[nabs-l] Research Paper Help

Tue Jun 23 01:44:36 UTC 2009

Hi Ginnie and all,

	I’d like to address two aspects of this question. The first is
offering solutions that Ginnie and other students can use to
successfully and efficiently learn the way around campus. The second
is addressing who is responsible for providing blindness-related
assistance, including help finding classrooms.

	To answer the first question, in my experience there really isn’t
much an O&M instructor can teach you about campus that can’t be taught
by any individual who has a reasonable knowledge of the campus layout
and knows which buildings you  will be using. If someone is available
to offer help as a volunteer, great. If not, then why not put up a
flyer on campus offering to pay someone $15 for two hours of
assistance (or two one-hour meetings; maybe the first meeting they can
show you the route(s) and the second meeting you can practice)? This
person will essentially be acting as a reader—providing information
from the campus map or from building signs which you can then use to
construct a mental map of the campus, and know how to find the
buildings in the future. Problem solved—for only $15. Or, why not ask
a friend or acquaintance for a couple hours of their time and offer to
cook them dinner or buy them lunch as a  reciprocation? Again, problem
solved—without having to wait on bureaucratic VR officials to fit you
into their packed schedule. And it gives you the ability to manage the
reader on your own. Of course, this plan assumes that you have the
basic cane/orientation skills needed to remember the routes you  learn
and be able to follow them in the future.

	Remember also that there’s a learning curve for everyone, blind or
sighted, to learn a new campus. You won’t know the routes perfectly
after one or two lessons. But you should have enough knowledge to get
within a good distance of where you want to be, and then be able to
explore on your own or ask questions in order to clarify the route,
and find landmarks that work best for you.

	Now, to the second, more philosophical question. I may be in the
minority here, but I don’t think it is a school’s responsibility to
provide O&M. It technically isn’t even a school’s legal obligation to
provide materials in accessible formats; many schools don’t have DSS
offices or other formal means of producing accessible materials at
all. What schools are obligated to do is to merely allow us to use
reasonable accommodations, even if we have to come up with the
accommodations ourselves. If a university can’t provide accessible
testing materials or pay readers for us, they have to give us
permission to use our own readers, laptops, etc. to take tests.
Denying us this right would be violating the ADA, but the school
doesn’t have to go the extra mile and make the exam materials
accessible. Similarly, even if the school doesn’t provide O&M, we
still have other, often better, ways of learning our way around.

	If a school wants to provide formal O&M services as a courtesy, I
have no problem with that. But I think it’s ultimately the student’s
responsibility to figure out how to access class materials, and also
how to get to and from class. As has been mentioned, O&M is rarely, if
ever, provided on the job. And for us as blind students, the  best way
(often the only way) for us to feel confident and really develop our
skills is through practice and problem-solving.

	I think that also, in general, we need to be sure to distinguish
between true inaccessibility and mere inconvenience. Take the example
of Braille signs in buildings. In the CU psychology building where I
go to class and work, the Braille signage is sparse and inconsistent.
Many of my professors’ offices, the business office and some
classrooms don’t have Braille. On my first day, I had to spend some
time asking people where rooms were instead of just reading the signs.
Did I face more inconvenience finding my advisor’s office and
distinguishing between the men’s and women’s bathrooms than other
first-year students? Certainly. But was I unable to visit my advisor’s
office or use the bathrooms in the building? Certainly not. I could
file a complaint and insist that the Braille signage gets updated, and
technically I’d be justified in doing that. But frankly, doing so
takes much time and effort, which I’d rather be spending on my classes
and job. Contrast that with buildings that lack wheelchair ramps,
which makes it very hard or impossible for wheelchair users to get
into the building. These  buildings are truly inaccessible to
wheelchair users, whereas a lack of Braille signs is merely
inconvenient. (Incidentally, the National Center for the Blind  has
little, if any, Braille signage in its headquarters building. When I
interned there, guess how I found my colleagues’ offices? The
old-fashioned way, by asking questions and forming a mental map. And
that experience helped me get comfortable enough with those techniques
to be able to do it again in the psych building!)

