[nabs-l] Training centers not the real world

[Ashley Bramlett]

Valerie,
Excellent points!
I thought of the learning point you made after sending my email.
Sighted kids learn so much by observation. They take it in and do not 
realize they have learned.
But blind kids need to be shown or told how to do things. So, we need more 
training.
I think your reason for schools for the blind makes a lot of sense.

Another reason for training centers is opportunity to meet other blind 
people.
At centers you learn together, have parties together, and share stories 
together.
This social bonding with peers helps one adjust to blindness or adjust to 
independence if you were blind your whole life.
The social aspect of meeting people who have gone through what you are going 
through is
very powerful. You actually have friends there who identify with your 
feelings for once.
Too often, blind people feel lonely or feel like no one understands them. I 
know students in school who know few other blind people and none their age.
Sure we can have sighted friends, but having blind friends does help in 
talking about common problems.
So centers fill a social void. All this socialization will hopefully help 
one's self esteem.

Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Valerie Gibson
Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:05 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Training centers not the real world

Greetings,

This could get ugly. haha.

I think the reason being that people who can see are taught mostly through 
modeling as children.  They watch how their parents act and react to 
situations and they follow suit.  As blind children, we don’t get such 
visual feedback and our sighted peers either don’t know how, or don’t think 
to tell us how, things are done.  They see the world visually, and unless 
they can think non visually, they find it difficult to express such ways of 
doing things like crossing a street.  To us, things such as crossing streets 
or cooking seem like a “Duh” moment, but in order for to seem like that, we 
must have had someone tell us how to do things non visually.

I don’t usually buy it when people, who have been blind their entire lives, 
say, “Oh i taught myself this or that”.  Sometimes it may be true, but more 
often than not, scaffolding has ucurred.  Sorry, i’m working on a psych 
paper. it shows. :D

For people who have been sighted and who have gone blind, hhow difficult it 
must be for them to have to see the world differently…no pun intended.

You mentioned autistic children…most autistic  children are treated 
differently than their sighted peers or peers who are not autistic, unless 
their autism is mild enough where they can get away with “normalcy”.  I 
could be wrong here. I only know a handful of autistic people.

In the case of blind schools, I believe this starts with the parents 
thinking that surely a blind school will be able to teach my child what i 
cannot, and for some kids this may be true. Better send the child off to a 
school where teachers specialize in disabled children than risk making a 
mistake. I’m sure this last sentence is what parents must think.  It’s a 
valid concern, I think.

Another reason may be that schools for the blind offer the child with a more 
rounded life as far as extra coriculars.  It did for me, and I only went my 
last two years of high school.  Sports are adapted so that blind people can 
participate, unlike your typical PE class.  This isn’t to say that PE 
classes at public schools can’t modify their curriculum, but many aren’t 
going to do it just for one student, or that’s how it was when i was in high 
school, but I’m sure things have changed in the past six years.

Back to the training programs, many people have heard, “you can’t do this. 
you’re blind” their entire lives. Training centers, such as the ones 
sponsored by the NFB, do provide confidence building skills for the train. 
This, i think, is the most important skill one can gain at a center.  For 
those who have condifence, they may not need the center as much as others, 
but who can say.

I hope this helps, and if I am speaking that which is incorrect in anything 
that I have said, please feel free to correct me. :)




On Nov 10, 2013, at 7:48 PM, RJ Sandefur <joltingjacksandefur at gmail.com> 
wrote:

> Why do we send blind people to training centers? Why do we send blind 
> people to "schools for the blind" We as blind people live in the real 
> world,Why do we do it? You don't see mom sending Johnny who has autism to 
> aschool for autistic kids!
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> nabs-l:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/valandkayla%40gmail.com


_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
nabs-l:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/bookwormahb%40earthlink.net