[nabs-l] 7 plus blind or low vision students facing discrimination at NIU... Please help!!!!!

[Zachary N. Griego-Dreicer]

Good morning federationists,
   Please forgive me in advance, this is going to be a long email. I am disappointed to inform you that 7 students, including myself, are facing or have faced  discrimination by a program at a university whose aim is to teach blind students. Perhaps there are more that I don’t know of, and if this is the case, it would be great to know of their experiences.  The program is in the school of special education at Northern Illinois University main campus in DeKalb, West side Chicago, Illinois. There are 7 confirme cases of discrimination and/or difficulty to complete assigned coursework in the visual disabilities program, between the programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level. What’s more disappointing to me is that in this semester alone, 4 blind students including myself have elected to change our majors because of the difficulties we face. 
   Obviously for me to be writing these statistics something is terribly wrong here…So I should explain further that the reasons compiled or most noted are lack of adaptation by course instructors, discouragement by some instructors for blind people to participate actively and fully, lack of knowledge by sighted colleagues of how to help the blind students in the class, lack of teaching proper cane/guide dog use skills early, and problems with conflicting philosophy. As far as I know, 3 of the 3 students who have already changed their major and started down a new career path have not sought assistance from resources at Northern Illinois University or the National Federation of the Blind, and the same can be said of 3 of the 4 students making the transition over the upcoming holiday vacation. Some have directly told me that they decided to leave quietly, thinking their voices wouldn’t be heard and that they would not be able to make a difference with just 1 person. They encouraged me to do the same, and although I’m changing majors for the sole reason of keeping my high grade point average that way going into the latter part of my undergraduate career, I am not leaving without making a lasting impact on the visual disabilities program…and I need your help. 6 of the 7 students do not know the National Federation of the Blind as far as I know, and they are strictly reliant on the disability resource center and the department of vocational rehabilitation of Illinois. Yours truly however knows all 3.
   The first issue, and the one I find of most importance…is the discrimination that blind students are faced with in this program at both the undergraduate and graduate level. I am in my 1st block of classes—introduction to teaching students with visual impairments, introduction to Orientation and Mobility, Introduction to Braille which I tested out of, and The Anatomy and Pathology of the Eye. jOf those 3 classes where I am participating, I know that the hardest one for me is Introduction to teaching students with visual impairments. The class is to teach students to develop and teach lessons according to EDTPA standards. In this class, there are 2 obvious red flags. The first is its sequence in the program, when students are concurrently enrolled in Introduction to Braille. Most sighted students—and a few blind students—were not proficient at Braille and taking the 2 classes at the same time. This has an automatic drawback in my mind, the sighted students have no idea yet about adaptive tech or Braille and the program is about teaching blind students. This is not so hard to overcome because they will learn the skills in due time,  although I’ve had several sighted students approach me regarding this class apologizing to me that they don’t know how to adapt their lessons, which I forgave them but told them some very simple strategies to adapt with little to no stress for them. I have put 2 other blind students in the class in charge also of talking to other sighted classmates, but they gave up after only a few tries and no success. The other red flag is the more major one in my mind, it stares everyone in the face during each lesson plan. I copied and pasted the section of the instructions of each lesson I refer to below, and it clearly spells out discrimination. “...You are pre-teaching this so that the student is more prepared for the class discussion and activities.  Select one or more CONCEPTS that will help the student understand the content more fully.  The student is a print reader and all materials must be in print.  We will assume that you would provide appropriate modifications tailored to the student’s vision skills determined through functional vision and learning media assessments.  For this exercise, however, use standard print materials but it is fair to address any concepts that you think would be particularly difficult for a student.” This spells out that NO blind students can be participating as students in the lesson, they can only participate as teachers. Furthermore it makes the assumption that the students know how to perform assessments to determine usable vision, and that has not even been taught. It is important to note that many sighted students want to teach the blind students in the class, (I.E.) the blind students in the class could be the blind students in the lesson scenario. Also of importance to note is that the groups of students consist of 3 to 4 students, and it is 1 to 1 ratio of teacher and student so the other students just sit and observe. It is also hard to sift through the CCSS standards, and half the time the teacher reports back to me that I didn’t do the best standard for my assignment. There are other various reasons for point deduction, but I feel that I am doing the best I can from the instruction given. There are also video observations of classrooms for undergraduate students, which is second to being able to observe a live classroom like the graduate students do. This is less of a concern to me, although it would be much more beneficial if every student had the same experience—even if they were partnered up to go on observations. Across other classes… in Orientation and Mobility, except for the blind students, nobody is using a cane or guide dog. An overwhelming majority of the class is lecture, and when we are out on travel, it’s all done under blindfold and teaching sighted guide and protective techniques with hands at different positions—which is agreeably important but far from the comprehensive skills that need to be covered to make it effective and safe. I’ve learned that there is an advanced O&M class open to graduates only that teaches cane travel skills, meaning that all the undergraduates get is the basic class without the cane. Also there are major philosophy differences from what I know to what is being taught in that class. As 2 examples, students are instructed that it is not safe or responsible to leave a blind student unattended when they step away to check in to a hotel or restaurant, and that blind people should use paratransit services or sit immediately behind the operator of the public transit vehicle in the priority seating area, making others move if need be. One particular lesson that had the sighted students wandering around lost, sounding very similar to #HowEyeSeeIt earlier this year was learning their way around a grocery store under blindfold while holding the elbow of another classmate. This included going to and from the store using public transportation.  