[nabs-l] Social skills and blindness

Wed Mar 5 07:47:21 UTC 2014

Hi Arielle and all, this is Helga! I just wanted to tell you that I am 
always very talkative and I interact a lot with people since I was low 
vision, but I was actually very shy and timmid when I was talking to them! 
However, when I became blind 6 years ago, I started  to interact more with 
students and people, more than before, since whenever I needed help, they 
always ask me if I need any help, and I actually answer yes, but not all the 
time though, but when they help me, I always started a conversation with 
them. In fact, I became totally blind in my second semester of my freshman 
year in high school, and I actually had an assistant when I was in high 
school who was very nice with me, and she actually took my shyness away, and 
we actually became very good friends! Actually, when I was in high school, 
she was always  pushing me to talk to the students and the people more, more 
than talking just with her, and in that way, I learned how to communicate 
with students and people more than ever before! And whenever she comes visit 
me here in Florida, I always tell her that she open up my shell! LOL!! 
Meaning that she took my shyness away!  So you can call this a very good 
Sociall skills even though you are blind, or maybe not! I'm very glad to 
share with you guys a little bit of my life experience. I actually feel that 
I can open my heart with you all here!, since I think you guys are very good 
friends to talk to! Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks and God bless!! :)
P.S. if you want to talk to me more about my life experience, you can 
contact me off list ok? Only if you want of course! Thanks again! ;)

-----Original Message----- 
From: Mohamed
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 12:40 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Social skills and blindness

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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