[nabs-l] introducing Myself

Sat Jun 30 16:19:53 UTC 2012

Hello Rylie,
My mom got into VI work because I'm blind and she showed a little interest 
in doing VI work, so my TVI at the time asked my mom to be her assistant so 
my mom agreed, then my TVI became too sick to continue, so my mom had to 
take over totally. She then got trained over like 2 summers while working 
in-between and was up and at them with a 45 student load throughout a 150 
mile radius. She'd go to one town, teach the student, spend the night at a 
hotel, teach more students the next day then come back home.
When we moved to CA she was put in a district about an hour from where we 
were, so for four years she had to drive one hour there and one hour back 
which brought her work days to about 14 hours. She was soon put in charge 
of the VI program down in her district and now she's going more into 
evaluation work and administration work. She also has to do a lot of 
testifying in court.
Her biggest job is coming up with compromises between people, keeping the 
student's needs top priority while the school district and the parents need 
things to please them as well. She has a huge advantage because if she has a 
question about something she can call me and I don't just say "Pack mate" or 
"Braille", me being a person active in the technology world, I can say 
Braille+ or System Access. She has also hired me to teach Jaws and basic 
laptop navigation to some students and if she can't find a textbook she 
usually asks me to convert it from Kindle or see if I can find it on 
Learning Allie or NLS. I believe that being a TVI is basically a job of 
delegation, you find what your aids work best at and get them working on 
that all the time. My mom has to also deal with not so functional Aids 
sometimes and she has to find jobs for them that will fit in their abilities 
while still being the most help in taking my mom's workload off. Being a TVI 
should be a job where someone does an internship before taking over the 
trade, but unfortunately in most cases the demand is just too high and there 
is advanced work for the uninitiated.
I really recommend seeing if one can find an organization like the Vista 
Center in Palo Alto to work at, not only because the support and resources 
in those places is most likely phenomenal, but one will be able to get 
advice from colleagues any time and those colleagues work with the same 
people, so you don't need to worry as much about the breach of confidence 
issue
Being a TVI is not just Braille and O&M, but so much more. A complete 
understanding of all facets of Braille and O&M is essential, but so is 
Living skills, social skills, administration skills, technology skills, 
compromise skills, organization skills, upchuck skills, computer hacking 
skills... (well maybe not the last two, but you get the picture)!
Being a TVI requires someone to have the mental capacity to do everything 
the best and if they can't do something recognize that's a weakness and be 
responsible for finding someone who can help. If someone is not available, 
then the TVI needs to learn the skill or piece of technology from a manual 
well enough to teach it.
In my case my mom realized I learned technology exponentially faster than 
she possibly could, so she just asks me how the progress is coming and wants 
to know the issues I'm having. She has a couple students like that, but 
there are students who need the 2 hours a week of Jaws training.
Another facet of being a TVI is also teaching in a way that is fascinating 
and in gaging for the student. This is more of the issue of being a teacher 
in general, but a teacher can't just lecture and give homework. That is 
proven to be the least effective way possible to teach. I know I resisted 
Braille so hard because I hated that style of learning I never really began 
to like reading Braille until 9th grade. It was because I had one of the 
amazing TVIs read Braille and showed me how pitiful my skills were. So she 
would read one page, then I'd read one page and I'd try to read as smooth as 
she did. Unfortunately she was the teacher who became too sick to continue, 
so it took another 2 years before I found a book that I loved and that 
helped me develop my skills on my own.
When I was going through High school though I asked for Braille music to be 
put on my IEP and the TVI that I had broke the law and never taught me 
Braille Music. Same thing pretty much happened in CA, the Braille teacher 
didn't know music or Nemith, so we fired her after the first year and I'm 
learning everything on my own now.
But most kids and parents don't have the knowledge to fire their Braille 
teacher and learn everything on their own, let alone the self discipline to 
slowly go through every single exercise and grade their performance without 
a teacher. So in many cases the student will not have the skills they need 
in order to succeed... I sure didn't when I graduated high school...
Now one can see why I admire TVIs so much and why they are so important.
I really hope more people feel up to the task of being one of these 
superhuman so we aren't kept left in the dust!
BTW this year my mom received teacher of the year in northern CA as well as 
a plack of honor from her school district. So I'm super proud and hope as 
many people as possible can learn under my mom before she burns out and 
retires...
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs
-----Original Message----- 
From: Rylie Robinson
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 12:21 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] introducing Myself

Wow Thank you!