Obviously the first part could not apply to me exactly as instructed, and I questioned the legality of guiding a sighted student off of campus with no cane, sighting the fact that I could be held liable for someone who had no experience in the proper techniques if they were in any way hurt or whatever. I ended up instructing as I was taught during my training at the Colorado Center for the Blind and the sighted student traveled to and from the store without blindfold. I got an additional opportunity to work with another student who wanted to see how a compitent blind person travels. But this is highly unfair to blind and sighted people alike because this not the way anyone would learn to get around the store. The lesson was that the blind partner would be able to walk into a store and grab something off the shelf if the sighted person show them how to get there and to the specific item. I feel this is not a fair lesson because items’ locations may change and this leaves the blind person to have to try and try again to find an item that was moved. In anatomy of the eye, the instructor is doing their best to talk about the functions of everything, but a good tactual representation of everything would make it make much more sense. We dissected a cow’s eye which gave me at least a little better understanding, but my partner did most of the work even though I had my hands all over the area where the eye was being dicected. The same instructor teaches O&M and anatomy and is a really nice person but my final comment about them is they adjust scores up so it doesn’t accurately reflect how a student is doing, regardless of if they are passing or failing. 
   I have heard from people that have continued passed these introductory classes that in clinical, they are having issues including but not limited to not being able to actively participate because of lack of access to material in a format that can be comprehended. I also have experienced their other issue, the instructors are always saying to have the students use whatever remaining vision they have or to rely on their resource teacher. I do not know a blind student in the undergraduate or graduate level who has successfully graduated the visual disabilities program at Northern Illinois University.
   It was my goal since 2013 when someone forwarded info about a scholarship to attend NIU to the National Association of Blind Students to get to Chicago asap so I could learn how to teach students like me in a variety of environments. I kept looking for ways to go to Chicago starting during my CCB training, but my parents wanted me to stay in Colorado because it is nearer to where they live. So I compromised and started my undergraduate work in Greeley at University of Northern Colorado, NIU still on the forefront of my mind. In April of last year, I received an invitation to the spring seminar of the Illinois Association of Blind Students because of my membership on Illinois NFB lists, and I jumped on the cheapest flight I could find. I went out a day early to go to NIU and explore, and 1 of the 7 students I gave mention to showed me around a little but that barely scratched the surface. In the middle of October of 2015 was when I declared to everyone that I could obtain a undergraduate degree at NIU as what I wanted to more quickly advance to a masters in quicker time than I could get it in Greeley, sighting the fact that an undergraduate TVI program didn’t exist in Greeley. I jumped on the cheapest plane, toured around Chicago with a friend for a few days, and enrolled in NIU the last day before I went back to Denver  I was highly impressed with the disability resource center’s services, in particular the fact that they told me they have an on sight Braille transcriber and an electronic text coordinator who would get me all the materials I needed only by me submitting a receipt and making a simple request in person or online including the proof of purchase. It sounded too good to be true, but I quickly found out that this disability resource center really knows their stuff and have been greatful to work with them since. Speaking of them, my case manager put me in contact with some of the people that are higher up in the department and is trying to help me troubleshoot as best as they can, but they said it’s more up to the student to do that and that DRC would be there to assist along the way as necessary. I made it through my 1st winter in Chicago with a 3.4 and went into this semester on a good grade from a summer class.
   Only 2 airlines leaving Chicago serve the airport closest to my home. I flew through Denver on United on my way home yesterday marking the start of Thanksgiving break, and as I got on my connecting flight and the safety video began, I had time to reflect on everything to myself and I really missed my times in Denver and thought for a little bit of going  back. Walking outside and up the jet bridge to get my hour’s long flight home from there was what really got me thinking. But I knew I couldn’t easily switch again and I quickly convinced myself of it, with the number of friends I made around Chicago and the promises of being able to be done a year sooner in my new major of rehabilitation services, thereby getting me to my next adventure—Louisiana Tech University—sooner.
   Thus said, I have a few question. Is there anything NFBI or national can do to make it so that the visual disabilities program doesn’t discriminate against anyone in future or make them feel “chased away”? Has anyone you know graduated from there who is blind or low vision? How about what would you recommend to me and the other 3 students who are in the midst of changing majors—did we do the right thing? I am taken aback at how the program has chosen to deal with blind and sighted students alike and was surprised to hear it echoed across many fronts this semester. Can the federation step in and fight for us—or if not us because it may be too late—other blind people who have yet to enter the program? And 1 last question, did anyone around here get the teaching certification another way and then enter tech because that’s what I am now facing. Even if I didn’t get it, I plan to be there in due time for the rehabilitation teaching and o&M programs. That limits the possibilities by a third if I didn’t get a teaching degree though, which makes me disappointed because I thought I had it made at NIU.  Thank you for bearing with me, and I really look forward to any feedback—legal or otherwise.

 
             
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