[nabs-l] A Typical Day at an Nfb training center

[Benjamin Vercellone]

Hello roanna.
	This is Ben Vercellone. I received your email to NABS, and thought I would respond. I have written a lot, especially for an email. For example, I wrote more about my personal center experience than simply a short summary of any day. I'm just warning the reader! I am definitely passionate about blind people's independence, and this passion has contributed to my writing. I wrote more concerning your first question than the second, but I tried to answer both. I hope you gain something from my response. I'm sure that many people from NABS have attended NFB training centers and could also provide much valuable information.
	I attended the Louisiana Center for the Blind from late November of 2007 to early August of 2008. I desired to attend this training center because I felt that many of my skills were lacking, and because I heard very positive testimonies from a couple graduates of LCB. Working with the New Jersey commission for the Blind to receive help with funding took several months. I think it took about six months of work with the Commission before I was able to leave for LCB. As for my family's attitude, expectations, conduct, etc., they were very optimistic and supportive. I understand that this is my own personal experience, and that many blind people's families may have contrary feelings such as great nervousness, pessimism, and whatever else. Neither my parents nor I knew what to expect, and we definitely had some degree of nervousness. But the attitude was generally positive.
	Probably like many people reading this, I received some degree of training throughout my childhood including in O&M, home management skills, and, fortunately for me, even Braille. But to be honest, I felt that much of this training was quite limited. Perhaps the best example of this concerned orientation and mobility. I received some valuable training to be sure, but it was not on a day to day basis. As I went on to middle school and high school, the frequency of my training with cane travel decreased greatly . I was only getting two cane travel lessons per month on a good month, and it was only for forty-five minutes each time. How much can a student expect to improve with their skills in Orientation and Mobility, among other blindness skills, with such limitations? My Braille training, on the other hand, was fairly good, and any complaining I do regarding my personal Braille story should really be about my lack of interest in it as a younger person. I can't complain much about the Braille training I received, especially when compared to the 90 percent of blind people who received no training. I am much more enthusiastic about Braille now, and I enjoy practicing a lot nowadays. I am extremely thankful to know Braille.
	When I went to the Louisiana Center for the Blind, it was definitely like jumping into the deep end of the pool right away! My first few weeks and months were the hardest part for me emotionally, but this can probably be expected for most students. It is a necessary stage in independence training. I was somewhat home sick, and it took me some time to feel at home in Louisiana. Though it never felt as much like home to me as New Jersey, I definitely did change after a few months, and began to feel really comfortable at LCB. I guess they always say, "there's no place like home." But the people in the area generally seemed supportive, and especially the people at the Center.
	Though my challenges just described seemed to decrease, the every-day challenges of LCB training only increased over time. This was definitely a good thing.
	Every day, students including myself attended five classes, if you want to call them classes. The order of the classes for me was:
	Orientation and Mobility from just after the 8:00 AM announcements to 10:00 AM, Industrial Arts from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM, Braille from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM, Computer Skills from 2:00 PM to about 3:00 PM, and Home Ec from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Students had different personal schedules
	Lunch was obviously from noon to 1:00 PM.
	I have absolutely no vision, so this next part isn't exactly relevant to me. But everyone with any degree of vision at this training center, and at any NFB training center, has to wear sleep shades so that they will be forced to learn non-visual techniques. Students at LCB are required to wear them from 8:00 AM to noon and from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM. They are free to take them off for lunch if they desire, and are free to live without wearing them while at the LCB apartments. However, anyone who keeps the sleep shades on for more time is likely to experience increased improvement with their independence skills.
	Our apartments were about eight blocks from the Center, if I remember correctly. That's more or less the number anyway. It was about six tenths of a mile I think. Anyone at LCB without mobility impairments is  required to walk both to the Center in the morning and back to the apartments after the day at the center. On rare occasions, like maybe after a big LCB accomplishment or when physically exhausted or weak for some reason, a ride is given to a student who normally does not need one. I think we received these rides sometimes when we needed to quickly go back to the apartments to prepare for inspections. Yes, we had to keep our places clean, a really important skill. This discipline definitely helped me afterword when I attended college.
