anything
anyway
so why bother teaching them."
Public school districts generally lump all of their "special needs"
students
together with an overworked and underserved teacher who is given poor or
no
resources to provide the specialized training that is needed for their
students who have a wide variety of disabilities and the ones that act
up
and are the most disrupted usually get most of their attention.
The teaching of Braille has been discouraged by every fantasy
imaginable.
I was fed the same old lines myself, for years, that Braille was "old
fashion," "bulky and hard to learn and that all the new technologies
were
going to replace it. I bought into this idea until I was exposed to the
outstanding examples I found in the NFB. It changed my belief and
attitudes
and at the age of 49, I taught myself Braille with the help of the
Hadley
School for the Blind. I learned and was using Grade One Braille for all
my
personal written communication in just 3 weeks and learned how to use a
slate and stylist, which I carry everywhere with me now. "
I make good use of technology, but I have also learned that as long as
the
sighted still use paper and pen to write things down and carry them
with
them; there will be a place for Braille in the hands of the Blind.
It is a well known axiom among the Blind that 96% of all working Blind
People know and use Braille in their work and their lives.
Something else that the residential schools did was they taught
employable
skills to the Blind, i,e, chair caning, piano tuning, sewing,
weaving,and
other such manual skills that the Blind could always sell as personal
services.
The Blind of China invented the first trade unions back 2,000 years
before
the birth of Christ to set prices, standards and to regulate Blind
trades
that included basket weaving, pottery, massage and even prostitution,
which
were considered common Blind trades back then.
The parents of Blind children have had to fight alone with the Public
schools systems to get them to provide the education and help that their
children need and have to keep fighting the entire time their child is
in
school for what the Law says is their Right to a Free and Equal
Education
that evidence shows they are not getting in Public school.
They use excuses such as "well, the child has too much vision to be
taught
Braille, inspire of the fact that maybe the child has RP and will lose
their
ability to read or even see print as a young adult, as happened to me.
As a former resident of Roseburg Oregon, now living in Florida, I can
say
that the legislature of the State of Oregon does not care about the
lives of
Blind children and likely has political motives behind their vote to
close
the Oregon School for the Blind.
They have wanted that land for some time and de-funding the school is
the
way they intend to kill it and steal the land and the birth right of all
Blind children in their State. This whole thing Bothers me, the whole
situation stinks and I hope the smell comes back to haunt each and every
one
of these legislators who voted to close this school.
Shame on them and a pox on their House for doing this unnecessary and
despicable act of murdering the School for the Blind of Oregon.
David Evans, NFBF
Nuclear/Aerospace Materials Engineer
Builder of the Lunar Rovers and the IF-117 Stealth Fighter
Legally blind since age 16 due to RP.
Without a good education they doom blind children to a life of idealness
and
little potential.
Lucky for me, I got a good education and have done many things people
thought impossible.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve P. Deeley" <stevep.deeley at insightbb.com>
To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
> You are maintaining a complete campus for 31 students. There is
> something
> known as cost efficiency. I believe the days for schools for the
blind
> are
> just about over. In the 1960's, the Kentucky School for the Blind had
a
> census of 150 or more. Now, there are very few blind students on the
> campus. In the day, KSB had one of the most respected wrestling teams
in
> the state of Kentucky. Those days seem to be gone, sadly.
>
> Steve
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "T. Joseph Carter" <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
> To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:39 AM
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
>
>
>> Full time students? 31.
>>
>> Served each year in some capacity? About 400.
>>
>> Twenty years ago? I don't know, it was a lot more-but Oregon has
>> changed its laws in the interim to forbid placement at the school
>> unless there is no other placement possible.
>>
>> The school is being closed for students that are only allowed to be
>> there because there is no other placement possible.
>>
>> The first argument to close the school was that the buildings needed
>> substantial maintenance, including seismic upgrades. We countered
>> this by pointing out that funding for this maintenance has been
>> secured time and again, but the Oregon legislature has consistently
>> redirected it over the past 20 years to efforts to close or relocate
>> the school, rather than maintain it. Consistently, as in every
>> single time. They dropped that argument.
>>
>> The next argument was that enrollment was down and the cost per
>> student was extremely high. They argued that Least Restrictive
>> Environment forbade placement at the school. It would save money,
>> too! We gave the correct definition of LRE and pointed out that
>> counting costs for 400 and dividing them by 31 is outright deception.
>> We also pointed out how much closing the school would cost elsewhere.
>> They mostly dropped that argument.
>>
>> The following argument was an empassioned plea to save these poor
>> children from a life of seclusion. Those poor children came and told
>> the legislature that they were not secluded, that they had no other
>> chance at the same education anywhere else in Oregon, and that they
>> needed this school. Another argument down.
>>
>> Finally, the legislature abandoned any pretense of arguing that this
>> was "for the sake of the children" because we'd proven it was not.
>> They stopped pretending that it would save money, because it would
>> not.
>>
>> The effort to close the school was put forward by Oregon Democrats,
>> and they maintain a strong majority in the Oregon legislature. So
>> they crammed it through with little public comment, offering
>> minimally required time for an amendment to be published before it
>> was voted on (without public comment, of course), and then they
>> pulled every shenanigan they could to try and escape public notice,
>> since the public almost unanimously opposed this bill.
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 07:18:26AM -0400, Steve P. Deeley wrote:
>>> How many blind children were currently enrolled in the school in
2008?
>>> How many blind students did the school have 20 years ago?
>>> Steve
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
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