[nabs-l] Training: As needed, or all at once?

[T. Joseph Carter]

Ashley,

No attack from me.  Disagreement, sure.  The best time to get 
training is before you enter the workforce.  Once you have a job, you 
are going to have financial responsibilities and training will get in 
the way.  If you get them while you're young, your job prospects are 
going to be better.

I use the skills I learned every day.  Oh I don't work in a shop, but 
I use what I learned about safety in the shop everywhere else.  I 
don't read Braille daily and my speed has dropped down to a paltry 40 
words per minute, but I know I can have it back any time I need it.

I use the skills I learned for working with screen readers to reduce 
my dependency on the mouse.  I work much faster because of it.

I can tell you what the traffic patterns are two blocks away through 
my open window.  I never used to pay attention to the fact that there 
were traffic patterns until I got to an intersection.  (Thank you 
Eric Woods!)

Every day the little things that I now can do things without burying 
my nose against them, all because of the skills I got in Colorado.  
Since you're talking about people with lots of stable vision, do you 
have any idea what such a person looks like doing visual tasks?  
Record yourself on video sometime and watch it.  It's not flattering, 
and it will cause you to want to not look like that.

In a perfect world, I'd agree with you.  Get what you need when you 
need it, and do what works.  But it's not a perfect world.  We have 
responsibilities and others' perceptions to deal with.  That changes 
things a bit, to my mind.

Joseph


On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 06:03:47PM -0400, Ashley  Bramlett wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
> This is my opinion and  I will be in the minority and hope not to be  
> attacked.  If your vision is stable and you
> can function well with print and other visual skills, then don't do 
> training now.  Yes its a lot of time  and effort on your part to learn 
> skills you'll likely never need.
>
> Some visually impaired people I know never learn braille and they do 
> well; they are successful at work.
>
> NFB centers imerse you in nonvisual skills and you are blindfolded.  Does 
> your state offer a state rehab center?  Often state centers allow you to 
> use low vision techniques and use nonvisual ones as needed.  What state 
> do you live in?  You may consider a state center where you can choose 
> what you need rather than a nfb center first.
> So I think if your vision is stable there is no need to go for blindness  
> training now.  I commend your decission to learn to use a cane. Many high 
> partials like yourself never try it.  Learning and using a cane will not  
> only help you travel better but it will identify your visual impairment 
> and eliminate the need to explain sometimes.  I have usable vision 
> although not as much as you.  We both have tunnel vision.  So I've always 
> used visual and nonvisual techniques to function.
>
> Ashley
>
>
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