	Twice a week at the center we had seminar, where we carried out discussions on blindness. It lasted almost two hours each time. We discussed the NFB philosophy of blindness at length. We often listened to media in seminar, like when we watched the movie At First Sight. This was helpful because it raised discussion concerning the interaction of blind and sighted people and especially concerning attitudes which many sighted people have toward blindness. I think seminar was 10 to noon on Tuesday and 1 to 3 on Thursday when I was there. Before seminar on Tuesday, each student met with his/her counselor to discuss progress being made. A student's counselor was one of the staff members, and I believe each staff member often had more than one student assigned. Forgive me if counselor is not the correct noun. But you get the picture.
	Now on to the actual classes. My first class was Orientation and Mobility (O&M). When I first arrived at LCB, my O&M skills were not very good. I especially had trouble with my orientation. I had trouble making mental maps of some of the streets surrounding the center, and this lead to some confusion on my part. Arlene Hill, my O&M instructor at LCB, showed me a representation of some of the nearby streets using some pad on to which she stuck plastic pieces. Most of the pieces were lines, and the connection between them and the pad was a type of Velcro. Many people may be familiar with this basic tool. The use of this tool for just a short time helped me to overcome my initially poor sense of orientation.
	At first, I was told to walk pretty much to the southern end of the block which the center was on, and then to the northern end. This was in order to make sure I was using my cane properly. There may have been other basic reasons too. After this, I began crossing streets. The number of streets I was told to cross increased week after week. I do not remember the exact sequence of the concepts I was taught. But one important concept which I was taught concerned finding addresses.
	I learned the basic methodology behind many cities concerning their layout and the assignment of addresses. With this conceptual knowledge, it became much easier to travel to the assigned addresses. I could at least usually find the block that each assigned address was on without much difficulty. Finding the exact address was sometimes a trial and error experience. One thing we had to become comfortable with was interacting with sighted people. We were not to ask them to guide us or do anything of that nature, and we had to become more and more independent as our training progressed. But we could definitely ask questions concerning the present location for much of our training. For example, I could go into a building and ask a person at the counter what location this was. I could find out the name of the business and the address by asking very simple questions.
	I was a bit timid when I first went to the Center, as I imagine some other students were and are. So asking questions definitely helped. My assignments helped me to improve my mental mapping and route planning abilities, all without the use of GPS. I use GPS frequently now as a graduate of LCB, but I learned that the most important skills cannot be achieved via technology. Technology is definitely helpful, but there are many instances of people who perform poorly when they try to use technology such as GPS without having good O&M skills. This is definitely a concern at LCB. What's more, the batteries on my skills do not die! Sometimes I was assigned to find an address, and then bring back a business card from that location, thus proving my success. I had many tasks involving addresses.
	As my time at LCB increased and neared its end, I had to complete some graduation requirements for every class. For O&M, there were several important requirements. One involved coming up with a route to perform with public transportation. I needed to learn how to independently travel on a bus. Another assignment involved walking according to a Brailled list of directions. The distance of this assignment was 5.6 miles! People could complete it in more than one day if they had to. Perhaps the most significant graduation requirement for O&M was what they called the drop routs. The student would be driven by a sighted staff member to an unknown location, and then dropped off there. The staff member would take many turns, and as far as I know, pretty much no one could track the movement well enough to know where he or she was dropped. I certainly could not.
