[nabs-l] Training centers not the real world

Mon Nov 11 20:52:54 UTC 2013

All,
I love to see threads that provoke such great thoughts and discussions.
First, schools for the blind and NFB training centers are totally
different things. For the purposes of my response, I will focus only
on the training centers aspect of the question.
I think that the reasons we encourage people to go to training
centers, are similar to the reasons we encourage people to go to
college. Think about it, college is not like the real world. and if
you are still in college, know, that while it is preparing you and
giving you the critical thinking skills, the writing skills, the
analytical skills to do well in the real world, it is not the real
world. Training centers serve the same purpose. They give us training,
tools, specific methodology to approach problems and solve them, and
then when you go into the real world, you have a toolbox from which
you can pull out the correct tool for the correct task. Not everyone
goes to college. And many people, who do not go to college, are
extremely successful. There are a number of extremely successful blind
people who did not go to training centers. What a lot of them share in
common, at least in my experience, are parents, or family members, or
close friends, who enforced the notion that blindness was just a trait
and not the defining characteristic of their life. These individuals
often sought others to help them learn how to do specific things. We
do not live in hermetically sealed environments. Everyone on this list
knows the value of asking for advice and help when we don't know how
to do something. So to say that we learned to do everything totally on
our own, and so didn't need to go to a center, might be a bit of an
overstatement of the truth. Up to today, I have not gone to an NFB
training center. But that is only because I found the NFB early enough
in my life, that I got friends who taught me strategies that i could
use to do things in an alternative way. I had a great mother, who
pushed me to do anything i wanted. She may not have known how exactly
I could do algebra as a blind student, but she knew I could do it, and
finding the way was up to me. I've gained the confidence to pursue
whatever it is that I want to pursue, knowing that there is always a
way, and that fear is the only thing that can hold me back.
So, why do we send people to a "blind bubble" to learn blindness
skills? The same reason we send our young people to an "academic
bubble" to be around each other and professors, to conduct very
specific and esoteric research, to learn to think critically. Because,
submersion in a certain environment, can often give us skills, and
methodology we can then apply in a wider context.

Thanks.
Mary F

On 11/11/13, Joseph Hudson <jhud7789 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, I know that at the Kriskell rehabilitation center you can't have
> anybody staying with you when you come for the real training I know that
> whenever you go from one of their many trainings you can have family there
> with you back in participating or how to help you though.
>
> Joseph Hudson
> Email
> jhud7789 at yahoo.com Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Nov 11, 2013, at 11:21 AM, tbrown.brl at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> Some centers may allow the students to bring their children with them. You
>> would have to check with each individual center.
>>
>> Tom Brown
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>> On Nov 11, 2013, at 10:05 AM, "RJ Sandefur"
>>> <joltingjacksandefur at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Men, Thank you for that point. My friend Rohanda went blind four years
>>> ago.
>>> Her daughter is Ten years old. Our ehab agency wanted to send her to a
>>> training center. She doesn't want to leave her child. RJ
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "minh ha" <minh.ha927 at gmail.com>
>>> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
>>> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 12:33 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Training centers not the real world
>>>
>>>
>>> All the proponents of training centers, NFB or otherwise keep saying
>>> how going to one will give blind individuals the skills they need to
>>> gain employment or to be successful. I'm just wondering how these
>>> success stories are measured? Do the majority of graduates gain
>>> employment afterwards because of their new found independence skills
>>> and are these numbers higher than those that do not attend training
>>> centers? Maybe it's different for me because I had vision for the
>>> first few years of my life, but all the skills that I've acquired over
>>> the years, I learned from my family and friends. I remember growing
>>> up, cooking was one of the activities that my best friend and I
>>> experimented together; she didn't know cooking skills either so we
>>> played around in the kitchen and taught ourselves how to use a stove,
>>> etc. I think we place too much responsibility on others--if I want to
>>> learn something, I teach myself or I ask someone who knows it to teach
>>> me. Furthermore, I can't see myself taking 6-9 months to essentially
>>> remove myself from society to focus on blindness skills so I can gain
>>> employment. I have had many internships and opportunities in college
>>> because I actually go out there and network and present myself to
>>> potential employers. My point is experience is the best teacher--I can
>>> learn all the independence skills I need at a center, but it's not
>>> going to do me any good without the experience.
>>>
>>> Minh
>>>
>>>> On 11/10/13, Darian Smith <dsmithnfb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> good points thus far, and great discussion.
>>>> The idea of schools for the blind (at least as I understand them) is
>>> that
>>>> students in these  schools may get  the proper instruction in skills
>>>> that
>>>> would allow them to be  as successful in the classroom as their
>>> classmates.
>>>> They may also benefit from gaining access to sports that are adapted for
>>> the
>>>> blind where in the public school setting these things are not always
>>> readily
>>>> available .
>>>> In the training center environment, you are learning skills that will
>>> help
>>>> you   become confident and competent enough to  compete and  succeed  in
>>> the
>>>> world.  in our NFB training centers, we learn the skills  that enable us
>>> to
>>>> be successful and  gain the attitude and belief  that not only can we
>>>> lead  productive  successful, and meaningful lives,  but that  this
>>>> should
>>>> be the exact expectation we should have for ourselves.
>>>> So, while the implication one might get is that such learning
>>> environments
>>>> shelter  people  from the “real world”, it is my view that generally
>>>> speaking they can serve to help you be prepared  for that “real world”
>>>> in
>>> a
>>>> way that matriculating through mainstream schooling might leave  you
>>>> otherwise ill equipped to do.
>>>>  Darian
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>> --
>>> "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
>>> recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity:
>>> but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on
>>> their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." T. E. Lawrence
>>>
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>>
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-- 
Mary Fernandez
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will
forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them
feel."
—
Maya Angelou