[nabs-l] We know about college but think back to high school

[Arielle Silverman]

Hi Kaiti, That's an excellent point. I think sometimes folks try to
lean on disability professionals for non-disability-related help. It's
not just blind students who may do this, but also parents, teachers
and professors can be the worst offenders. TVI's are useful for
teaching about access and, hopefully, should be qualified to teach
Braille and technology. They are not, however, experts in advanced
math content, college admissions or scholarships. A high school
student should really reach out to a guidance counselor for that kind
of support, since guidance counselors are specially trained and
experienced in helping students get into college. Similarly, a college
DSS is not a good place to look for academic tutoring or advice on
what courses to take. Instead, a mainstream tutoring center or an
academic advisor is the most qualified person to work with.
I think students can sometimes get into trouble if they rely too much
on DSS for needs unrelated to their disability.
Arielle

On 12/13/14, Kaiti Shelton via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi Bridget and all,
>
> The problem with that for some students is that they want to get into
> the work force as quickly as possible.  This is why many students
> choose to defer going to an NFB training center till after they have
> their college degree, so they can job search and start to look around
> in their free time while learning blindness skills.
>
> One more thing I forgot to mention, but have been thinking about this
> afternoon.  How much responsibility lies with the TVI to really
> prepare a student for college?  I personally think that it is the
> school's responsibility to train the student academically, the family
> to teach independent living skills, and the TVI to make sure the
> student knows their accessibility options, how to work with DS, when
> to and when not to ask for help doing homework, taking tests, using a
> reader, etc, and of course braille literacy training.  I had the same
> TVI from kindergarten through the 8th grade.  In the 9th grade I was
> given a new one, and worked with her solely on Nemeth for 3 years
> because I tended to struggle in math.  My senior year she started
> working as an O&M specialist, and I was placed with a woman who was a
> lackluster TVI.  She had apparently been working for years as a low
> vision specialist, and had forgotten most of the braille code.  Then
> she had to teach braille, and she didn't seem like she even knew what
> to do with me.  She wanted to help me write my college applications
> and look for scholarships, but since I had already started both of
> those processes on my own I did not feel that these braille lessons
> without braille were a good use of anyone's time.  With the support of
> my braillist and parents, I stopped having TVI instruction for the
> last year of schooling; I was done with my high school math and only
> needed to take stats in college, so the extra work in advanced Nemeth
> was not even necessary even if the teacher knew it.
>
> I bring this up because I think everyone, including TVIs, have a
> skewed perception of what their responsibility is.  In this case, the
> woman called my mother to basically rat me out for not continuing
> braille, and she thought that since I was still under 18 my mom could
> intervene.  She was quite surprised when my parents expressed that
> they also felt like there was nothing for me to gain by continuing
> braille, and that my mom had already been helping me edit my completed
> scholarship applications and college admissions essays for a while.
>
> I know not everyone's situation is the same, but I do think there are
> certain responsibilities that are not part of a TVI's job description
> which are often attributed to them.  TVIs have enough to do, so where
> is the line drawn?
>
> On 12/13/14, Roanna Bacchus via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Hi Arielle I agree with what you have said.  I also believe that
>> life skills programs are not appropriate in the mainstream
>> setting for students who are blind.  I attended the Transition
>> program at the Lighthouse of Central Florida before beginning my
>> college career.  This program taught me many of the independent
>> living skills that I still use today.
>>
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>
>
> --
> Kaiti
>
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