[nabs-l] Social skills and blindness

[Mohamed]

You a bit remind  me of how I am.  I'm a big technoligy guy, and 
always am trying to learn about new things.  I've not really been 
normal.

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 22:22:19 -0700
Subject: [nabs-l] Social skills and blindness

Hi all,

OK.  Since it was brought up here, I feel compelled to share some 
of my
experiences and controversial views on how blind people should 
learn
social skills.  Some of you have heard this rant before in part, 
but I
think it is important enough to bear repeating every few years.  
I
guess I'm also curious if any of you have had similar experiences
growing up or if the things I am about to advocate make any sense 
to
others besides me.

I have been blind my whole life and I was always an introverted
person.  As a child I had few close  friends, read a lot by 
myself.
When I did hang out with kids my age I tended to be bossy and 
want to
control what we were doing.  When adults came into my house and 
tried
to interact with me in ways I thought were childish or silly, I 
would
go to my room and read.  I never was one for a lot of physical
affection, hugging, touching etc.
When I was growing up it was assumed that all my undesirable 
traits
linked back to my blindness.  So it was assumed that because of 
my
blindness I had poor social skills.  There were goals on my IEP
throughout elementary and middle school that dealt with my social
skills and my TVI was tasked with evaluating my progress.  For 
example,
in elementary school I would get graded on goals like "Shows 
interest
in other children" or "asks others about their day".  In middle 
school,
one goal on my IEP was "compliments others when she likes 
something".
I am not even slightly joking.  My TVI would ask me every day to 
tell
her how many people I had complimented that day and she wrote it 
down
on her clipboard.  The number of compliments I gave was expected 
to
increase over time.  Since I  was usually a good student and I 
liked
and respected this teacher a lot, I tried my hardest to give her 
a
good compliment report every day, by contriving situations where 
I
could compliment my family and classmates.  I still don't 
understand
what this had to do with my blindness.  If I complimented people 
less
than my parents or teachers expected it was because that just 
wasn't a
big part of how I liked to interact with people.  Had I been 
sighted, I
wouldn't have been graded on such a silly thing.  She also read 
me
passages from a social skills book as a way to teach me social 
skills.
Eventually my TVI and I discussed this and she told me that my 
parents
had really expected her to do these things and she did even 
though she
knew they were ridiculous.
When people in the blindness world talk about social skills, it 
seems
they're usually referring to two things: skills at winning 
friends and
influencing people (charisma, likability, popularity) or 
following
social conventions like being places on time, attempting eye 
contact,
etc.  (what Jedi refers to as "blending in").  By the first set 
of
criteria, winning friends and influencing people, Adolf Hitler 
had
wonderful social skills.  I think there are other social skills 
that
are much more important for having lasting relationships: things 
like
sharing, helping others in need, being sensitive to other 
people's
feelings, respecting other people's opinions, not holding 
grudges.
There are many sighted politicians who have absolutely terrible 
social
skills by these criteria! These are all things that blind people 
can
learn just as well as sighted people by listening to other 
people's
conversations, talking about issues going on in the world, and
actually being a part of close relationships.  I think the most 
social
skills I ever learned was by becoming friends with blind people 
who
were willing to be blunt and tell me if I was doing something
obnoxious.  There is a lot we can learn about social interaction 
just
by listening, talking and sharing with others.  Reading about 
this
stuff in a book, or being required to engage in artificial
interactions with others, doesn't help build these social skills 
in
the long term.  Role-playing social interactions doesn't help 
when
you're out in the real world and the thing you practiced feels 
really
awkward and fake.
On blending in, I do think there are certain nonverbal things 
that
congenitally blind people should be explicitly told about so we 
can
make informed decisions about whether or not we want to blend in.  
For
example, of course blind folks should be told about which colors
people usually wear together or what kind of clothing is 
appropriate
for a job interview vs.  the movies.  But then, we still have the 
right
to choose to blend in or not.  So  often it seems that blind 
folks are
labeled as having poor social skills when the fact is that 
they've
learned what is "appropriate" but chosen not to follow these 
norms for
whatever reason.
I realize now that my parents and teachers were unfortunately 
using
blindness and the IEP system to try to change who I fundamentally
was--to turn me into an extroverted, gregarious, charismatic 
person.
It took a long time for me to realize that I was OK being myself, 
and
that I was just reared in an environment where I didn't quite 
belong.
Although I don't have tons of friends, I have great relationships 
with
the friends I do have, a loving husband and co-workers who 
respect me,
and I try to be the best person I can.  Most of  the things I 
learned
to get me to this place came from my firsthand experiences making
friends, my real discussions with others and a lot of trial and 
error.
I don't think I missed out on the process because I am blind, but 
I
also don't think the attempts to teach me social skills from a
textbook were either effective or necessary.
In closing, I hope that any good blindness center would support
students in developing social skills--by giving them 
opportunities to
make friends and have real social encounters--instead of
indoctrinating them with lessons based on a narrow definition of
social competence.

Best,
Arielle

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