[Home-on-the-range] discussion about SDL

[Cindy Ray]

I was able to copy and paste some of this article, but then I lost the ability, so I guess I won't be able to do so. The premise is that if you have the opportunity to solve real problems, your problem solving skills are enhanced. So, for instance, if you are on a travel route, the instructor will teach you how the route works. But then you will do it on your own. As you have done it, you may make mistakes and get lost. You have to figure out what went wrong. Then you have the opportunity to discuss what went wrong. In doing this, you gradually learn to solve the problems. Sometimes, when we were at the Commission for the Blind, our routes included just doing every day things like going shopping. We might be sent for groceries or to purchase a card. We would be told how to go there; then we went. That is how we are always going to have to live. We are going to have someone showing us exactly how to get somewhere. If we resolve the issues that come up in such a travel rome, this will give us confidence to try other things. Then we will begin to think through what went wrong.

One day I was trying to find one of my dogs. I have to confess that I didn't have the dog or a cane with me, but I got disoriented. My house is on a corner. I shuffled out to a sidewalk and started walking, and using my reasoning, I made a left turn. Nothing seemed quite right, and there isn't a lot of traffic. I then ended up in a drive that included a fenced yard with barking dogs in there. I finally figured out how to get out of that situation. Finally, we had to find me help to get me oriented again, but after I was oriented again, I was able to think about what I had done. My very first move was a mistake. If I had turned right instead of left, I would have ended up at my corner and probably found the bushes that are by my property. I was on the other side of the corner. I have gradually been able to puzzle out the situation, which I wouldn't have been able to do without the structured discovery method. I believe using this method gives you the opportunity to solve problems and learn things at your own pace. Sometimes if someone sends out a load of instructions to your brain, it gets overwhelmed and shuts down. Let me correct this. That is what happens to mine. I can gradually learn the thing I am bring to learn. Making mistakes makes it possible for me to reason out what went wrong, and I will know better how to fix it the next time. I think that carries over into other areas of life as well. If one learns how to solve problems that come up, then one is more able to solve them in the real world. I think they should do more of this at the training schools when one gets a dog. The time spent there is short, and that may be one reason they don't, but it seems one would maybe go home with some less fears about the dog. There is one school that does drop offs for the person with the new dog. This might be good, although if one's original mobility instruction was done with the Structured Discovery method, probably it isn't necessary. When you go home, as you and your dog adjust to a new environment for the dog and a new relationship for both of you, your already trained ability to problem solve will kick in and you should progress nicely.

I used this method to learn a Braille software piece I was using at the Iowa Dept. for the Blind. I won't say that I think part of it was that the person who was to train me didn't want to take the time and maybe didn't know how. I was annoyed by this at first, but then I discovered that if I ran into a problem and couldn't find how to fix it, I could call and ask for more information. When I got that information, I could fix it. Same was true with this Mac. I did take a course in using it, but much of what I do with it now, I have learned by adding to the information I have about the Mac and about other computers, and then sometimes collecting more information. 

Cindy