[nabs-l] Defining Excessively Helpful People and Interactions

Sat Aug 28 02:00:45 UTC 2010

I agree with the previous statements.  I think it depends on the
simulation.  Do the simulation once, and you instill fear in the
sighted people who now believe that it is so difficult to be blind,
but give them training and techniques as part of the simulation over
an exptended period of time, and they learn that being blind isn't as
scary as they thought.

Last year someone sat down next to me for lunch and told me that she
had just gone through a blindness simulation.  I can't remember what
her exact words were, but she was like "I had to be blindfolded, and I
just couldn't do it.  I was so afraid I would crash into things."  She
proceeded to ask me how I do things like get around campus confidently
and whatnot.  I told her everything she wanted to know and explained
to her that being blind really isn't that scary because we learn
techniques to deal with everything from walking around to eating.  I
didn't mind explaining this, but I definitely thought it strange that
they didn't cover that as part of the blindness simulation.  The camp
simulation above sounds really cool and worth while, but some of these
one-time simulations are just reinforcing the idea that we as blind
people have such hard lives and can't do anything independently.

On 8/27/10, Andi <adrianne.dempsey at gmail.com> wrote:
> For many years I worked at a summer camp for the blind.  We had both blind
> and sighted staff, and that varry experience was part of the training for
> the sighted staf.  We did several activities in witch the sighted staff
> members had to be blindfolded.  The first one to get them comfortable was
> traveling sighted guide with a blind person as the guide.  The blindfolded
> staff also had to travel a rout with a cane, but no guide.  They then hade
> to get through a lunch line with their tray and eat blind folded.  It was
> always interesting to hear the opinians of those who had to be blind folded.
> Most felt helpless at first and moved very slowly for feer of running in to
> something or tripping.  But we tought them to look for different texters and
> terains with their feet and canes, and most prefered a cane to a flashlight
> when travling at night.  Eating was funny as many of them made messes or
> barely ate because they couldn't find their food.  Once we taught them
> techniques they realized it wasn't as hard as they thought it was.  Most of
> the people who traind in this manner came to have grate respect for the
> blind, and realize blind people can do most if not all that a sighted person
> can do.  They didn't coddle our blind campers and instead encouraged them to
> be as independent as possible.  There is of course acceptions to every rool
> and a fiew became obnoctiously over helpful as all they got from the
> expirience was that it was hard for them so it must be hard for us.  That
> however is a risk you take with that training. Most liked the expirience and
> wanted to learn more throughout the summer, and treeted us like human
> beeings. The fiew who still over dramatized the blind are stupid and
> incapable of learning much or just didn't want to learn and didn't pay
> attention.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Arielle Silverman" <nabs.president at gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 7:21 PM
> To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: <jason.gwinn at colorado.edu>
> Subject: [nabs-l] Defining Excessively Helpful People and Interactions
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> So this isn't directly related to NABS, but I wanted to ask you for
>> some brainstorming help and start a discussion which I think we will
>> all find fun and personally relevant:
>>
>> As you may know, I'm working on my Ph.D. in social psychology. One of
>> my co-grad students and I are designing an experiment to investigate
>> the effects of blindness simulations (i.e. activities where people
>> blindfold themselves and stumble around a room for a few minutes, eat
>> a meal, etc.) on sighted people's attitudes and actions toward blind
>> people. More generally, we're interested in finding out how sighted
>> people try to understand the perspective of being blind and how those
>> attempts affect their beliefs about blindness. Based on
>> perspective-taking theory and past research (as well as my personal
>> experience with blindness simulation exercises), we are predicting
>> that when people do blindness simulations, they may like us more and
>> express more sympathy and desire to help the blind, but that they will
>> also think of the blind as less competent or capable, since they just
>> went through the frightening and disconcerting experience of "being
>> blind" and might be inclined to think that this is how real blind
>> people feel and act.
>>
>> We have some ways of measuring people's attitudes toward the blind,
>> but we'd also like to set up a real interaction with a real blind
>> person and assess how sighted people treat a real person, and if
>> people act differently toward a real blind person when they have
>> undergone a blindness simulation. We think that people who do the
>> simulation might tend to be more excessively or obnoxiously helpful,
>> or less respectful, toward a blind person. What we're trying to figure
>> out is how to measure this "over-helpfulness" in a way that shows that
>> it's clearly undesirable. For example, we can't just keep track of how
>> many people try to help the blind person and how many people don't,
>> since people might argue that helping the blind is a good thing and
>> that maybe these simulations are actually a good idea.
>>
>> So my question for you guys is, in your experience, what distinguishes
>> people who are appropriately helpful from people who are obnoxiously
>> so? Can you think of any good ways we can quantify these kinds of
>> undesirable interactions, which I know we've all had at times with
>> members of the public?
>>
>> Thanks in advance for your help.
>>
>> Arielle
>>
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-- 
Julie McG
 Lindbergh High School class of 2009, participating member in Opera
Theater's Artist in Training Program, and proud graduate of Guiding
Eyes for the Blind

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life."
John 3:16