[nabs-l] Aleeha's Blog and Response to the Thread

[Cindy Bennett]

Hi Aleeha,

I just want to thank you for sharing your experiences in a blog. I
used to journal and stopped after one training center entry. Part of
it was just a change in my life; I no longer felt the need to journal,
and another part was that I got so busy. That said, I am so happy that
you will be chronicling your experiences for others to read. I am sure
they will be an asset for other people who want to learn about our
training centers and a helpful glimpse for people considering
training.

I also commend you for choosing to go to training. I am not saying
this only since I have benefited from one of our training centers, but
I am saying it because I have known you personally for a few years and
about some of the struggles you have encountered in school. Some of
these issues are precisely why we have written the SMART act and
completely out of your control, but I am so excited that you view
training as a way to help you to better traverse education and work
and as an opportunity to fill a toolbox with a variety of strategies
that you will doubtless exercise every day. I think it is incredibly
difficult to interrupt school; I was so obsessed with graduating and
continuing my life in a sought-out trajectory that I waited until I
was finished with undergrad before I got training. Yes, I was a
successful student, but I could have been so much more independent and
less anxious if I had gotten over my life plan and gone during school.
So good for you for recognizing that now was the best time even though
it means you are taking a break in the middle of your academic career.

In my personal experience at BLIND, Inc., my instructors and I spent a
few classes getting to know each other in that I learned how they
would help me as an instructor, and they learned about my strong and
weak points regarding their class. For example, it was pretty clear
when I explored the wood shop that I knew nothing and was a little
anxious to touch everything as I more confidently explored the kitchen
in home management. Similarly, my instructor in communications learned
pretty quickly by watching me use my phone and computer to communicate
with my friends and family that I did not need pointed keyboarding
lessons. But when my talk about being a proficient braille reader
since kindergarten did not match the appropriate reading speed, he
helped me to understand that I did need to work on my braille, a skill
I believed I would practice the least during training. My classes were
very individualized. As I witnessed students start after me, I began
to see patterns in how the teachers work; there is a foundational
curriculum. However, my instructors were very good at recognizing when
I was proficient with a skill, and they were also good at kindly
showing me, mostly through my own less than satisfactory work, that I
could improve upon a skill at which I had previously been made to
believe I was an expert. I found this model to be empowering as I was
treated like an adult; there was no patronizing by instructors, and I
had experienced this at other training centers. I got out of training
what I put in to it. Like I said, there is a foundational curriculum
and philosophy, and they guide the minimal rules set in place to
foster the most successful environment. But just as at the end of the
semester, certain things dawn on you like, “Oh, that is why the
professor did not explain this earlier in the semester; I would not
have understood it,” as I continued through training, I began to
understand that every rule and every strategy that the teachers
employed had a purpose even though as the student I did not always
immediately recognize this valuable purpose. This model helped me to
rethink some of the expectations that I had accepted as satisfactory
but which were actually holding me back from reaching my full
potential.

It has already been said, but a unique feature of the NFB training
centers is that they are immersive programs. You use braille to read
recipes and to identify ingredients in home management. You use your
travel skills to pick up wood for shop class or groceries for your
apartment and for your small and large meals. You may practice your
slate and stylus skills by brailling recipes, and may use the computer
to compile a recipe book. So in a sense, every other class is an
extension of travel class which may contribute to the policy about
using a cane during all classes. I think it would be beneficial for
people who have questions about these policies to ask the directors of
the centers themselves and to read their websites if they haven’t
already.

I will not comment on anyone’s specific experiences and certainly do
not condone workplace discrimination. But I will reflect on my own job
search. I have applied for literally hundreds of jobs for which I
believed myself even overqualified. I have interviewed for dozens and
have had suspicions for why I did not get hired at some. It sucks, a
lot; there is no way around it. But I have to surmise that as I work
with NFB to increase the opportunities for blind people, I would not
want to work in an environment where the employer does not believe in
me or where values that are important to me are not shared by the
workplace.

In conclusion, I thank Aleeha for sharing her blog. I do think it is
appropriate to share helpful resources on these lists. I also think
that discussion about the philosophies of the training centers may be
better placed on their own thread so people can reply to Aleeha with
comments and questions specifically about the original message she
sent without concern that she will miss them.

Cindy


-- 
Cindy Bennett
1st Year Ph.D. Student, University of Washington
Human Centered Design and Engineering

Treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind of Washington
an Affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind

clb5590 at gmail.com