	This assignment required us to use knowledge which we had gained throughout our training, in order to find our way back to the center. Success came most easily when students could combine multiple concepts. For example, I knew that if the sun was on my right, I was pretty much facing north, since my O&M class was in the morning. One time I was dropped somewhere, and I heard busy traffic near by. I don't remember all the details, but when I travelled toward the busy traffic, I heard a sound that the tires of the cars made as they passed over the street. I remembered that this sound was special to Alabama Street. I remembered that Alabama Street went east and west. I remembered that it was a two way street, and sure enough, I heard traffic going both ways. I don't remember all the details of this drop route, but let's just say I tried walking east on Alabama Street. I would have done this by making sure the sun was at my face. If I wanted to go on the south side of Alabama if I wasn't already, I might have travelled east to the next intersection, and crossed to the south side. I imagine I probably desired the south side of this street, as it would have been closer to the center.
	It would have been totally possible for me to have been dropped off near Alabama Street somewhere east of Trenton Street, the north/south street where LCB is located. But let's just say I tried going east first, examining the possibility that I had been dropped off somewhere in the western direction. I think that is what actually happened. I would have searched for north/south streets with familiar characteristics. If I was traveling in the right direction in this example, I would have eventually come to an intersection, where the perpendicular traffic in front of me would only be heading from my left to my right. I would know, based on my knowledge of ruston, that this was Trenton Street, where the traffic only travels south. In this case, if I remember correctly, I would be on the south-west corner of this intersection. I'm guessing I crossed to the east side of Trenton, and then turned right to travel south a couple blocks to the Center at 101 South Trenton Street.
	Sorry if my description was very long. But I feel that my experience at LCB regarding O&M lead to a huge boost in my overall confidence. I desire to teach other blind students the skills of O&M, and will be attending Louisiana Tech University this fall to pursue a Master's degree with the concentration in Orientation and Mobility.
	Next, in Industrial Arts, or as I think we called it Shop or Wood shop, students increased in their confidence by learning how to operate power tools and follow detailed instructions to complete various tasks. If they could finish work related to 2 stages of construction, students would go on to build a final project which involved a great deal of planning and work. For me, this was a cedar chest. The first two assignments may have been called the grid block and the Braille block if I remember correctly. I'm much more confident in my memory of the second one's name. For the first assignment, we had to cut a piece of wood into a rectangle with exact dimensions. This involved the use of a power saw known as a radial arm saw. Then, we had to learn to scrape precise lines into the wood using an awl, and the lines had to be a fixed distance apart. I think the distance was three fourths of and inch. There would be parallel lines going in both directions, with four long ones and six short ones I think. We had to Use a tool to make sure our lines were all straight, and to insure that all the intersections would be 90 degree ones. I enjoyed this a lot, but believe me when I say it took some practice. Then we had to use the drill press to drill holes into the wood precisely in the intersections of the lines. I forgot the diameter of the holes, but it was something like three eighths of an inch.
	I also forgot to say that all of the tools we used in Shop except for one had one thing in common. They were not at all specially adapted for the blind. The only tool which was specially designed was the measuring device which was called the Click rule. With it, we could easily measure to the sixteenth of an inch. As J.D. taught me, I could use it to measure down to the thirty-second of an inch too. This was more than enough accuracy. The goal was not to discourage us from using any other kinds of adaptive shop equipment, but to encourage us to realize our full potential. A great deal of tools, including power tools, are accessible out of the box.
	In any case, now that the holes were in the grid block, I could go on to the next step, assuming I didn't drill through the bottom of the piece of wood, in which case I'd have to start all over again. The next step was to cut a dowel which had the same diameter as that of the holes just drilled. The student had to cut the dowel using another power saw called the band saw. After cutting the dowel to get the correct number of short cylinders, each with the correct length, the cylinders were placed into the holes in the grid block.