	I think that many of us, especially those of us who grew up blind,
are conditioned by society to focus a lot on our “special  needs” and
we sometimes lose track of finding the best solution to get the job
done. After all, we have IEP’s all through school, and then after high
school we get entered into the “transition” system, followed by voc
rehab. It’s easy to assume that the only solution to a  given problem
lies in the blindness system—through VR or DSS, for instance. I have
certainly been guilty of that kind of thinking. For instance, until
recently I thought that the only way for me to learn my campus was
through months of lessons with trained O&M specialists, and that the
only way for me to take an exam in college was through DSS. Sometimes,
as in Ginnie’s situation, the blindness system isn’t an option. It is
in times like these when we need to take a step back and think about
creative solutions—like asking a friend to orient us to campus, for
instance. There is a danger of relying only on the blindness system
and then, if the system fails us, feeling like we have no choice but
to either fight the system tooth and nail or give up and drop out of
school. It may seem like an exaggeration, but I’ve definitely seen
students respond in both ways. One of the things I think NABS does
best is to help each other find ways to “think outside the box”, so to
speak, and solve problems on our own, without being forced to depend
on an often unpredictable blindness system. It is extremely liberating
to know that, while the blindness system is there and can help us
sometimes, we still have ways to get the job done with or without
them.

Respectfully,
Arielle

On 6/21/09, Serena <serenacucco at verizon.net> wrote:
> I only meant that they legally don't have to provide cane lessons, not that
> they morally shouldn't do it.  Plus, the disability office doesn't
> necessarily know anything about blindness before the first blind student
> comes on campus, so might not be the best option.  Asking the office for
> some responsible students to orient the blind students could be helpful.
>
> Serena
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <sarah.jevnikar at utoronto.ca>
> To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 12:38 AM
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Research Paper Help
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> I would respectfully disagree. I think it's 100% the school's
>> responsibility to orient the student to campus. If the student wishes  to
>> learn the surrounding city/town they should find their own way of  doing
>> it, but how can a office for students with disabilities properly  assist
>> their students academically if the students don't know the way  to class?
>>
>>
>> Quoting Serena <serenacucco at verizon.net>:
>>
>>> I don't think the college has a legal responsibility to provide cane
>>> lessons to blind students and, yes, it's the student's responsibility
>>> to orient to the campus.  Having said that, this doesn't mean that
>>> nobody should be available to help students orient.  It doesn't have to
>>> be the disability services office.  When I was in college, I simply
>>> asked friends I really trusted to walk with me around campus to orient
>>> me.  I also sometimes used my mom.  If you don't think your friends are
>>> right for the job, so to speak, readers are often good options.
>>>
>>> Serena
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "V Nork" <ginisd at sbcglobal.net>
>>> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
>>> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 4:47 AM
>>> Subject: [nabs-l] Research Paper Help
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi all, Hope any of you can help me with some information for a
>>>> research topic on mobility.  It involves a hypothetical question.
>>>> What would happen to a visually impaired student on your campus if   he
>>>> or she needed help with orientation and mobility but had no   funding
>>>> from government or social agencies?  Let us say in this   example the
>>>> student already had basic white cane skills, but just   needed to have
>>>> someone walk with them until they had a route   planned?  Would the
>>>> college or university offer direct help?  On my  campus, such help is
>>>> seen as the individual responsibility of the   blind student.   It is
>>>> simply sink or swim if one does not have   help or money to pay for
>>>> it.It was suggested to me that someone who  needed help should post a
>>>> flyer on college bulletin boards.  It   just seems to me that is
>>>> reasonable to think that some member of   the college or university
>>>> could be designated to offer some   assistance as a kind of mobility
>>>> aideto do an initial run through   so a student could get to
>>>> classes each semester.  I have tried to lobby for this in a low key
>>>> way, but so far my suggestions have fallen on unreceptive ears.     My
>>>> request for tactile maps has also been seemingly ignored.  Is   this
>>>> similar or not to the situation on your campus?  Thanks for   any
>>>> thoughts, Ginnie
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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