It's really good to know firsthand (well actually secondhand,) what a
TVI has to go through on a rather day-to-day basis. 65 students sounds
like an incredible amount, but I can completely understand where she's
coming from when it comes to how rewarding that job must be. It's also
reassuring to know that the job is really in demand. Well, reassuring
to me, but not to the thousands of students who aren't getting the
services they need. There may be a shortage, but the problem stems
from the fact that states don't want to spend the money to hire what
they consider as extra service. Even though Braille, assistive tech,
and mobility are some of the most important alternative techniques
blind students must learn, school districts expect students to learn
it within insufficient time amounts (one hour a week for Braille isn't
going to come to much.)

I honestly had no idea about a lot of these issues until I attended
the Louisiana Center for the Blind after graduating high school. I
actually had my life all planned out, but going there and exposing
myself to the issues of Braille illiteracy changed everything around.
You're absolutely right when you say that most teachers really don't
know much when it comes to Braille. In a lot of cases, teachers only
have to take the minimum requirement of Braille education for
themselves and then they're certified to teach it to other students.
No wonder these students aren't learning it; if teachers aren't
comfortable teaching it, they'll simply find other ways to teach
reading and writing that doesn't involve Braille. I commend the NFB on
their Braille literacy campaigns, and the fact that they are really
trying to up the standards for teachers being able to acquire
certification. It's so important to know your subject before teaching
it.

I think it's really interesting that your mom talked a lot about
teaching middle and high school students social skills. I've always
said that if I were to go in to this field, a main part of my job
would be teaching, but there would be a whole other side to it. I
thought a lot about the advocacy aspect and helping to show sighted
parents and educators that blind students have potential, but it's
just as important to lead by example when dealing with the students
themselves. If I am to work with middle and high school students, it
will be my obligation, as a blind teacher, to be a positive role
model, and that the blind truly can be successful. That will
definitely be a challenge, and one that I'll  be willing to meet when
it comes.

Just out of curiosity, how did your mom get involved in TVI work? Is
she sighted or does she also have a visual impairment?

Blessings,
Rylie

P.S. I saw on another post that you are also a scholarship winner.
Congradulations, and I sincerely look forward to meeting you as a
fellow member of the 2012 scholarship class in Dallas.