	This whole exercise became much easier with time, but the next one, the Braille block, was harder. It was called the Braille Bloc because it would have 6 of the cylinders in it rather than the higher number that were in the grid block. The Braille Block was thicker than the grid block, but was shorter and narrower. In addition to all of the steps described for the grid block, there were several additional ones for the Braille block. We had to use the router to round out all 12 edges of the block. This was a challenge, but a fun one I thought. Another thing we had to do for the Braille block was to use an electric sander to smooth the ends of the dowels that were exposed. Let me finish up about these first two assignments by saying that they helped us not only to learn to use tools and become confident with them, but also to improve our accuracy and precision. All of the little cylinders coming out of the grid blocks and Braille blocks had to be the correct length. This was just one of the many aspects of these projects which was examined each time we thought we were finished. By the time J.D. said a student had succeeded and was ready to move on, he or she had definitely come a long way. I loved Shop, and also had an awesome time working with James, the other Shop instructor, on my cedar chest. As with O&M, my general confidence improved from this class.
	Next was lunch. People could prepare meals at their apartments and store them in a refrigerator at the center until lunch, or they could walk to a nearby restaurant to eat. Sleep shades were not required, but the use of them expedited learning for those with any vision.
	My next class was Braille. Though I received fairly good Braille training before I attended LCB. Mr. Whittle still taught me extremely valuable lessons. One thing which he stressed a lot is the importance of reading Braille with both hands. I find that I can read with much greater speed and steadiness this way. The two-handed method is a really good piece of advice which I gained from Braille class at LCB. Also, the encouragement to read a lot of Braille in my free time is really important, as I will not improve my speed otherwise. It is really important to practice a lot when it comes to Braille. It is the only thing we can do to improve reading speed, and is a lot better than complaining or lamenting!
	Many students who attend NFB training centers such as LCB have no knowledge of Braille on arrival. It is awesome to see how such people can graduate the center after less than a year, reading 45 words a minute or maybe more. Students can increase their speeds much more after graduation if they keep reading. Those who already knew Braille, such as myself, increased in our reading speeds while at the Center, partly because of practice, and partly because of improved reading methods like the 2-handed reading. Students also received training in the use of the slate and stylus. This class is extremely valuable, as are the others.
	I personally am outraged at how many blind and low vision children, as well as people in other age groups, are discouraged from learning Braille. They are being discouraged from being literate. This is a crime, though the law books wouldn't tell you so. I hope they will in the near future. I'm sure that there would be an uproar if some sighted children were encouraged to just listen to text-to-speech and/or recordings of human speakers, rather than also learning print. Furthermore, if this hideous practice was at all commonplace, print instruction would practically be forced on the deprived sighted people by the knowledgeable literate at the soonest opportunity. Why in the world is the psychology any different for those who cannot read print but who can benefit equally from knowing Braille? The answer "It should be no different" is the correct answer, and any other answer is wrong. This is obvious. Thank God there is still good Braille instruction being taught by some people and in some places such as NFB training centers. I'm also quite thankful that the push for Braille seems to generally be on the rise right now, especially by members of the NFB. I would say that if there is a greater sense of urgency by the general public and the general blind population concerning Braille literacy, it is at least partly due to the NFB's efforts. I look forward to the prices of Braille technology going down. But even so, today is no time to be saying that Braille is obsolete. One good thing about LCB is that we used Braille in very many aspects of our training, and not just in Braille Class. We were encouraged to use many of our free hours to practice Braille.
	Next, in computer skills, we learned to use computers to accomplish tasks that involved researching and writing. Anyone going to college or searching for a job after the Center could benefit from these skills. When I was there, we worked with Windows with JAWS, and used the internet and Microsoft Word. There are a ton of features in Microsoft Office products which are valuable to learn, and there are also many important skills for getting information from the internet. We had a graduation requirement in this class which was basically a short research assignment. We had to research a topic of choice and write about it, and were required to include some information from the internet in our paper. Our paper had to not only be healthy in its length and content, but also neat and professional-looking. One challenge for me personally had to do with document formatting, which is very important if we want sighted people to take our work seriously.
	Finally, in Home Ec class, students did a lot of baking and cooking, in addition to learning information such as food safety, sewing, hand writing, etc. We learned non-visual skills for working with cooking equipment, and improved at our skills in following the directions in a recipe. I am personally not a big fan of fire, and I get kind of squeamish around it. But my confidence rose in this class, and I began to enjoy preparing food. I love eating good food! So why not learn to prepare it too? Another really important part of this class involves cleaning. I definitely benefitted in this way after LCB, as I dislike letting my places become messy.
