[nabs-l] Extremely frustrated with microbiology class

[Arielle Silverman]

Hi Jewel,
Is your teacher the one saying what your lab assistant isn't "allowed"
to tell you? Or is your lab assistant making up these rules?
If your teacher is preventing your lab assistant from giving you the
full information that sighted people could get by looking at the cell,
that is discriminatory behavior. I would suggest not only telling your
prof this, but also alerting your disability services office (if you
have one) and the department chair or even a dean about the situation.
The department chair or dean should have the authority to override
what your professor is doing. If your prof won't budge, in addition to
filing complaints, I might suggest dropping the course and taking an
incomplete (rather than failing) and retaking it with a different
professor who does not make discriminatory rules.
The fact is that tactile diagrams won't tell you about colors and
other visual dimensions that you can only get from talking with your
lab assistant or other sighted reader. Also, if you  were a
microbiologist in the field or lab needing to identify  cells, you
would hire readers and you would ask them to tell you as much as they
possibly can. I would agree with not letting your lab assistant tell
you what the cell is called, but short of that, you need to be able to
get as  much information as possible to piece together in your head to
make an accurate identification.
If it's the lab assistant refusing to give you info, find a new lab assistant.
Best, and please keep us posted,
Arielle

On 9/21/12, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> You don't ask your teacher if your lab assistant can tell you the color, you
>
> tell your teacher that your lab assistant will read you the color.
> If it is too much to override your teacher, have your accessibility
> department label the cell with color and whatnot. If the cell is complex,
> ask your teacher to give you just the basics of the cell. Often times
> pictures have all kinds of dots and swirls. These aren't really needed. But
>
> what I know is plant cells are more rectangle and animal cells are more
> roundish.
> Thanks,
>
> Brandon Keith Biggs
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jewel
> Sent: Friday, September 21, 2012 3:48 PM
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> Subject: [nabs-l] Extremely frustrated with microbiology class
>
> I'm taking a class in microbiology that I need for my degree program,
> and one of the things I need to do for the midterm lab praticle is
> identify cells under the microscope. The thing is, my lab assistant is
> not allowed to give an in-depth description of the cells, nor can I
> ask him questions like "What colour is it?"...I have to identify the
> cell by looking at a tactile image that I can't understand because the
> image is not of good enough quality for a tactile image to work, and
> I'm having trouble getting my professor to understand my problem. She
> says I should be able to recognize the cell based on the tactile image
> and specific questions to my lab assistant, but I can't ask him "What
> colour is this blob here?" or anything. I am not sure what kind of
> questions I *can* ask him, nor am I sure how I am going to identify
> cells based on images that are just blobs and dots to me. Please, can
> someone give me any ideas or suggestions? This has me frustrated to
> tears, beause I'm afraid I'm going to fail the lab practicle because I
> don't have access to the same materials as everyone else. Help please!
> ~Jewel
>
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