On 6/29/12, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, I'm a music student studying Opera/voice at CSU East Bay.
>
> Brandon Keith Biggs
> -----Original Message-----
> From: josh gregory
> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 10:11 PM
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] introducing Myself
>
> Awesome post! I assume you're a student yourself?
>
> On 6/28/12, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Oh, that is cool!
>> My mom is a TVI and she contracts out of Vista Center here in CA. I
>> really
>> think those kinds of organizations are the way to go for the school
>> districts, because in my experience, Vista's workers have been eons
>> higher
>> quality than most of the TVIs I've had who were directly from the school.
>> My mom runs the TVI program in a county with like 65 students or some
>> huge
>> number like that and in every place she's worked she's been given inhuman
>> amounts of students. She's a full TVI who was trained at Steven F Austin
>> University and she has never needed to look for TVI work. The supervisor
>> from Vista flew from CA to Washington state just to have lunch with my
>> mom
>> and offer her the job. It's super awesome that you're planning on going
>> into
>>
>> TVI work! It's probably one of the hardest jobs out there, just because
>> of
>> the work load, but it's super fulfilling when you realize how many people
>> you've taught technology to, how many books your students have read, how
>> much your students have learned thanks to your problem solving with the
>> teachers and students as well as how many dreams your students have been
>> able to follow because of the confidence and inspiration you've given
>> them.
>>
>> (I wonder what it's like being the TVI of that girl who read 21 thousand
>> pages? My word!)
>> It might be a good idea to consider getting your masters in education as
>> well. In today's age I believe teachers are best able to cope with the
>> riggers of teaching with that masters. I'm not sure why, but all the
>> totally
>>
>> best teachers I've had either had a masters, or had been teaching some
>> 30+
>> years the same subject.
>> My mom's favorite students are the little kids, 5 month to 9 year olds.
>> They
>>
>> are the students who require the most intense attention because if they
>> are
>>
>> stunted by their parents and deprived of their childhood, not aloud to
>> fall
>>
>> off the monkey bars a couple hundred times, they will be considered
>> developmentally delayed and their real world experience for how ever many
>> years will have been taken away from them. It's been my observation that
>> the
>>
>> middle school and high school students are more difficult relationship
>> wise
>>
>> because often at that point the educational system has ground them into
>> submission, so many times it's very difficult to get the student to
>> learn.
>> The secondary school students also have lots of social questions and
>> problems, wanting a date for the prom, making friends, being scared of
>> being
>>
>> on the dance teem... So lots of what my mom has to do is teach social
>> skills
>>
>> to their students. (What does it look like to be in love? and other
>> oddities)
>>
>> TVI is probably the most involved and problem solving job and I believe
>> it's
>>
>> the most in demand. If one is just a Braille Teacher or VI instructor,
>> they
>>
>> have to be darn good at what they do. For example I only had one Braille
>> teacher who actually knew Braille music, Nemith, Grade 3 and all those
>> other
>>
>> languages and were possibly able to teach them. And I had one VI
>> instructor
>>
>> who actually  knew how to problem solve and was super involved with the
>> public transportation and knew all the city boards. It's crucial for a VI
>> specialist to be up to date on what's going on with all 6 kinds of public
>> transportation in each town and for them to actively be making sure
>> cities
>> remain accessible. When a student has a teacher who loves their subject,
>> it's the difference from being OK to being exceptional. There can't be an
>> exceptional teacher who doesn't find a modicum of pleasure  in what they
>> do.
>>
>> I think teaching is the hardest job and in my experience for every good
>> teacher, there are at least 3 bad ones. If it was that our intelligences
>> didn't mesh or what ever, I've been in classes where the teacher just
>> couldn't communicate with me and in TVI classes, I've known more Braille
>> than my Braille teacher in a few cases :(.
>> I a plod, commend and admire you for wanting to be a TVI and I hope you
>> come
>>
>> to CA and decrease the shortage a little! LOL
>> Sorry for the long email...
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Brandon Keith Biggs
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Rylie Robinson
>> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 8:06 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] introducing Myself
>>
>> hello Brandon,
>>
>> Secondary English Education just means middle school/high school
>> english (Secondary School as opposed to Primary School.) I was going
>> to simply major in English, but if I am to teach blind students
>> (braille specifically,) I figured getting some of the education out of
>> the way would work out better in the long-run. Braille is what I would
>> like to specialize in, but any TVI work could potentially be what I'm
>> looking for. What I teach isn't what I'm particular about, but where.
>> I would really like to work in a public school setting; I believe this
>> is where a lot of the advocacy work would have to be done, and it's
>> one of the best places to lay a foundation of high expectations, both
>> the the blind students and to their sighted parents and educators.
>>
>> It's wonderful to see other blind musicians; I'll definitely have to
>> check out those other mailing lists.
>>
>> Thanks a lot for the welcome, and i look forward to getting to know you
>> better.
>>
>> Blessings,
>> Rylie
>>
>> On 6/28/12, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hello Rilie!
>>> Wow, we need good TVIs! Are you wanting to specialize in one area, or
>>> just
>>> be a full TVI?
>>> Does secondary English education talk about people learning things in
>>> their
>>>
>>> second language? Like if I'm Italian or German going to school in China?
>>> Or
>>>
>>> is it something totally different? I've never heard of that major
>>> before...
>>> Thanks and so nice to hear from another person! And especially one going
>>> to
>>>
>>> Dallas!
>>>
>>> Brandon Keith Biggs
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Rylie Robinson
>>> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 2:31 PM
>>> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>> Subject: [nabs-l] introducing Myself
>>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I don't really know how these introduction processes work on lists,
>>> but I just wanted to drop in and say hello to everyone. I've been on
>>> the list for a long time, but I finally changed my EMail over to a
>>> client that I actually enjoy using. So, hopefully, more posting from
>>> me will follow.
>>>
>>> My name is Rylie, a 20-year-old college student attending Indiana
>>> university Purdue University Indianapolis. Right now I'm studying
>>> Secondary English education. I hope after I acquire this degree to
>>> earn a certification in teacher of blind students and teach Braille in
>>> a public school setting.
>>>
>>> I have been involved in the nFB for a while, and I know, or know of
>>> quite a few of the Nabs members, and this seemed like one of the best
>>> ways to stay involved, especially with convention coming right around
>>> the corner. I hope to get to know some of you more and to be able to
>>> see some of you in Dallas.
>>>
>>> Blessings to all,
>>> Rylie
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
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>
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>
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