	We had 2 graduation requirements for this class if I remember correctly. There was the meal for 8 and the meal for 40. For the meal for 8, each student made a meal that was probably more complex than his/her meal for 40. The student had to invite 8 people from the center to the meal. He/she had to serve the meal, which was also a challenge. For the meal for 40, a student would prepare a meal which would be served buffet style. It was not always for exactly 40 people, but this was typically the approximate number of people at LCB at any time. The meal for 8 and the meal for 40 both had to have more than one course, including a dessert. There were other specifications too. They definitely were challenges, but good ones of course! Sometimes there's just nothing like making a nice home-cooked meal. It's nice when you and even others get to enjoy the result of your effort! And why not bust some myths of blindness while you're at it too?
	I know I wrote a whole lot of information. My apologies if it seemed excessive. However, the LCB experience was extremely beneficial for me and for hundreds of others. Writing this was enjoyable because it prompted me to remember many of the great things I learned and from which I grew. As I often say to people, I grew the most from LCB concerning my overall confidence. Being blind is definitely a challenge, and I have experienced challenges after graduating LCB which I had not experienced while at the Center. Nevertheless, my training helped me greatly. It filled in the gaps which were present which I described near the beginning, like with my inadequate skills in O&M.
	It did more than just fill in the gaps. LCB was a truly rich experience. I participated in several programs as a teenager prior to LCB, but my time at the Center was much more helpful to me. I think that this is mainly because it was intense, and not only on certain days. It was intense every day of training, and this intensity lasted eight months for me. We were fairly free to do what we wished on the weekends, as well as most non-Center hours. But the more we practiced our skills in these hours, the more we would truly learn. I had never been treated so much like an adult blind person prior to LCB, and this treatment greatly aided my growth.
	I believe I was more prepared for college after LCB. I spent five years attending Montclair State University in New Jersey, and I have received a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in English, with a concentration in creative writing. College was a significant challenge for me, and I learned even more of the importance of discipline. However, I believe that many valuable seeds were planted throughout my experience at LCB. I am interested in teaching other blind people the skills of O&M, as my skills in this area have greatly assisted my overall confidence as a blind person.
	I would say that if you are considering a training center, this course of action is a very good idea. I recommend you look into one of the NFB training centers, or at least one that teaches with a similar philosophy. My family was supportive, but I understand that some students' families may not provide the same support. This is usually not from malice, but often from severe misunderstanding concerning blindness. Also, it is important to remember that although you may receive awesome training at a center, your parents or family or friends do not hear or see what is being taught to you. I say this because students need to realize that upon graduation, the sighted people you will inevitably interact with will need to be informed of your new-found skills, in addition to basic truths about blindness. Actions definitely speak louder than words.
	Practicing your skills after training is very important. They will not disappear immediately if you do not practice, but they can definitely rust over time. Also, a number of sighted people such as some employers and unfortunately, even some university professors, will be completely unaware and uninformed about your capabilities as a blind person. They will be all-too-ready to make decisions that they believe to be wise, when in reality such decisions are based in ignorance. Be prepared to practice your skills and to interact with a world that generally will not understand blindness. On the bright side, most people do seem willing to learn and improve their thinking. But like I said, demonstrating your increased ability as a blind person is the best thing to do.
	I hope all of this was helpful, and that the length was not an issue. LCB was one of the best stages of my life, and has even contributed to the shaping of my future plans!
Sincerely,
Ben
On Jul 24, 2013, at 8:51 AM, Roanna Baccchus <rbacchus228 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Nabs Members,
> 
> I have a question for you.  I was wondering what a typical day is like at an Nfb training center.  How did your families prepare to send you off to one of them? I'm looking forward to hearing your responses.
> 
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